ZEE5 clocked over 15 bn AVOD minutes in 2023: Abhirup Datta

ZEE5 onboarded Abhirup Datta in 2021 as the head of AVOD Marketing. With nearly 20 years of experience, Datta has held senior roles in companies such as Airtel, HT Media, Disney Star, etc. While his current role is to drive marketing for the AVOD business for ZEE5, before his current stint, Datta was heading Marketing, OAP (on air promotions) and Strategy for Star Jalsha at Disney Star.

Speaking about his transition from OAP to AVOD marketing, and his current role at ZEE5, Datta said, “Fundamentally consumers are the same, irrespective of the medium. Whether it is in terms of beliefs, mindset, value system, it is the same across mediums. The only difference is how one consumes a certain media and the evolution – that has changed over these years. I have seen the growth of digital media during my stint with HT media group. When it comes to television, I have witnessed consumer engagement and behaviour. I have observed that consumer behaviour is evolving with more penetration of OTT.”

He added, “I manage the AVOD part of the marketing and growth of that category. My goal primarily is to drive the overall platform growth. AVOD is built on views. The more we are able to grab the eyeballs of the audience, the more the revenue and greater number of advertisers. As an individual, I have that ability to balance my creative role and also leverage and apply my analytical skills. In that sense, OTT and media has been a great landscape to be in”

AVOD landscape in India and growth

According to Datta, the AVOD landscape in the country is taking shape very aggressively and quickly.

“The fact is that the digital spend is increasing and advertisers are flocking towards the medium. Few years back, digital held a very small percentage of the marketer’s plan. Now the amount of marketing budgets allocated to the digital media indicate the growing power of OTT sector as well, especially in the AVOD space,” he said.

He underlines that ZEE5’ AVOD platform witnessed growth during pre-pandemic and that the growth momentum has continued post pandemic.

“The pandemic period obviously witnessed a huge explosion of a lot of consumers coming to the OTT platforms, but we have seen a sustainable growth coming year-on-year, even post-pandemic. A lot of initiatives have been brought on the platform, not only by us, but by the other OTT players as well,” he added.

Datta elaborates with an example: “For example, ZEE5 streamed the International League T20 (ILT20- cricket tournament played in the United Arab Emirates) where we saw growth coming from the live sports arena. Similarly, we ventured into the e-sports category and streamed the franchise-based e-sports league ‘Skyesports Masters’ on ZEE5. The audience base was very different and it came from places we never expected. We also got the global content dubbed in regional languages. A lot of work done during the pandemic phase set the base; what we have done is built on that by adding different layers to it.”

According to him, there is a huge growth coming from tier 2 and 3 markets, where OTT is becoming ‘all pervasive’.

“As an AVOD platform we also compete with social media because what we want is the time share of the consumers – it’s about how we service them through the right form of communication and engage them, whether it is through social, digital or traditional marketing. Most importantly, through the content that we are showcasing. Every part of India is different, hence, we are working with a lot of regional storytellers and bringing content that is relevant to the market. All these have helped in driving growth for the last couple of years,” he said.

ZEE5’s AVOD in a competitive OTT landscape

Datta believes that it goes back to the consumer understanding and who they are really engaging with. He also adds that the legacy of ZEE has helped the platform gain strength in regional markets.

“We have a legacy of ZEE and it is very strong in regional markets, hence understanding of consumers is easy and strong. So content creation aligns with consumer choices. That gives us an edge. As mentioned earlier, we work with regional storytellers as well. For example: We realise that today because of short video content available, the attention span of the audience has reduced. In order to engage that base, we have created short content, short films, and on-boarded influencers to engage with the audience. We have done a film titled ‘Am I Next’ with Anushka Sen who is a prominent influencer on Instagram. We have done a massy movie named ‘Lakadbaggha’ starring Anshuman Jha and Milind Soman,” Datta noted.

The AVOD platform is witnessing traction for devotional content as well.

“We did a web series called ‘Sarvam Shakthi Mayam’ which starred Priya Mani, Samir Soni, Sanjay Suri, etc. which did really well for us. We have done overarching brand campaigns like ‘Azaadi Ka Jashn’ and campaigns on a larger level to target the whole of India. Along with that the communication is also curated to a hyper local level. We managed to carve our own niche; we have clocked over 15 billion watch time minutes on AVOD in 2023,” he revealed.

Tailoring marketing campaigns

Datta reiterates that there is no one strategy that fits for all for the AVOD market, and that one has to go really deep and local in terms of curating content.

“As far as marketing campaigns are concerned, we look at the current viewing habits, leveraging the analytics. We leverage digital marketing quite a lot, understanding consumer viewing choices – where are they watching and what. We curate our marketing strategies considering all these factors. When we have to create a certain brand awareness or for a huge property like ILT 20, we resort to traditional mediums like print, radio, TV etc.,” he added.

While the brand strives to maintain the user interest through fresh campaigns and its content line up, the content needs to back those claims, underlines Datta.

“We should constantly keep ourselves relevant in the market. Consumer engagement part is where we have to work constantly on: better user experience, fresh content… ensuring that the way the advertisements are seamlessly blending with viewer experience is very critical for us,” he explained.

Data analytics and insights in shaping AVOD marketing

Datta notes that data analytics is the backbone of a lot of decisions taken by ZEE5 for its AVOD business.

“Right from customer acquisition, we check what kind of audiences have reacted to a certain campaign or a content, to make sure cost of acquisition is brought down significantly – that’s the first rule of analytics, and done by working with partners like Google, Meta etc. Second thing is that once the consumer has been brought in, how do we engage consumers by showcasing the right kind of content and also by making sure that the advertisements are maintained in such a way that the consumer experience is not hindered. Analytics plays a role in content recommendation and platform experience. From acquisition to engagement, we resort to data analytics,” he said

Analytics also plays an important role in terms of retention, according to the spokesperson.

He adds that when engagement withers or the brand seeks to upgrade consumers to SVOD or provide some other relevant message, along with analytics, ‘a very exciting part’ is coming up – which is generative AI.

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