Divya Dixit, Sr.VP and Head Marketing, ALTBalaji shares her points of Focus in 2020.
Technology Led Disruptions
One important point of Focus in 2020 will be the multiple disruptions out of which quite a few will be technology led for example AR/ VR that we have for the first time as an Indian OTT platform created for Ragini MMS Returns Season 2 this year, as an immersive experience. Over and above the fact that slowly platforms will also enable multiple shows in immersive experience, surround content will also become extremely important and take Gamification ahead fairly well.
We, at ALTBalaji have also tried our hands at it with various Snapchat and FB filters, creating experiential apps on Facebook or simple yes and no games for shows across various platform. I think year ahead will see two pronged Gamification– One will very strongly emerge with games built to promote fiction shows and the other will be gamification for the Non – fiction shows. While the latter has been tried as a successful experiment with two other platforms, they have been network related apps. The crux lies in Independent apps taking this ahead in strength.
Focus on channels of content consumption
Will Mobile Surpass TV as the Primary Content Consumption Channel, or rather will content globally become digital and laptops, TVs, movie, ipads etc. just become boxes of dissemination? With the mobile data cost on a rise of 40% in India, data is still the cheapest globally, however will this affect the digital consumption of online content, we yet have to observe. Right from tv shows, to sports, to movies to original exclusive series to music and news, it has all gone digital. Is now content completely digital, yes I believe so and this will get deeper with segmented audience preferences for genres and languages, hence we will focus on being the choice of platform for our viewers when they wish to consume content on digital.
Stories for “Bharat”
This year at ALTBalaji we will Focus on innovative narratives along with stories from “Bharat” picking up pace. As India becomes more ‘jiofied’, as fibre speeds along and as India adds close to 10 million daily active internet users every month; Interestingly, nine out of every ten new internet users are exploring the online content only in their native language. This base wants stories in their language, not English, not dubbed, they want stories made in their flavor and lifestyle. Along with pure content offerings, innovative ways of storytelling are also being explored to build stronger and deeper connections with our audiences. Whether we speak about interactive episodes or series where audience can write in and debate and decide on the ending of the season may also gain popularity as digital is a two way street for segmented audience.
Partnerships
Moving out of a partnership model with multiple freemium telco platforms to a single partner model behind a paywall, ALTBalaji in this industry-first alliance has demonstrated a shift from quantity to quality of subscribers accessing their content. The coming years will only witness more consolidations among the increasingly crowded OTT landscape as mergers, takeovers, collaborations and content production deals. Focus of the industry will be sustainable business and unique content monetisation as well as revenue models.
Of course, 2020 will also see ALTBalaji emerge as the homegrown David in an OTT space dominated by Goliaths.
