Relatable Regional Language Content Driving Consumption: Karthik Nagarajan

Medianews4U caught up with Karthik Nagarajan, Chief Content Officer, Wavemaker India, on the sidelines of MMA’s Impact India conference in Mumbai on 19th May 2022.

Speaking on tech trends in brand communication, Nagarajan said, “We have to break this down to the cycle of content. I see content as a cultural intervention. To be able to understand culture and subculture in the deepest level possible, there is a lot of tech happening and taking shape right now which is giving you the access, the ability to understand and go deeper into the social conversations, content consumption trends.”

He noted that the game is also changing in content creation, with avenues like gaming, for instance, becoming a part of life. “The whole process of content creation and the tech coming in here, especially when it is for gaming and the metaverse, is critical. There is a lot of tech at play when it comes to measurement which is the end part of the glue.”

According to the content head, India is at an interesting stage as far as audio is concerned. He noted that this is akin to a phase that the US market went through seven or eight years ago, when brands took to audio as a medium of intimate communication.

“That is the nature of audio. You listen to a podcast all by yourself while commuting etc. The brand has the captive time of the audience and that phase is happening in India right now. The lockdown accelerated more users toward podcast, non-music content consumption. Now brands are slowly taking positions in this place, some are creating their own IPs, some are integrating them into larger cultural narratives in this space. In the next two to three years you will see a lot of action in the pure audio space,” he added.

“While most of the 50,000-odd podcasts are in English and largely consumed by urban audiences, there is a lot of content  beyond podcasts,” notes Nagarajan.

“If you look at the content that people are creating on different platforms like Sharechat, Moj and others, then the diversity is more visible,” he explained.

The English speaking market of 200mn was saturated many years ago and the opportunity for growth is in regional, according to the Wavemaker executive.

“We were saying three or four years back that regional was the next big thing, but today the regional language market is big when it comes to content creation. Most of the creators or influencers are speaking in their own tongue and it is the most amazing thing that has happened from the Indian audience perspective. This is also the main reason as to why content consumption has gone up as this content is relatable,” he surmised.