Efficacy Worldwide is a next generation full services marketing agency obsessed with the clients and their marketing objective. It was formed by advertising professionals who have been instrumental in solving marketing challenges for various brands in a highly cluttered environment. They follow an Omnichannel strategy based on analytical insights, conducting in-depth testing across multiple channels, and placing great emphasis on A / B testing to get the winning ad set. Efficacy prides itself in delivering unified media solutions which uniquely position the communication not only to generate awareness but delivers ROI based results.
Vishnu Sharma, CEO & Founder, Efficacy Worldwide speaks exclusively to MediaNews4U on the rise of OTT platforms, content on OTT and much more.
Today due to the lockdown the OTT platforms have seen a phenomenal rise, what do you attribute this to?
The outbreak of COVID started in India aroundlate March 2020. That is the time when the Indian Government announced a nationwide lockdown. Since that time, people have been venturing out less. With subsequent lockdowns and work from home policy across corporates, people have more time to spend on leisure and entertainment. It means content consumption via the OTT platforms has gone up significantly. Moreover, with the outdoor shooting of new shows and movies stalled due to covid restrictions, there is a general lack of quality fresh content across the General Entertainment Channel (GEC) category. As a result, OTTs have become the natural choice for viewers.
What is attracting viewers to the OTT platforms is it content?
Content remains first and foremost concern while opting for one OTT against another. But other factors also play up. For example, the ease of watching content at one’sleisure and pace, ad-free viewing (in a Subscription-Based Video on Demand (SVOD) environment, atleast!), are some of the reasons attracting people to OTT platforms.
With the rise of OTT will we see a declining viewership of TV?
It is going to be an unfortunate reality! Already a few genres like niche content and movies have seen a huge decline due to far fewer content options available on TV versus OTT platforms. In the times to come, with the Connected TV phenomenon also picking pace, TV viewership is bound to decline in the long run.
The regional OTT is also seeing a huge connect, what are the trends you are seeing in the regional front?
Few geographies with a large base of content creators like Tamil, Bangla, Malayalam will see the same fate on TV as we see on the overall level. While it will take a little longer to kick in. That said, it will never be able to see the same success as larger global OTTs. The latter has a broader and deeper appeal. Further, the regional content is also being populated on regional OTTs.Hence, the overall regional OTT space will remain restricted as in the case of regional TV right now.
How do you see the scenario of OTT in the next 2 years?
The emergence of several advertising options, more content availability for viewers, consolidation of many smaller players into the top five and eyeball migration from TV to OTT will be the scenarios to watch out for in the next couple of years.
Many more players entering the OTT market are there enough content producers, or will we see the repeat of GEC with similar content across platforms?
It is going to be a mix of both. Content producers are becoming more organised and getting bigger. Hence, there is not going to be a shortage of fresh content on OTTs. That said, as the content is getting distributed on pay-per-view models, it will also be available repeatedly across different OTT platforms.
Will we see brands/advertisers investing on OTT content? Is there scope for branded content or placements in a show?
Interestingly, during the early days of content made available online – not even OTT in the right spirit- we have seen content creators like TVFs creating content around product integrations rather than the other way round. Hence, OTT content offers advertisers anextensive scope for branded content and active and passive product integrations. This kind of product amplification plus the use of OTT stars as micro influencers will be the phenomenon to be looked out for in the near future.
