Amid changing times, OTT platforms continue to bring exclusive content and advertising innovations

Current Times

Work from Home and Work at Home have become the order of the day with people locked in at home alone or with their families for over 60 days now. Before the pandemic and subsequent lockdown, people spent time commuting to and from office and socialising, which limited their screen time. However, with restricted movement and not enough scope for external entertainment today, consumers have switched to multiple screens across TV, smartphones and laptops/ desktops.

TV viewership and digital consumption have experienced a boom as families try to keep themselves entertained at home, thereby increasing multi-device-based content consumption in a single family. While competitive offers on data boosted digital consumption during the pre-COVID-19 era, telcos, OEMs and broadband partners have now increased OTT penetration among consumers by bundling offers in their recharges, thus resulting in increased audience viewership across platforms.

In keeping with this consumer shift, advertising has already moved to digital, with the share expected to reach 32 percent by 2020. Video advertising alone is expected to contribute 30 percent of total digital advertising.

Trends @ OTT

ZEE5, India’s entertainment super-app, has observed an overall increase of 15 percent in Daily Active Users; and a 22 percent increase in Monthly Active Users. OTTs, in general, have observed a 20 percent plus increase in viewership on their platform. With 87 percent more time spent on OTTs daily, consumption has spiked across time bands. In terms of viewership, news, movies and food remain the top categories, as audiences want to keep abreast of the latest happenings around the world, entertain themselves and satisfy their taste buds. At ZEE5, news consumption has spiked exponentially with a stupendous 166 percent growth in video views. (Source: Zee5 data)

As viewership continues to surge on the OTT platform, digital spends have shifted from traditional media to digital, where brands advertise to attract maximum consumer mindshare. ZEE5 is also evolving to meet the new expectations of brands and media managers, through innovative solutions.

Content & Advertising on OTT

Though news continues to remain the most-watched genres on TV and OTT, kids content has become the second-fastest-growing category, as the lockdown means kids are confined to their homes. ZEE5 has taken strong measures to cater to news audiences, kids and family through their content innovations.

News

ZEE5 has a total of 43 Live news channels across 12 languages, of which two are dedicated COVID-19 channels relaying information and reports on public safety.

The surge in news consumption has been witnessed across languages, with a 69 percent increase in video views of English news, followed by a 119 percent increase in Hindi news and 200 percent increase in regional news. As video views have increased, the average views/ viewers have also increased by 13 to 23 percent. Leveraging this switch in viewership, ZEE5 has innovated its ad offerings to provide opportunities for programmatic advertising with brands through server-side ad insertion technology, which allows them to replace live ads with their brand ads on live news and events.

SSP partners such as PubMatic and Rubicon, and certifications from MOAT, Nielsen DAR, IAS, etc. allow brands to optimise their campaigns through programmatic buying of certified ad inventory.

Kids

To cater to its young audiences, ZEE5 has launched ZEE5 Kids, which provides 4,000 hours of kids’ content such as Chota Bheem, Krishna Balram, Mighty Raju, etc, across nine languages. The platform targets not just kids, but also parents and teachers engaging with kids and on the lookout for effective means to communicate with and educate them. Ampli5-based advertising solutions on exclusive kids’ content provide character-based influencers giving brands an extra elevation to be noticed and engage effectively with families and kids on ZEE5 Kids.

Advertise on ZEE5

With its intelligent brand stable including Advault, Ampli5 and Infonomix, ZEE5 Ad Suite helps brands launch high visibility campaigns with on-target reach, where they can track metrics of reach and engagement. ZEE5’s inhouse power brands enable precise targeting and segmentation with measurable results.

While Advault provides programmatic campaigns, predictive customer modelling and measurable metrics to track campaigns, Ampli5 leverages the power of the ZEE5 influencer network to position brands in the right context.

Infonomix leverages the flexibility and effectiveness of ZEE5 Ads to deliver value through action-led campaign planning for brand managers and media planners.