Mumbai: The ‘great reset of 2020’ had the media and entertainment industry witnessing one of the most peculiar anomalies ever in history where the burgeoning demand and consumption of content was accompanied by an unprecedented fall in advertising revenues.
While the English infotainment genre also benefited by the overall growth in viewership, Discovery India registered a near 50 per cent dip in advertising in AMJ 2020 owing to the slump in both ad volumes and ad rates, which, according to Discovery Inc, head of advertising, sales, South Asia, Shaun Nanjappa Chendira “reduced to a trickle” in that period. However, with the picking up of the economy around August-September 2020, the scenario began to ease out. Despite the second wave earlier this year, the entertainment brand has reached a near normalisation of business riding on the back of two strategy pillars – branded content and the hybrid business model.
Spotting Early Revival Trends - Branded Content & the Hybrid Business Model
Shaun Nanjappa Chendira was promoted as the head of advertising, sales, South Asia, Discovery Inc in October 2020. That was the time when industries across the board, M&E included, were showing signs of recovery and the opportunities opened up by the pandemic had taken precedence over the challenges posed by it. As the economy began to revive, people resorted to revenge buying giving a much-needed fillip to business across categories. While the spurt in FMCG was expected, two-wheelers and other auto brands were also able to drive sales despite the pandemic. Segments such as telecom and handsets assumed greater relevance.
“The difference this time around was that brands weren’t looking for visibility alone; they wanted better engagement with the consumers. Because branded content works wonderfully well in that space, we saw our branded solutions business grow by leaps and bounds. Clocking in a three-fold growth since 2019, today it contributes 25-30% of Discovery’s overall revenue,” stated Chendira.
Commenting further on whether there were new advertisers coming in after the pandemic, he added, “Our client base undergoes a change every year with new categories coming onboard. Recently edtech, pharma and BFSI brands have been quite active on our OTT as well as linear platforms. Another trend we witnessed was that of deeper penetration happening in each category. If there were one or two mobile handset brands advertising earlier, today there are three or four of them.”
Discovery has created branded content with a number of start-ups, one of the most noteworthy examples being ‘Discovery School Super League with BYJU’S’. It has also undertaken similar projects with Mi India (Feelin Alive Season 2), Oppo (Life Unscene), Hyundai (Emission Impossible) and more.
The demand for high-impact formats and India-centric content, led Discovery to bringing one of its largest IPs ‘Into The Wild With Bear Grylls” into play during the pandemic. The new episode with Akshay Kumar helped the channel in “getting five or six new clients from across categories on board, thus scaling ad revenues.” Chendira shared that ‘Into the Wild’ has consistently helped Discovery in growing its advertising base.
Also coming in handy for the media brand was the timely launch of its OTT platform. “We launched discovery+ in March, just before the pandemic hit. From a business perspective, it gave us an opportunity to offer linear plus digital solutions to marketers, bundled as one. The success of this hybrid model has made it a norm for us today and we will continue to push forward in this direction,” asserted Chendira. “However, we do believe that TV is still irreplaceable as the only way of catching a mass audience in the shortest period of time. The large-screen family viewing experience cannot be replicated on digital, which is more about solo viewership, catch-up TV and watching anywhere.”
The Road Ahead – Recovery and Growth
Chendira is hopeful of achieving pre-pandemic revenue levels by the end of 2021. By September, Discovery Inc had started seeing a growth trajectory of 5 per cent which soon jumped to 10 per cent, and the channel was able to recoup a lot of the actual pandemic-hit very fast, driven by the market recovery as well as its product and business propositions.
“A combination of these helped us in stabilising revenues. The trend carried on until March end, when the second wave and lockdowns came into force. However, with consumers and marketers having learnt to innovate and adopt in response to the challenge, this time the recovery has been fairly quick. There was marked improvement in June and July, and we are expecting things to further normalise in August,” he said, while taking a look at the recovery so far.
Going ahead, India-centric content, sports, and regional will be the added focus for Discovery India. On the business front, the efforts will be directed towards ‘working more closely with clients and not just agencies’, said Chendira.
“Discovery’s strength has been in the direct-relationship it has nurtured with brands which has resulted in building credibility and mutual respect over a period of time. This played out to our advantage during the tough times. When marketers started to advertise, we were able to leverage this relationship and thus we could bounce back almost instantly. Our proposition to our partners will continue to evolve in accordance with the market trends,” Chendira signed off.
