Campaign India Team
Dec 24, 2018

Year-ender 2018: 'There will be two IPLs in 2019'

We ask industry leaders for a surprising moment from 2018 and a prediction for 2019

Year-ender 2018: 'There will be two IPLs in 2019'
Campaign India's December series where industry leaders talk about a surprising moment from 2018 and an expectation from 2019.         
 
Here's what Vineet Sodhani, CEO, Spatial Access, had to say.   
 
A surprising moment from 2018   
 
2018 had lots of surprises. One could bucket them into M&As (Unilever – SmithKline Beecham ; Idea – Vodafone ; Zydus – Heinz); IPL viewership and buzz under Star; Zee’s openness to have a strategic investor, Jio’s FTH plan etc but to my mind, Content Bloom was the most important episode. It created tremendous buzz in the M&E sector and will have long term implications on how we produce, market, buy and consume content.
 
When Netflix launched its first India original with Sacred Games followed by Ghoul and when this was followed by Amazon Prime’s Mirzapur, the other OTT players knew that either they have to up the stakes and improve their game or be prepared to pack-up or be sold out. This Content Bloom will mean valuation losses at one end (there maybe half a dozen OTT players left when I write this next year) but also mean that the creative industry will get a huge boost with hundreds of crores being pumped in by major OTT players. For the first time in 75 years we are talking high quality engaging entertainment outside of Bollywood, Regional Cinema and Cricket.  Though small in 2018 and largely restricted to Hindi/Hinglish videos, Content Bloom will be sizable in all forms– stories, blogs and discussions in 15-20 vernacular languages. Monetisation? Well that will remain a quest for some time but then so it is for most E-commerce platforms anyways even after years of existence.
 
Events to watch out for in 2019
 
General Elections – let’s just say there will be two IPLs in 2019.
 
Not only because of the macro effect of the results on the economic mood of the M&E sector but also because the General Elections is likely to add between 2-3% additional growth to the sector.  Previous edition in 2014 saw many news channels adding 20-30% revenue to their annual numbers. Newspapers, Digital and OOH got a good boost too. This year, thanks to the recent state election results, spends will be bigger and it will be safe to assume that the General Elections will add an equivalent of IPL to the revenue numbers of the industry.
 
 
Also read:
 
 
 
 
 
Source:
Campaign India

Related Articles

Just Published

3 hours ago

RK Swamy bets on strategy amid shrinking ad spends

India’s only listed marcomms group takes a consulting turn—launching a brand strategy unit to counter profit dips, global rivals, and client belt-tightening.

5 hours ago

Why has GroupM lost its way for so long? The buck ...

The visceral response to the latest restructuring has been a lament for the way the holding company has moved too slowly and downgraded its agency brands over many years.

23 hours ago

Campaign roundup: Week of 19 May

The latest ad films and campaigns from brands like Spinny, Lay’s, Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), Sting Energy, Vi, Fenesta, Lloyd, Harpic, and more, in our weekly roundup.

23 hours ago

Moves and wins roundup: Week of 19 May

Our weekly roundup of the latest appointments and account wins news from PUMA India, Sapphire Media, BIG 92.7 FM, Gargi, Blinkit, Taboola, OTTplay Premium, Zee Media, BPCL, SRV Media, and many more.