The FMCG giant retained the numero uno position by hiking its advertisment spending by 38.8 per cent over last year to Rs 668.95 crore in 1998-99, about Rs 468 crore more than ITC Ltd which has been ranked second. Colgate-Palmolive (India) follows with an ad spend of Rs 114.12 crore on advertising in 1998-99.

Others in the top ten include Nestle India, Videocon, McDowell & Co, Tata Tea, Maruti Udyog and Godfrey Phillips India. A top ad spender that dropped quite a bit in rank was BPL which fell to No 14 from its No 7 position last year, giving way to Tata Tea which has jumped a major nine places to land at No 8.

Among the top spending marketers, Maruti Udyog jumped to number 1 position, from number 8 last year with a spend of Rs 168 crore. At second positionwas Ashok Leyland, which hiked its marketing spend to Rs 121.18 crore. The top ten list also features Smithkline Beecham Pharma, Asian Paints (India), Core Healthcare, Bajaj Auto, Jagatjit Industries, Tata Infotech and Madura Coats. Glaxo India while retained its No 9 ranking, but hiked its marketing spend by 10.71 per cent to Rs 82.29 crore. According to a release, the top 200 companies surveyed registered a hike of just five per cent in sales-from Rs 165,655 crore in 1997-98, sales went up to Rs 174,537 crore in 1998-99. Ad spend by these companies, however, shot up by 17 per cent over last year to Rs 3,941.7 crore.

A total of 3154 companies were considered for the survey whose sales were Rs 756,574 crore out of which just 0.6 per cent was spent on advertising. The reason was that 1,116 companies which accounted for 50 per cent of the total sales did not advertise at all. But though the top 200 companies did not contribute even a quarter to sales, they accounted for 90 per cent (Rs 3942 crore) of thetotal amount spent on advertising.

Five of the top 10 ad spenders are FMCGs, two are from the tobacco producer sector, one from consumer electronics, one from liquor and one from the passenger vehicles segment. Only six companies had advertising spends exceeding Rs 100 crore.