Industry experts explore revenue generation avenues in OTT space

With the growing march of OTT service in India, a prime question in front of media companies is how to refine and monetise their content offering across traditional and OTT platforms. Industry experts explored the ways to exploit the opportunities to drive additional revenue generation in the session titled, ‘Video 2.0 – Time to Pay?’ 

The session was part of the seventh edition of the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) Forum India, held in Mumbai on September 28, 2018. The Forum saw brands, agencies and publishers sharing successful ideas on mobile-integrated campaigns. The same was followed by a celebration of India’s best in mobile marketing at the Smarties India Awards, the only global mobile marketing awards programme that honours innovation, creativity and success in the industry. 

The session on ‘Video 2.0 – Time to Pay?’ was moderated by Neena Dasgupta, CEO and Director, Zirca Digital Solutions, while the panellists included Sidharth Shakdher, EVP & Chief Marketing Officer, Hotstar; Uday Sodhi, Business Head Digital, Sony Pictures Networks India; Shamsuddin Jasani, Group MD, Isobar South Asia, Isobar India; and Avinash Kumar, CGM and Marketing Head, Patanjali Ayurved Ltd. 

Neena Dasgupta commenced the session by asking the panellists about the significant shifts that they had noticed in the digital ecosystem in the last few years. 

To this, Shamsuddin Jasani replied, “Jio is the first shift that has happened. It has changed the way we consume video on digital. The next shift will be again be the Jio Giga Fibre and that will be a huge evolution. Secondly, the entire GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) has started in the last 6-8 months and I think it is one of the biggest shifts that have taken place. Agencies and advertisers are coming together so that the ads appear in a brand safety atmosphere. According to me, the underlying strength of digital has always been data.” 

When pointed out that despite OTT being the perfect place for brand safety, 70 per cent of the revenue went to YouTube, which is a brand unsafe destination, Sidharth Shakdher mentioned that while the revenue of YouTube is way higher than OTT, a change is happening, but it will take some time. “Just reach for the sake of reach does not work all the time, and brands are now beginning to understand this fact,” he added. 

Uday Sodhi added here that rather than looking at YouTube, the industry should look at the overall OTT space which is evolving, and because of that one is seeing a lot of advertisers moving in. “In the entire advertising pie, digital advertising/ video advertising is probably one of the fastest growing. Overall, we have seen a good advertiser response and the advertising dollar has increased significantly on digital. We all are a part of this movement, wherein we are trying to make an environment which is advertiser, agency and data friendly. I don’t think that we have found a solution till now, but the work is in progress,” Sodhi noted. 

On the marketers’ growing preference for digital over television to advertise their products, Avinash Kumar remarked, “There is a shift happening which is pretty much visible. We are the first company who went to a digital platform when we started. We first started with YouTube, but later realised that it doesn’t have curated content and also does not provide us a platform for interaction. That’s why we moved out of YouTube and came to these OTT platforms.” 

He further added that the challenge for the OTT platforms is that on YouTube one can find content which is free, but one has to subscribe to the OTT platforms to view the content. Indians are still not fully prepared to pay for content. 

Here, Neena Dasgupta informed that 20-22 per cent of the revenue that OTT platforms get is from subscription, which is expected to grow 40 per cent over the next 5 years. “This will allow OTT platforms to invest in better quality content,” she added. 

While discussing on the availability of data, cost of data and brands’ willingness to pay for that data, Shamsuddin Jasani said, “The data is tremendous and programmatic is helping us in reaching out to the right kind of consumers. I really feel that as OTT platforms have reached scale, advertisers are coming in and making significant investments in them. Data will play a major role in driving this shift. Clients are not ready to pay, but they are willing to shift to other platforms like digital.” 

Uday Sodhi added here, “The first step towards this has been taken in a very subtle way. There has been a movement in money from the entire traditional medium to OTT. Secondly, now we are able to sell the inventories on most popular events or shows through which a brand can easily target its defined TG, which for me is the subtle way of targeting, and they are ready to pay for it.” 

When asked about how media companies can advise brands when to buy inventories on OTT, Sidharth Shakdher replied, “Five years back digital was not much in consideration, but now it is a strong part of all media plans. It’s never a black and white decision. It’s all about how brands use it smartly.” 

Adding to this, Avinash Kumar said, “You have to thank TV for it, because before we go out and buy inventory on OTT, we first compare rates on traditional TV, and if an OTT player is ranking at the top, we will move ahead with that. After getting a brief from the said OTT player, we come back to TV and say that this is the affordability we are getting on the digital platform.” 

“Digital works the same as TV, but since there is no data available for digital along the lines of TV ratings and BARC data, it becomes tough for digital to get accurate data. Also, you should focus on regional, because a large part of video consumption comes from the rural market, which consumes regional content,” Kumar concluded.