GroupM Brew 2020: OTT space is not as fragmented as most people think, says Tarun Katial of Zee5

Marketers, GroupM agencies, and big content players and creators talked about the state of dynamic consumer behaviour that will help shape the marketing narrative, in the fourth edition of GroupM’s flagship content event Brew organised in Delhi on January 22.

One of the speakers at the event was Tarun Katial, CEO, Zee5, who talked about the future of OTT and TV. He said even with the growing numbers of players in the OTT space, it is not as fragmented as most of the people think.

Talking about the categories of OTT players, Katial said, “There are the big global majors like UGC platform YouTube, which is a content aggregator and not content creator and SVOD services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. The marketers are worried about these platforms because there is no advertising that will be played on these.”

He said, “There are broadcasters who network content. Content is key to running OTT platforms. Unless there are hours of content to offer the consumers, you can’t run an OTT platform. We have Zee5 and AltBalaji in this category. We recently had a deal with AltBalaji around content collaboration, SonyLiv, Voot. Then there are independent OTT channels as well who are trying.”

Katial said that consumption in the OTT space is for real and it’s not just in free OTT play. People have started paying to consume content and there is a fair amount of SVOD and TVOD coming into play, he said.

Katial pointed out key trends that are shaping the future of OTT and TV content consumption.

1. Growth of content consumption in regional languages

Katial said, “40% of the consumers prefer consuming content in regional languages. Zee5 is available in 12 languages. We have put a lot of efforts because it was important for us to reach out to those many users. We also enabled voice search on it. Most keypads don’t support so many Indian languages. Languages like Gujarati are finding their way into content consumption on platforms. Almost every Indian language has its content play going up.”

2. Hyper-personalisation

Katial said that hyper-personalisation as a segment could not be defined in terms of demographics and psychographics. “This is a segment where all of us are trying to get into. We have earlier heard about it or read in textbooks, but it is now coming true. Whenever you open a platform, everything that comes up on the screen is suited to you, and there is nothing generic.”

3. TV is making a comeback.

Stating the IPSOS study, he said that 70% Indians would be watching more TV streaming, instead of watching it through cable TV.

4. Value of demographics and psychographics is reducing.

According to Katial, the consumption is moving from demographics to taste clusters like offbeat movie consumers; latest movies buzz consumers, OTT streamers, content consumption because of favourite stars, new-age women. All this comes with an understanding of content and taste clusters. “We don’t assign any value to demographics and psychographics anymore. This is happening with the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and it is very critical to make this change happen,” added said.

5. Increase in content marketing.

The marketers are using content as a key driver to market themselves through content marketing.

Stating the KPMG study, Katial categorised various forms of digital content consumers.

• Digital-only consumers: They are five million currently.
• Tactical digital consumers: These consumers watch digital and also tactically watch linear television. They are around 25 million in number, according to the KPMG report.
• Bundled digital consumers: These consumers get access to digital content because it’s a part of their bundle service. There are mass consumers, which is an important segment going heavy on digital.
• Free consumers: These people consume content for free.

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