Vikatan Group appoints Majid Khan as the Chief Business Strategist

Chennai: The Vikatan Group, Tamil Nadu’s media powerhouse of almost a century, with a strong presence across various media platforms, viz., Print (Magazines), Digital, Youtube, TV Content Production, Awards & Activation has roped in Majid Khan as the Chief Business Strategist.

Majid comes with 15 years of diverse experience across Digital, Planning, Investments & Strategy and has worked with GroupM, Tribal DBB while his last stint was with Omnicom Media Group as VicePresident, Digital Planning driving Bengaluru Business & South – Digital Revenues. Some of his key client engagements are Renault India, TVS Motors, Intel, Puma, Levi’s, Citibank NA, Cavin Kare, Hatsun Agro & Sun TV Network.

At the Vikatan Group, Majid will be directly responsible for establishing Vikatan and Vikatan.com as the preferred platform amongst the Tamil Audiences and monetisation of Vikatan’s various Digital and Brand Initiatives. He will be a part of the core team to identify opportunities, enhance solution capabilities and accelerating Vikatan’s brand narrative. He will report to Vikatan Group MD, B Srinivasan.

Vikatan group started in 1926, is a pioneer in Tamil Nadu’s Media space for close to a century, with its flagship magazine AnandaVikatan, Number 1 weekly magazine in Tamil, with a Total Readership (TR) of 3.39 Million Readers (IRS 2019, Q2). The #1 women’s magazine, Aval Vikatan (TR 1.32 Million Readers) with a group TR of over 7.92 Million Readers. During the late 1990s, Vikatan Group aggressively diversified into TV Content Production thru Vikatan Televistas and its digital venture, Vikatan.com

Ever since its launch, Vikatan Televistas has produced chart-busting serials in the Tamil Television space such as Kolangal (1533 episodes / over 5 years), Thendral (1300 plus episodes), ThirumadhiSelvam (1300 plus episodes) etc., while Naayagi, the current No 1, (11.72 TRP/BARC /U+R/W34-37/2019/TN&Pondy). Vikatan has made aggressive forays in the digital space with Vikatan.com, No.1 mobile site in Tamil with 6 Million UVPM (Aug 2019/ComsoreMobileMetrix). With 8.5 Million subscribers for YouTube and 12+ Million Social media followers, digitally Vikatan is growing its strengths by each day.

In 2017, as a brand extension of its print awards categories, Vikatan Group launched the first-ever Ananda Vikatan Cinema Awards &Nambikkai Awards, Aval Vikatan Women Awards and Nanayam Vikatan Business Star Awards, a televised show for a larger TV Audience. Ananda Vikatan awards were most coveted amongst the film fraternity as the show was attended by the who’s who of Tamil Film Industry including Rajnikanth, Kamal Haasan, AR Rehman and Ilayaraja. The subsequent awards editions were a huge success in the Tamil Television space, lapped up by advertisers and audiences alike.

Majid Khan said ‘Digital consumption in India will continue to grow and growing Indic language consumption is changing India’s Internet landscape. Given the fact that Tamil Nadu is one of the highest Internet penetrated Indian State and Tamil language users are one of the most active Internet users with over 40% of overall Tamil audience engaged in online content, and Vikatan has carved out a niche of its own in both formats, fiction and non-fiction content.

What truly excited me about Vikatan Media is the future-ready blend of Content, Data & Experience. As India’s #1 Tamil News/Infotainment Website & Magazine, our focus is to give personalized & meaningful engagements by using data & technology at the core of user experience’.

B Srinivasan, Managing Director, Vikatan Group, said ‘Ananda Vikatan has been on a journey to stay relevant to its audiences in their medium of choice and context. We are constantly attempting to engage our audiences online and offline, a delta of which we expect to monetize, whether via reader revenue or client advertising spends.

With the client, Vikatan attempts to map their problem statement in respect of the TN market, or Tamil audiences and provide holistic solutions through contextually curated content on platforms that deliver the appropriate message seeking the desired ROI. In short, we call this Return on Experiences or ROX.

Majid, with his many years of brand building, marketing and digital expertise will help exploit our storytelling abilities to the max in order to provide the best returns to clients and maximise audience outreach. I am confident that Majid with his diverse experience will drive Vikatan’s brand & digital initiatives to greater heights.