“India is rapidly changing as far as adoption of digital is concerned," said Simran Channey Gaglani, AVP of Brand Solutions at Viacom18 while talking about the swift technological uptake in India and its consequential impact.
She was addressing a session during the unveiling of 'The Pitch Madison Advertising Report (PMAR) 2024' in Mumbai on February 15th, Sports.
Gaglani commenced the session by addressing how digital technologies have taken over the Indian landscape. She remarked, “All of us have seen the growth of technology in our own lives. It grows at a certain rate and then reaches an inflection point and then that rate of change becomes much faster.”
"All of us will identify with the game-changing impact that Jio had by taking last-mile mobile connectivity as a challenge. Compared to international locations, the kind of penetration that UPI has in India is second only to WeChat in China,” she added.
Gaglani emphasized how all of these aspects bring alive just how much Indians have embraced technology and digital connectivity.
She took the session forward by sharing data from a TRAI report that stated that mobile internet users across India will grow to 900 million in 2024 while connected TV viewership will increase to 200 million.
“All of us are seeing the change towards connected TV in our own lives. COVID made some of these changes happen faster and acted as a catalyst. Four years ago, my parents had a set-top box. Now, even someone like my parents doesn't feel the need to have a set-top box at home. Now consumers want to watch content on their large screen without needing a DTH connection,” Gaglani shared.
According to a recently published report by TRAI, DTH operators saw about a 1.3 million drop in subscriber base just between July and September last year.
Gaglani elaborated on how the growth of connected TV (CTV) will persist due to various driving factors, including increasing device penetration, the availability of high-speed internet, rising CTV penetration rates, and the continuous growth of data consumption.
“Jio fibre and Airtel extreme fibre have made an immense effort in taking Wi-Fi penetration to a large part of the country and in making data accessible to India at large. India is the number three or number four cheapest data markets behind just two or three countries. Making data so accessible and cheap has been one of the big reasons why Indians have managed to adapt to this entire change so wholeheartedly and in such large numbers.”
Gaglani proceeded to discuss the behavioural aspect of India's status as the fastest-growing young urban population globally, coupled with its trajectory toward rapid urbanization.
She said, “About 30% of India's population between the ages of 18 to 34 and urban households are set to overtake rural households in India by the year 2060. Because we are a young and urban population, they are now spending about one-third of their waking hours on their mobile phones.”
“The second big adoption that's happening in the country is the connected TV adoption; this base is set to grow to about 60 million in the coming year,” Gaglani added.
She also spoke about the emergence of OTT as one of the best platforms for both viewers and advertisers. Talking about JioCinema, she said, “We have seen that one in every three cricket viewers is returning to the platform in the next one month to consume some entertainment content. So, cricket is at the top of the funnel to collate a lot of the audiences. But more interestingly, the peak streaming time for JioCinema is 8 p.m. to 12 a.m., which was erstwhile called, ‘television prime time’.”
Gaglani further emphasized JioCinema's significance in the OTT landscape by revealing that users access the platform approximately three times a day, with the longest sessions occurring during prime-time viewing hours.
Transitioning to JioCinema's strategy for IPL 2024 advertising, Gaglani expressed their aspiration to replicate the impact of the Super Bowl in the US. She said, “We want to recreate this kind of experience for advertisers. So, this season on IPL and JioCinema, on the opening match, the first five over breaks will be dedicated to five brands who want to debut their campaign. As a platform, we want to put the campaign on a pedestal so that it has that sense that something really big has opened on the platform.”
Download thePitch Madison Advertising Report 2024 here.
