With entertainment at our core, we're revolutionising consumers' content journeys across passion points: Sameer Seth of Dolby

With entertainment being the fabric of Dolby’s culture, the brand through its various propositions has been focusing on providing complete solutions that revolutionise how consumers create, deliver and experience content worldwide, as per Sameer Seth, Director-Marketing (India), Dolby Laboratories.

Dolby currently finds its presence in India across lifestyles through cinema, TV, PC, smartphones, gaming and automobiles and caters to passions including movies, TV, music, podcasts, sports, vernacular content, etc. through its various propositions.

“Because the expectations of consumers for an enhanced and best-in-class audio-visual experience has never been higher, particularly in India, Dolby comes into the picture and unlocks the real power of sight and sound in the pursuit of delivering inspiring experiences,” Seth said.

He also went on to add that Dolby as a brand does this through its pioneering audio and visual technologies that not only empower artists who create content using its technologies and push their limits of creativity in order to bring to life incredible experiences for their audiences across passions inherent in the Indian consumers.

Dolby recently released its consumer campaign in India titled- ‘Dolby main Suna aur Dekha Kya’ which aims to carry forward the baton from its 2020 campaign- Dolby Everywhere.

Here’s how Dolby’s new ad campaign is creating a Fear Of Missing Out in consumers-

As per Seth, the new campaign aims to educate consumers about the Dolby difference available on mobile, on audio wearables or in the living room.

“The new campaign goes one step ahead of Dolby Everywhere, and the Call-To-Action in the same is also ingrained in the fact that now that there is so much content out there in Dolby, consumers need to go and purchase a Dolby-enabled device and consume content on it to have an immersive experience,” he said.

The creative direction of the campaign also creates a sense of FOMO in the audience to pique their interest, making them realise that their experience is incomplete without Dolby.

“With the realisation that you don’t just hear and see, but experience and feel entertainment come alive in Dolby, the campaign hopes to induce the purchase of a Dolby-enabled device- #BuyInDolby,” he added.

Commenting as to what was the insight that led to the inception of the new brand campaign, Seth stated that the campaign is based on three key consumer insights or findings of multiple consumer studies.

As per Seth, the first and foremost insight behind the new campaign was that consumers recognise that high-quality sound and visual experiences can have a huge impact on the viewing experience and that is precisely something that can make viewing immensely exciting.

“This has got pronounced post the pandemic that once consumers started experiencing the content in the best possible format, there is no looking back, and that consumers would continue to invest and experience the content in the best form,” he stated.

The second insight that Seth pointed out was that consumers are doing a two-pronged upgrade- firstly they are upgrading the devices like a better TV or Smartphone and at the same time, they are also investing in better services.

“This can be in the form of shifting from a single device standard definition subscription plan to upgrading the same for a plan with multiple devices which have in-store both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos,” he added.

The third and the most important consumer insight, as per Seth, was that when consumers resort to e-commerce platforms for buying devices online, the keyword that they search for when looking for devices was ‘Dolby-enabled’ or say an ‘x’ device with Dolby and the search volumes for the same was fairly high.

 “When we speak to our e-commerce partners, this insight particularly gives us a lot of confidence that now that there is so much content in Dolby, why can't there be a way that we could induce the purchase of a Dolby-enabled product and that’s precisely why the CTA at the end of the new campaign is visit the Dolby brand e-store and #BuyInDolby,” he added.

Commenting on the target audience for the new campaign, Seth pointed out that the brand film showcases individuals from all age groups and thus proves that the target audience for the brand is actually age-agnostic - as all consumers can have an immersive experience of entertainment through both Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision.

Moreover, Seth also went on to point out that Dolby Atmos completed ten years of its existence in India in December 2022, and the proposition has been a huge success.

“In terms of Cinema, there are more than 1200 theatrical Indian titles that have been released in Dolby Atmos in six Indian languages and they can be experienced in more than 850 Dolby Atmos-enabled screens in India and these screens are not limited to the big metros or million plus towns, but even in smaller towns,” he said.

Elaborating on the streaming avenues that Dolby caters to, Seth stated that with technological advancements from  4G to 5G and with data packs and devices getting cheaper, India has truly emerged as a mobile-first country in the current times as the personal entertainment device for consumers is majorly mobile phones.

“The experience on both Dolby-enabled mobiles and cinemas is not limited to the metros or to India but also to the heart of India- Bharat.”

Commenting on the media mix of the new campaign, Seth pointed out that because the biggest asset or touchpoint for Dolby is collaborative marketing, the brand partners will also run the campaigns in their different touch points like retail stores, digital platforms, etc.

The key focus areas of Dolby

As per Seth, the brand claims to work for the entire ecosystem of entertainment and believes that it is only when content is created in Dolby, delivered in Dolby and played back on devices in Dolby, that the consumers get the complete immersive experience, the company focuses on and caters to three major constituents- Content Creation, Delivery Platforms and Devices for experiencing content.

“We work with a lot of content creators, be it filmmakers or musicians, wherein the creators use Dolby’s audio and visual technology for better storytelling. Our objective therein is to

give the creators the tools which have the ability to bring what they create closer to their original intent - in the sense that they can bring into life the content in a way that they would’ve imagined it to be, ” he said.

Furthermore, he also went on to add that the second key constituent that Dolby caters to in the entertainment segment is the delivery platforms through which the content is delivered.

Elaborating on the same, Seth stated that Dolby works with several broadcast services, Pay TV platforms, OTTs streaming services, audio and video streaming services for music and podcasts, etc.

“We also partner with devices wherein the consumers finally experience content and thus we also do a lot of work with OEMs, manufacturers of living room devices such as TVs, sound bars, smart speakers, etc along with on-the-go devices like smartphones, tablets and laptops, amongst others,” he added.

In its pursuit of providing an immersive experience to consumers, what goes behind at Dolby

One of the major challenges for Dolby over the years has been to drive awareness and to educate the consumer on what is and how to find the Dolby experience, Seth emphasised.

“The consumers do recognise the Dolby experience when they go to the cinemas and see the Dolby logo or even when they are watching content on various streaming services. Moreover, we also work with our partners on the consumer journeys on their platforms and how they can use their UI and UX in a manner that the discovery of their content with the usage of our technology becomes easy,” he stated.

Furthermore, Dolby’s Seth also went on to reiterate that the brand’s goal is to unlock or unleash the power of sight and sound to give a spectacular experience to the audience no matter in whichever environment they are consuming content.

Upon being questioned as to what are some of the objectives that Dolby aims to cater to, Seth replied that the brand aims to continue working with content creators in different languages and to enable their content through Dolby’s propositions.

“There is a lot of work that we do in India with regional services and that’s one space that we are very bullish about. In fact,  there is a lot of content momentum that we will focus on in the next couple of years as we continue to work on the content side in the regional space, both with content and with services, OEMs and other partners to enable the Dolby experience,” he added.

It is also to be noted that Dolby had recently forayed into the automobile segment so as to ensure that the consumer gets the best possible experience in whichever environment they are in - which is why the brand forayed into the auto space and partnered with players like Mercedes Benz, Lucid Motors, Volvo, Polestar, Nio, etc. for Dolby Atmos in the upcoming launches.

“It's something new that we've got into and this is one space that we believe has a lot of potential,” he added.

On a concluding note, Dolby’s Seth stated that through the five cut-downs that the brand has created for each of its partners with the usage of Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, it is an opportunity for advertisers to also create their ads using Dolby’s technology and leverage it for better storytelling and differentiate them or cut the clutter by utilising Dolby’s immersive experience providing capabilities.

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