Digital Of Voice, Video And Vernacular

With India expected to have over 620 million Internet users by 2019, Digital advertising is expected to witness record growth across sectors. Some of the key trends driving Digital this year will be regional content marketing, the rise of OTT and video, increased usage of AI and machine learning, voice search, increased usage of programmatic and the birth of new social media influencers

- Beryl Menezes, Samarpita Banerjee & Neeta Nair

RISE OF OTT AND VOD

Video consumption on digital media is growing like never before. With an increase in smartphone penetration and cheaper and faster mobile data availability across the country, video-on-demand (VOD) and online video streaming is more popular today, than ever before. Thus, video marketing is expected to be the leader of digitization in 2019 with industry reports estimating that almost 80% of all online content will take up the form of visual representation. A large share of video ads will move OTT platforms, apart from social channels like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. The OTT space is also expected to grow exponentially over the course of the year on the back of increasing competition between global streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video and indigenous players such as Hotstar, Voot, ALTBalaji, SonyLIV, ZEE5 and more. Within the OTT space, regional content in languages other than English and Hindi will be a key area of focus, as more consumers from Tier II and Tier III cities come onto the OTT platform. There will also be a focus on the ‘freemium’ and subscription-based model, with players vying to get ahead of each other in the consumer acquisition game in terms of offering quality over quantity. With fixed line broadband coming in, the consumption of OTT that has primarily been on the mobile screen till now, will slowly move to the living room. The OTT space will also increasingly provide a platform for collaboration between music artistes and their fans.

REGIONAL AND VIDEO-BASED CONTENT MARKETING