FICCI FRAMES 2013: Talking to a billion consumers

In a packed room at FICCI FRAMES, 2013, M&E enthusiasts, media honchos and reporters followed a lively panel discussion of leading luminaries of the M&E Industry like Ravi Dhariwal, CEO, publishing, Bennett & Coleman, Sudhanshu Vats, Group CEO, Viacom 18 Media, Siddarth Roy Kapur, MD, STUDIOS, Disney UTV, Rahul Johri, Senior VP & GM, India- Discovery Networks Asia Pacific and Shailesh Rao, head of global operations, Twitter Inc. agreed that the principal means of engaging with a billion consumers is to localize content through multiple media vehicles.

The panel agreed that the three fundamental drivers of exponential growth were regulatory changes, exploding forms of new technology and original and creative content. From the three, regulatory changes are seen as the biggest challenge by the panel.

Localization is of the essence that will drive the industry to grow exponentially and involve a billion consumers through multiple interfaces.  Rahul Johri, Senior VP & GM, India- Discovery Networks Asia Pacific felt that localization works in connecting to a lot of untapped viewers and gave the example of Discovery channel that is broadcast in regional channels. This enables in increasing the market for content that has traditionally been restricted to niche audiences.

Other speakers touched upon elements of expanding the audience and the consumer universe by opting for traditional and non-traditional devices and screens as well as creating Media Labs that try and test the Billion Consumer Experiment. Ravi Dhariwal suggested creating a business model using creative and marketing teams that roll out a program across the country using multiple interfaces and content. 

Sudhanshu Vats outlined a dilemma of catering to small vs larger audiences. M&E majors in different businesses show that Multi-plexes and other multi format screens are growing.  At the same time, on a macro level, it is Digitization and fresh content exploding on different platforms like tablets and smart phones that has opened business opportunities and the access to a billion consumers.

The power of regional films, parallel cinema, digital content and the Indian diaspora should be given special standing felt Siddharth Roy Kapur.

Shailesh Rao said that understanding the mood of the audience and how they want to consume media is the salient aspect of Twitter’s business model. Supporting their need for diverse content is the drive to sample newer and newer smart phones.