Finding the right content partner is an uphill task for brands

Mayank Shah, Category Head, Parle Products, shares that most creators look for a brand and then carve a story out. However, he believes the solution lies in twisting this around.

Mayank Shah

“Unfortunately, what is happening today is that content creators go to brands and say give us your brand and we will work something around it. We don’t want that. We want them to work on good content and then come to us, asking if we have anything targeting this particular TG and whether we can seamlessly integrate the brand with the content.”

Unlearning the experience of different mediums and adjusting according to the flow is also important. “There are a lot of content creators doing great work and that’s what we would be looking at. Most of the content providers have people who have come from a TV background. Hence, they still think of content like TV and product placement. They don’t think of weaving in the product seamlessly, making it look more like a force-fit,” added Shah.

Ankur Warikoo

What is a camera without its lens and content without a story? The most essential thing in choosing content is finding the right story but often, it is the most difficult task. India is a country that is rich in its culture, folklore and fairy tales. But for Ankur Warikoo, CEO and Co-founder, Nearbuy.com, current content creators are still away from getting the drill.

“By and large, content creators lack the art of story-telling. In India, since our childhood, we have only heard stories. It is unfortunate that we have not transformed that into fine art ourselves, that’s where most content creators, whether in-house or external, lack. They are unable to create powerful stories that move people,” he said.

Being a start-up in India, finding a content creator within the budget that also promises to deliver is even more difficult. And with the emergence of digital mediums, the number of people who could put out content was democratised.

However, Raw Pressery’s Sharma feels that this scenario has changed now.

“Digital media should not be inaccessible. Two years back, the content creators’ prices were approachable enough for all sorts of brands. Price tags are making it completely inaccessible for experimentation. Smaller brands may find it even tougher to crack a good content creator team.”

Being a brand that started with an e-shop, Raw Pressery decided to have an in-house team that could generate content at a faster speed.

“The time that the entire process of pitching, selecting and finding takes is not a luxury that a start-up enjoys. It has to be very quick. The advantage of having an in-house team is that there’s no time to waste. We are a digital-first brand and on digital, you need newer and faster messaging. It is not a jingle that I have to make for a season, but every day my brand has to speak because that’s where I am building it. So for that, when a brand’s personality is getting built by relying on an agency, the timeline might just throw us off,” said Sharma.

Digital is considered the fastest medium right now and brands that react to a trend late lose out. So, to be on the top of consumers’ mind on social media, brands — and their content team — have to be active.

Aparna Mahesh

“Content was created for the offline world before and with digital; the pace at which India is consuming content is mind-boggling. The amount of data that the average Indian consumer is using every day is 8 GB per day, so imagine the amount of content that needs to be produced and the majority of that is video. As marketers, we are looking for top quality content. The demand is increasing, but supply is not keeping up with its pace, and quality,” said Aparna Mahesh, CMO, BankBazaar.