By: Yohan P Chawla
Marvel fans now have a new destination for all their favorite Marvel characters, Marvel HQ. Disney India has replaced Disney XD which went off air recently with Marvel HQ, capitalizing on the fan following of all Marvel characters in India. The channel will be available from 20th January, 2018.
Marvel characters are known to be aspirational and courageous. Disney boasts of having more than 8,000 such Marvel characters in their universe, but they have brought the best and the most popular ones obviously because they intend to create a strong viewer base in the launch phase.
Marvel HQ will have original Marvel animated content with characters such as Hulk, Avengers, Ultimate Spiderman and Guardians of the Galaxy. Marvel HQ promises epic storylines with relatable characters. Stories which will be intense and full of action with just right pinch of humor to set the tone and balance the intensity. All content will be created in English and then dubbed into Hindi, Tamil and Telegu so the viewers have the convenience to watch it in the choice of their language.
Devika Prabhu Executive Director and Head-Product Media Networks, Disney India said at select media roundtable, “The vision of Marvel is to create interconnected story lines with these characters. If you look at the Marvel cinematic universe over the last 10 years all of the stories are standalone stories, but their story lines are all woven whether it’s a Thor or Civil War all feeding into what we know as Infinity now. I am sure this will be a huge hit among all Marvel fans”
The channel states the primary target audience to be anyone above the age of 9, but practically anyone who is a Marvel fan can easily get hooked onto these shows. Summers is the season time for all kids’ content creators to increase their viewer base and Marvel HQ is gearing up for that too. With a strong viewer base until March-end, and start of April the channel will roll out its marketing campaign to widen their reach.
40% of the channel PFC across the day will have Marvel content in the launch phase and then slowly increase the share of Marvel content across the channel.
“With Marvel the storytelling has many nuances and this gives us an opportunity to break it down for our viewers. We will enhance the viewer experience by creating content around trivia and backstories for our viewers and take them deep into the Marvel universe.” said, Prabhu.
As the name suggests, Marvel HQ will not only have all Marvel content with genres such as Action, Adventure, Animation and Live Action but also have extremely popular non-marvel content such as Pokemon, Digimon, Beyblade and Big Hero 5.
Sharing her thoughts on the consumption trends Prabhu said, “Kids like to be surprised, they want to see new concepts and a lot of things that are unexpected, but at the same time they want to be grounded in the world that they understand. They are very happy to keep watching what they love. They need aspirational characters, whether it’s a two year old or a 14 year old they want someone to look up to. Small kids below the age of 8 it’s all about role play with them. And they need to have characters they can connect with and that is where Marvel comes in.”
It will be interesting to see the initial response the channel gets in terms of subscriptions with the new tariff regime being implemented in about 15 days. Having said that the channel should ride well on Marvel’s popularity and brand value among their target audiences.
