The branded content video space is an extremely buzzing space especially because of the increase in watch time across all platforms. Rusk Media, under the leadership of their Co-Founder and CEO, MayankYadav, an IIT alumni, has a team backed by seasoned professionals and enthusiastic talent alike. While the product team is driven by experts who have been previously associated with renowned brands like AT Kearney, Deloitte and E&Y Consulting, the brand solutions team has a robust experience with formidable brands like Yash Raj Films and Red Chillies production.
Rusk Media’s talented founder Mayank Yadav spoke to Medianews4u about the journey and how the brands are constantly investing in their integrated content, and their plans ahead.
Edited Excerpts.
Mission of Rusk Media
RUSK Media was started with a mission of creating premium content for every Indian smart phone user. With the unique blend of engaging ideas are powered by creative inputs, deep data insights and brand solutions the aim was to produce stories that resonate with the new age audience and touch their lives.
RUSK Media has 5 in-house media brands:
- ALRIGHT– GEC fiction channel with a viewer base of over 1 million
- LIT– Channel for Premium Lifestyle content (Fashion, food, travelling and similar subjects)
- HATTKE– Hattke produces branded music and dance videos and has over 50 million impressions
- RECHARGE– Recharge produces Brand tech shows that talk about gadget reviews, with focus on building conversation with influencers and experts to give a real insight of the gadgets.
- BINGE– Fiction channel BINGE is targeted to tap viewers based in UP, Bihar and parts of Madhya Pradesh between the age group of 16-35 years.
Success Mantra of Rusk Media
What has worked for us at Rusk Media is our advertiser 1st strategy and producing brand integrated content that resonates with our target audience that is the Gen-Z. We combined this with creative and analytical capabilities that has helped in setting us apart from our competitors.
Our diverse range of content products and our vision to create entertainment products across genres and content types, create a distinction from a point of view of the content we create.
Core Target Audience
As India’s exclusive Gen-Z first digital network, content created by Rusk Media is tailor made for audiences in the age group of 15-25 years
Challenges in the Digital entertainment space
There are two major challenges in the space. First is the adoption of video content and brand video content by brands and advertisers. Second, adoption towards working with publishers and not only Youtube, Facebook for digital spends.
Happy Brands of Rusk Media
We have so far partnered with brands like Panasonic, P&G, OPPO, Dominos, Tinder, Dine Out and many more for production of theme-based content to drive organic viewership, generate traffic and simultaneously create viewer/consumer affinity for the advertiser brand.
Mini Web series in association with Dominos- Best friends Season 1 (3 episodes)
Content created from home under the popular buckets of love and friendship. Light hearted story of 4 close friends connecting during the lockdown and the situations that arise as a result.
Brand Integration – Structuring brand integrations as introduction, awareness, adoption to highlight the contactless delivery aspect via relatable conversations. Resulting in 5M views with 3 trending videos and engagement with over 300K people.
Brand Categories that are adopting digital media during Covid-19
Yes, multiple categories are now looking at digital who erstwhile would not look at digital alone. The biggest being consumer durables – like washing machines, refrigerators and the likes
Staying positive during the lockdownn
Our focus always has been to stay lean and focus on our business. We were driven to just create content and work with advertisers no matter how big and small and keep entertaining our audiences during this tough time. Fortunately it paid off as well, we worked with big brands such as dominos, Panasonic during this time.
What next?
We are actively building our sales and monetization teams across key sectors in North and west. We are also building our relationships with key players with access to audiences including Facebook, YouTube and MxPlayer in India.
Focus areas in the next two years
Our expansion plans in the next 2 years are focused across three buckets. First, building great premium branded content Ips across – really putting our advertiser partners at the forefront. Second, expand audiences into new target demographics – including kids, Bhojpuri, Tamil and third, innovation on new entertainment opportunities in digital across e-gaming, gaming tournaments.
