TV+OTT in a single device has a huge headroom to grow: Anurag Kumar of Tata Sky

Direct-to-home (DTH) service Tata Sky has unveiled its new brand purpose on the lines of ‘Making tomorrow better than today for home and family’ and launched a new campaign with the message, ‘Iss khidki ko khol dala toh life Jingalala’.

Talking about the idea behind the campaign, Anurag Kumar, Chief Communications Officer, Tata Sky, said, “The starting point was the brand purpose statement we recently defined for ourselves, which is Tata Sky helps to make tomorrow better than today for our customers which is basically the homes of our customers and their families. We wanted to translate this for consumers and the simple thought that came was that we all look at the television screen and the mobile screens. What if we just turn the screen around and the perspective now is about how the screen is watching us when we are consuming content. The ‘khidki’ being the screen is a magical thing in our lives that showed us the moments of celebration, togetherness and the happiness of people who are watching this ‘khidki’.”

The campaign has been launched in eight languages across the country to have a local connection. “The idea is to connect with people across the country, given the fact that Tata Sky is a brand with a national footprint. What we have tried to do is while the story, montage, music, etc., are the same; the words have been written for that particular language in a similar kind of emotion that we are trying to create.”

The film:

The campaign will be amplified through social and digital media such as YouTube and Facebook. “We have just gone live on television and we will be looking at taking it to other mediums like our handles on social media. On handles like Instagram, we plan to invite people to share their own moments on the screen that could be candid and create a reel with a song that we will upload. We are looking at other mediums such as print and outdoor but that will come at a later stage,” Kumar said.

Kumar spoke about how they managed to increase their user base at a time when DTH growth was slow during NTO. “There is a longer-term story to which we believe as an organisation and even as an industry. TV watching is nearly universal in India; there is a lot of growth room for people who might be on cable today and are looking at upgrading their entertainment experience. This is where a property like Tata Sky comes in,” he said. 

“We started operations in 2006, we are in 2021 now. TV existed in the form of cable but today, we are the largest player in DTH and I believe we are the largest pay TV overall. This has happened because people who were on other entertainment sources such as cable decided to move to a brand like Tata Sky because they believed it was offering a better, upgraded experience. That story will continue and it has continued even when NTO happened. Despite Covid, it has continued and we have helped improve the quality of experience for consumers. In fact, this whole brand purpose statement that we have drafted is from that point of view that we are here to make tomorrow better than today if we abide by that philosophy as an organisation,” Kumar said.

He spoke about their OTT-TV hybrid service Tata Sky Binge plus and said there is a market to organise OTT services for audiences. “If you look at Tata Sky, when we started on the live TV side, there were broadcasters who were strong brands in their own right but there was a need for them to come together in a manageable way for customers where services like Tata Sky played a role. Even on the OTT side, there’s a plethora of content available across many platforms and being watched by many people. But there is a need to organise that and make it manageable for customers so they can seamlessly go from one content on one app to another app. That’s where a product like Tata Sky Binge plus comes in.”

Asked about the competition in this space with platforms like Jio TV+ and Dish TV launching similar services, Kumar said, they are participating in this segment through things like Tata Sky Binge Plus while others are also doing it in their own way.

“We believe that TV and OTT together will co-exist where we believe we are coming to a point where we are offering both. Yes, the competition will exist. Competition proves one thing that others are also seeing the same opportunity that you are seeing. It’s a confirmation, which is a positive thing in some ways and I think people should have choices and that should be welcome.”

They will continue building Tata Sky Binge as a platform because they believe there are a lot of customers out there who will be interested in a proposition that combines TV and OTT together in a single device.

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