Branded content on digital - AVOD vs SVOD

To reach out to premium and more engaged audiences, brands, especially the premium ones now want to explore doing branded content on SVOD-based OTTs over AVOD, as per Vijay Koshy, President, The Viral Fever.

“Even though YouTube is the largest AVOD platform and the second-largest search engine in the world, most brands, especially premium brands, now want to explore putting out branded content on premium OTT platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, etc,” said Koshy.

He further said, “The premium audience doesn’t necessarily go to YouTube to consume entertainment content. They may come for Tech/Auto reviews, Recipes, Diet recommendations, and all kinds of informative content but not for entertainment (especially the slightly older 30 years + lot).”

While Zee5 and Disney+ Hotstar are already experimenting with branded content on SVOD, it remains a catch-22 situation for OTTs. According to Koshy, most of these platforms are struggling to try and make a start on the branded content front. Also, the revenue doesn't add up enough for OTTs to focus on branded content and the efforts just don’t justify the returns.

“It was never part of OTTs muscle memory to integrate brands into it. Now suddenly, if one puts branded content as an option in front of them, it becomes a catch-22 situation. Do they focus on the larger pie, which is the SVOD, or should they start engaging with brands? I've seen some platforms try to do it but have been unsuccessful. In the end, neither the audience nor the client are happy and it's almost like skating on thin ice,” he commented.

This is the first part of the interview. The second part will be released on Friday, August 18, 2023

In part one of the interview, he then went on to speak about the future of branded content on SVOD-based OTT platforms. He said, “Any incremental revenue is a welcome sign in today's day and age. Especially when the external environment around OTT platforms is not favourable. Even Netflix is toying with the idea of having ad-supported content and some other OTT through branded content within shows. In the not-so-distant future, I see this as a strong possibility.”

Excerpts:

Why do you think brands now want to look beyond YouTube when it comes to choosing mediums for branded content?

Even though YouTube is the largest AVOD platform and the second-largest search engine in the world, most brands, especially premium brands, now want to explore putting out branded content on premium OTT platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, etc. However, at the moment, none of these platforms have a policy of commissioning shows featuring a brand, which poses a challenge. The premium audience doesn’t necessarily visit YouTube to consume entertainment content. They may come for Tech/Auto reviews, Recipes, Diet recommendations, and all kinds of informative content but not for entertainment (especially the slightly older 30 years + lot).

Due to perception bias and lack of awareness, many senior leaders at brands aren’t even aware that YouTube has a huge repository of entertainment content. Some people are not even aware that our prominent show, "Aspirants," is accessible on YouTube.The premium audience is to some extent not fully engaged on the platform.

Having your brand presence on SVOD is of huge value. As of now, Zee5 has done some brand integrations on SVOD. I am aware that Disney+ Hotstar is also trying to do brand integrations on SVOD. To be fair to the OTT platforms, doing branded content is not an easy task. One has to be very careful not to put off his or her premium audience with blatant in-your-face brand plugs, unlike the way TVF does by having brands woven into the storyline.

Most of the OTT platforms started with a huge war chest. When one begins with that kind of resource behind their back, he or she tends to pay top dollar for content while keeping SVOD subscribers as the top priority. It was never part of their muscle memory to integrate brands into it. Now suddenly, if one puts branded content as an option in front of them, it becomes a catch-22 situation. Do they focus on the larger pie, which is the SVOD, or should they start engaging with brands? I've seen some platforms try to do it but have been unsuccessful. In the end, neither the audience nor the client are happy and it's almost like skating on thin ice. Somewhere along the line, most of these platforms are struggling to try and make a start on the branded content front. Also, the revenue doesn't add up enough for them to focus on branded content and the efforts just don’t justify the returns.

We are probably the only premium content creators who straddle both the OTT platform business and the brand business.

Does that mean TVF prefers creating content for SVOD over AVOD?

No, we are platform agnostic. YouTube’s reach is unparalleled. I don't think any/all of the OTTs combined can achieve those numbers as of now. Also, YouTube is our R&D lab where we experiment and try out new stuff to see what works and then build long-form content around that. For example, our IMDB top-rated show Aspirants was inspired by a sketch we had made a couple of years ago and we got a lot of comments asking us for a longer show on the subject (the rest is history). 

Having said that, there's a good perception value attached to SVODs. On SVOD, we are assured that our content is placed alongside high-quality premium content. Whereas on YouTube our content can be placed along with news, filmy clips, violent content, and influencers’ trending videos, one doesn’t have control over the kind of content that's around.

Would you say that in the future, we'll be seeing more SVOD OTT platforms exploring branded integrations?

Any incremental revenue is a welcome sign in today's day and age. Especially when the external environment around OTT platforms is not favourable. Even Netflix is toying with the idea of having ad-supported content and some other OTT through branded content within shows. In the not-so-distant future, I see this as a strong possibility.

One of the reasons for SVOD OTT to work is the absence of ads and brand placements on the platform. If SVOD-led OTTs also start exploding with brand-led content, wouldn’t it hamper the audience's content consumption experience?

In their early days, DTH platforms promised that customers would not get ads, but very slowly that changed. The same happened with IPL on OTT. But it has to be done the right way so that the audience doesn’t have a problem with it. In fact, seeing our domain expertise, some OTT platforms have approached us for a strategic partnership where we consult and execute this for multiple other non-TVF shows.  

We have done some branded content in SVOD format on Zee5 and a premium AVOD platform like Amazon Mini TV. Even the content partners have applauded us for the way we've managed to straddle both sides and keep everyone happy. We have done some wonderful brand integrations for Hershey's Kisses in Tripling, with Brut Deodorant and Tally Software in Pitchers. We are also coming up with a new season of Humorously Yours, where Ikea is part of the storyline. It's done extremely well, keeping the OTT platform’s objectives and the brand’s communication needs in mind while creating the entire show.

Do you have to go the extra mile to persuade OTTs to put out branded content on SVOD, or are they quite open to the idea?

Good content doesn’t need lobbying of any sort. We're practically on all the big platforms in the country, including Prime Video, Netflix, Sony Liv, and Zee5. The ones that we are not present, appreciate our content and it’s only due to commercial or business reasons they haven’t partnered with us.

Thankfully, most of our content is premium enough to land on SVOD. The AVOD-based OTTs don’t have large programming budgets to afford premium content, especially from content creators like TVF.

The only place where we are present on AVOD, mainly due to the nature of their business, is Amazon Mini TV. They have some ambitious plans so far. It gives us all the benefits of a platform like YouTube, along with the benefits that YouTube does not necessarily provide. Amazon Mini TV has only premium content on its platform. They put in a lot of marketing efforts on their platform on their own and also in collaboration with us.

What about the brands that don't want to reach premium audiences and just want to reach the masses across categories of audiences? Are they game to put out branded content on SVOD or want only AVOD and platforms like YouTube?

Again, this depends on the brand objectives and the TG they are engaging with. If it’s the 16-24 years age group then YouTube works well and case in point is Unacademy which partnered with us on three web series (Kota Factory, Aspirants and Sandeep Bhaiya) but someone like a Tally targeting a different TG profile would prefer collaborating on Pitchers 2 on SVOD. Also, if you want to build on perception and other qualitative aspects then SVOD would probably be preferred over AVOD.    

What makes TVF good at doing branded content?

It's years of expertise and lots of practice which has helped. Coincidentally, our genesis was in the digital ecosystem and our only source of revenue in the early days was branded content. So, we were trained to think along the lines of branded content. We will continue to partner with brands as long as possible since we at TVF feel as market leaders we need to get more brands to experience this collaboration route to complement their existing marketing. It’s important that, along with engaging and entertaining our biggest clients, i.e., our audience, we help brands put out their messaging in an impactful manner. It must be a win-win situation for all three parties ie The Audience, The Brand & TVF

Would you agree that content is for engagement and to build brand love? One can any day get reach through ads.

Advertising may not always be able to achieve brand love and engagement.

I will give you an example of a branded content initiative that we created close to 6–7 years ago, which is Tripling with Tiago. At that time, Tiago was not able to feature in the consideration set of the average first buyer of a hatchback in an already crowded market.

Tata Motor’s regular customer was much older. The younger generation didn't think the brand was cool enough. And of course, there was very strong competition from Maruti, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen, Mahindra, and Skoda.

A brand can reach its audience with zillions of ad rolls and targeted views. If, at the end of the day, the customer does not think of the brand as cool enough, then it’s probably fighting a losing battle. Tiago was passing through all these challenges at a time when it had multiple big launches in that year itself, which unfortunately fizzled out due to various reasons out of their control.

We came up with a strong storyline for Tripling and managed to integrate the brand so well that a lot of the younger audience went to the Tata Motors showroom to test drive the vehicle.

Can this also be a good example for brands that say that branded content in a long format cannot fulfil performance-led brand requirements?

Branded content is both science and art. Brand building involves appealing to consumers’ hearts and it’s a long-term goal that will stay etched in their memory much like a fine dining experience. I don’t think one can measure brand love through performance marketing, but through branded content integration, there are a lot of interesting ways in which brands can reach out to the audience and communicate what they are trying to say. I won’t say that branded cannot fulfil some performance-led requirements but at this point in time, it’s best kept out of the equation since the success of a collaboration can very quickly get derailed by this comparison. We recommend the BLS (brand life study) approach to most of our partners to review how much of our communication objectives did we manage from what we originally set out to achieve.