GUWAHATI, Nov 19 - Although the advertisements of the Government of Assam are being published on the inside pages of newspapers, yet readers do not fail to scan � or at least spot � them on a daily basis. This was revealed in a recent study titled �The impact of print advertisements of the Assam Government on the readers of Guwahati with special reference to the awareness-related display advertisements published in The Assam Tribune�.
As the sole advertising agency of the Government of Assam, the Directorate of Information & Public Relations (DIPR) releases almost all advertisements for newspapers and other media. Normally government advertisements are published at special discounted rates in all publications and due to this they are carried on inside pages or lesser important pages. Notwithstanding their location, the advertisements, according to the study, in no way lose their visibility. Conducted for academic purposes, the research found that 83 per cent of the readers of The Assam Tribune regularly check the advertisements of the Government of Assam carried in that newspaper. This somehow substantiates the appropriate utilisation of government advertising budget. Or at least its advertising spend is worth the money.
Not only could the government advertisements catch the eyeballs, but 86 per cent of the respondents expect to read them in the printed form or in the newspapers. Interestingly, 70 per cent of the respondents voted the print media, especially the newspaper, as more reliable for government advertisements than other forms like electronic media or social media. It corroborates the fact that despite the growing popularity of electronic and social media, the awareness-related government advertisements being published in the newspapers have been reaching the readers.
That is not all. Among the respondents a whopping 86 per cent consider the government advertisements to be factual and reliable. Ninety-two per cent of the readers surveyed for the study regard these advertisements as informative. However, a major portion of the respondents � 61 per cent � feel that the government advertisements are less attractive, although in recent times there has been palpable improvement in their content and designing.
The study, carried out by Dhanjit Medhi, uncovered some worrying factors though. It presents some basic reading habits of the city dwellers. Among the urbanites who were surveyed, around 80 per cent read only one newspaper. As many as 83 per cent of the them spend less than 30 minutes of the day in activities like reading newspapers. Forty-three per cent of the respondents spend less than 15 minutes with the daily newspaper. This might point to the hectic daily schedule of the present-day citizens and their lack of time, which results in sparing less time for newspapers.
The study, conducted among the readers of The Assam Tribune residing in the city, looked at the data of 200 respondents of different ages.
