Mumbai: Last year for the first time the rights the most valuable property on Indian television the IPL were split between two parties. Disney-Star India aired the event on TV while Viacom18 streamed the event on JioCinema for free. JioCinema went to the market very aggressively and got over 800 advertisers. This year the goal of JioCinema is to have 4000 clients on-board. In addition two more languages will be added.
Speaking at the India Digital Summit (IDS) which is is the flagship annual conference of the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) Anil Jayaraj, CEO, Sports, Viacom18 Media said, “We are looking at cohort deliveries. We will certainly putting in a couple of new languages. It will be based on our understanding of what India wants to watch. Even if it is a small cohort we want to deliver that. The second things we are doing is to deliver super solutions to advertisers. Last year we had over 800 advertisers. I am hoping that this year we will have 4000 advertisers.”
He explains that Svod in some way stops sport from growing. It curtails availability significantly. He also feels that one cannot build a successful business model on Svod for sport.
He said that the digital advertising business in the country is among the fastest growing. TV has worked for the top of the funnel where one can build recognition and stuff like that. But it cannot go down. Digital works well because of things like performance marketing. His company saw a big opportunity to play across the funnel and make digital mainstream. For brands one can make building awareness, comprehension, interest, desire at the top of the funnel possible. And the company can go to multiple people and provide options. There is no budget restriction. If one wants to reach 10 million people the math is there to say that you pay only for the audiences that you buy. “There is great accuracy in measurement. It is not an extrapolation based on say 20,000 homes. This is actual impressions delivered. We made a concerted effort to say that this is different.” The challenge when JioCinema started on its IPL journey was to tell people of the benefits of it in such a way that it delivers scale.
On the viewer front the goal will be to enhance the camera experience. There will be a hero camera. The audience can make a choice of seeing a cricket hero along with the game. So one can see the expressions and what the hero is saying. “Some of these are interesting innovations. These are seamless to do and we will see how they work. Our connected TV is a completely revamped experience this year. The scale is going to be double of last year and this is something that we focussed on.” 4K will play an important role. He points out to companies like Samsung and LG selling CTVs which is helping grow the ecosystem. Because CTV is addressable it is targetable.
He said that access to the IPL teams will also be important. He noted that the company has partnerships with some of the IPL teams. Unique access to that content will be a part of the offerings. He said that he is heartened at the progress that the WPL has made in a very short period of time. In fact it is much bigger than the on-going India England men’s Test Series. “What we are seeing on digital is incredible.”
He noted that on digital you can do many cuts in terms of psychographics, likes, dislikes, intent. This he explains brings in a whole new dimension. Normally you can have feeds for men, women, kids, middle aged people, old people etc. But on digital you can target people who are passionate about a particular franchise like CSK or RCB and then create a feed for them. “It is not rocket science. It is possible to do it where if you and your friend are watching the IPL side by side I can serve up content focussed on M.S. Dhoni if you are a CSK fan. If your friend supports RCB then I can have content around Virat Kohli.”
He added that even more than demographics one can go one level below. If a person is in the market to buy a car that becomes an interesting for car advertisers. Then ads can be served. He also said that interactivity plays a role like an interactive quiz called Jeeto Dhan Dhana Dhan. Sports he is the last bastion for interactivity. Winners come from really small towns he pointed out. “This is not the definition of interactivity but I am giving an example to say that this can be a much bigger platform.”
He pointed out that beyond cricket other niche sports leagues ask if they can partner with JioCinema. That is because they realise that a set of people who are interested in a particular sport are on JioCinema. A feed can be created for chess for example. Another feed can be created for handball. On broadcast this is not possible. On the IPL this has worked well and he gives the example of The Insiders Feed which is different from the generic feed of the IPL.
He said that media dark areas are an opportunity. They don’t have access to smartphones or to TV. The Jio Bharat phones for less than Rs. 1,000 target them. This will appeal to advertisers who want to go beyond FTA. They cannot reach these homes. This he said will be the next revolution. A virtuous cycle will be created where advertisers put in money, the platform works for them. People watch it, they want to play cricket and they watch more. People he noted come from across the country to play cricket. They don’t only come from the traditional centres. Phone penetration into media dark areas will help access a talent pool.
He noted that while sport has a lot of passion the consumption of sport in India is still fairly under indexed if you compare it to other countries. There is a significant opportunity that exists. Three percent of media consumption is sports in India. In other countries it is 10-15 per cent. Linear TV can only do so much to bridge the gap. Not everybody can have a TV or a cable and satellite connection. You travel to the office, you travel back home. That is a perfect way for digital to grow consumption he explains. Given the opportunity and scale seen and the potential for delivering targeted solutions to advertisers the company felt that it could make a difference. “Unrestricted accessibility, availability and affordability can make this big jump. We went for the Avod model and made the IPL free. Because of the degree of availability of telecom infrastructure this means that it is a fairly seamless experience.”
When asked about the lessons he has learnt so far he said that ambition is really important. One has to see what is the art of possible. Also one must have the best people and they must be passionate about sports. “You can teach anything but you cannot teach passion.”
He noted that the experience of the 2022 Fifa World Cup on JioCinema had initial hiccups and it forced the company to be on its toes. “It was quite a big achievement. An event of this scale had not been done before with 110 million people tuning in. It was a big learning for us. By the time the IPL came in we had a stable service.”
