 Next, ladies and gentlemen, we have a very interesting conversation lined up where our editor, Exchange for Media, will be chatting with someone who's been an active voter of the media industry's growth. With over 35 years of experience in building companies like JWT, Gray, MTV, Sony, Times and India, our next speaker will be sharing his insights on one of the biggest challenges being faced by content marketers, creators, which is prime time versus my time. Please join me in welcoming Associate Editor, Exchange for Media, Ms Nazia Rehman, who will be in conversation with the group CEO of Balaji Telefilms, Mr Sunil Lulla. He's an expert on the subject and manages three different businesses. He manages television, films and digital. So my first question is, which according to you has been able to make maximum use of content marketing? You know, in a way of influencing audiences, everything is in some way or the other, sending the message from one content platform to another, right? So if an actor is expressing an emotion, to me that's a way that they market the idea behind that emotion, right? I think we are one of India's stellar producers of television content available on all major broadcast networks. To put the value of that, that's simply phenomenal. We participate in the movie industry and we now participate in what is the future industry, which is the OTT play, right? So it's not easy to kind of put an aggregate number. They're all important to us. We produce hours of content. Television is certainly the biggest money spinner at this point of time, but the future is going to change. But in terms of content marketing, I mean, which platform is able to utilize content marketing in the best possible way? See, if you mean by content marketing is to use content to market other brands, I think in India, movie has the best narrative because movies have a way of doing this. They have been doing this for some time, right? I don't believe that a content creator or a content owner's objective must be to monetize that content within the content. We create content so that we can monetize it in different ways. When we create for television broadcasters, they put ads around it and they also charge a subscription fee for that content, right? As a channel, a linear channel, that's how they make money. In a movies, it's the theatricals, it's the music, it's the satellite rights. That to me is all part of content marketing. On the OTT play, we are a subscription platform. The fee that we get paid by our subscribers is a way of marketing it. I wouldn't take it down lower than that to say that, you know, you put an aspirin into it or you put a product into it and you marketed that. But that is situational. If that situation requires a brand, it requires a brand, doesn't require a brand, it doesn't require a brand. And I think on occasions when we have done that, it's not about money. It's about what the marketer can drive from a marketing objective. So in many of our movies, for example, there are brand marketeers who get associated, but it's what they drive for the movie. So they drive footfalls into the theater, right? It's not about the money they pay us. So we don't see content marketing as something that you need to get a return out of. We see it as serving a larger objective, which is to get people to be engaged, to be entertained, to be empowered. So as I was reading about content marketing, I felt that the term has become a bit too vast. Do you think as an expert that we need to now streamline it or content marketing needs to be redefined in the sense that not everything is, there's too many branches of content marketing. Like you were telling me an actor promoting the movie on social media is also content marketing. Of course it is. So you know if you want to attach your rupee value to it, that's a bit tough to always do it, right? So you got to say that when content is created and if it is created for the right kind of audience, you will market the content towards the right kind of, towards that audience. You won't just put up that content for anybody and everybody to watch, right? So I think the definition of that is just the way you want to market. It should not be treated as branding. That is you know you take content, put a brand into it and you try and make a few bucks out of it. So the cost of producing digital content is becoming considerably high. So to what extent is branding content helping in recovering the production costs of original content? No, it's like I said I'm not an advocate that you have to earn one rupee out of content, out of branding to pay for the cost, right? The cost of content is an investment in a library, right? A library which you will own in perpetuity, whoever owns it, whether the content creator owns it or a platform owns it. It's an investment in a library and you create that so that you can either have an advertising or a subscription and some people have both maybe as revenue streams to support it. So you will do branded content only. So you see a lot of this is popular say in the news business where in dull slots they will try and put together interesting programs or program which have a very particular theme subject that is paid for by somebody, right? Because that's a way of selling it in a particular editorial environment or two pages in a magazine to sell it in an editorial environment, right? To create so they are leveraging the environment to do it, right? Now if I put, if an actor mentions or in a movie in a plot, if the whole story is around for arguments sake the last bottle of water and that's really important, right? If you're on a desert and the only thing you need is water, how much are you actually going to pay for it? Is it worth a million dollars or is it worth a million rupees? Right? So that depends. There's no yardstick for this. So I believe that the purpose of content and purpose of content to be marketed is to create audiences and the monetization of the audiences can have many ways and many ways to make money from the audiences. So there are many trends in content marketing right now. There are videos, the podcast thing, the steady stream of emerging social media tools. While most marketers are trying these are there's some overlooked gaps. What other opportunities exists that nobody's taking advantage of? No, if I tell you that then I'm letting go of some secrets free of charge, right? So you know, we are still, I think television content is now reaching a level of maturity. So cinema content, I think the OTD spaces a reflection about how you create content form an individual consumption point of view, right? And there the scope is to earn significant amount of subscription money. Indians are not used to the habit of paying for content. You know, we bought cable at a very cheap price. And for 30 years, we've been watching cable at a very, very cheap price. And that's our influence, right? And everything came in it. So somebody goes and spends 5000 crores to get the cricket rides and the government says, please show it free on Durga Shan. We've just taken it and destroyed the entire value of that content, right? So we haven't yet learned. Now people are learning that there is a certain content that I can get only if I pay for it. That number is in a few millions. It needs to go to triple legit millions. And hopefully it will happen, we'll reach there. So we are playing a role in navigating that consumer over there. Now you may do different ways to do that, right? So you will introduce, somebody will introduce a VR aspect to it. Somebody will introduce other 3D, 4D kind of aspects to it, right? Those are all things done to create ways to watch that content. At the end of the day, a joke is a joke, right? You can't really say that if I tell you a joke in 3D or I tell you a joke through a VR, it's better than a joke, right? But is the joke good enough? So is that content good enough for it to stand through? So how are consumers of television, film and OTT different? What behavioral difference do you notice? Or when you offer them content, how do you ensure that it is different for different platforms? See, television even today is by and large a drawing room event, in-house event, watched by a number of people at home. Could be family members, could be extended family members and usually different demographics. So they need state when they watch things together is what can I watch together with my parents that's acceptable to all of us. So if it's drama, that's a business we can talk about, if it's drama, it has to play within the larger fabric of what is acceptable social sentiment. A movie is something that you make an effort to go to. So you choose a movie destination. You want a horror or thriller or comedy, just a Masala film, you choose that, right? So you choose the purpose. Now it may be satisfying, it may be disappointing, that you will only know when the film ends, right? Whether it was satisfying or not. So that's a very, very different appointment viewing. Though viewing at home there's a lot of ambient environment, there's noise, there are other things happening, somebody is doing two things at the same time. O.T. content is actually very personal because by and large you may watch it with your friends, if you are watching following some particular show. Usually speaking people will watch it on a personal device or even if they're casting it on to a television or to any other device, watch it alone. You may watch it while you're on the move, you may watch it downloaded and watch it, very personal. So the nature of content you have over there cannot be the nature of content you have on television, right? A movie you may watch on an O.T. platform but it's a catch-up. You would have probably seen the movie earlier or not seen the film earlier, so it's a catch-up. It's either a replay or a catch-up, right? For O.T.D. content and I think my focus is more on what is original created for the O.T.D. space, that is very personal and those I think they're all evolving and learning what people would like to see, right? If you're a responsible player, you won't stretch the limits of people's fantasies. For a responsible player, you still play within the context of what is usually accepted content but you can talk of relationships in a very different fashion. You can bring plots in a very different fashion. You can bring dynamics of changing relationships between men, women, between parents, between same gender. It doesn't matter in a very different fashion and you get a lot more personal about it because we know... Also there's no censorship right now. See, I'll tell you this thing of no censorship does not mean you're a party. If there was no censorship in the room, what do you do? Distribute drugs? No. The point is we are socially responsible. As a citizen of India, you are either responsible or not. There are only two brackets to it. There are only two parts to it and 99.99% is socially responsible. So you create something that's going to be acceptable. You know, let's not get excited by a kiss or a show of skin. That's not really relevant but it's the context, it's the relationship, man and woman's relationship when a husband and wife sometimes steer off each other what happens. A daughter versus a mother, father versus a son. These are real life stories. You don't... In television, you kind of neuter the story a bit. In the online... In the ODD space, you can stretch that. You can stretch the plot. Right? So I think those are the differences. This is an evolving market. We are pretty much on the ground floor of the story. We've got a long way to go. So the buzz of the town today is original content. Content has always been original. So the buzz has been as continuous as when content was created. But do you have these two market leaders, Netflix and Amazon that's been... I'm not going to see the market leaders. I will object to that. So you have these known OTT players, Netflix and Amazon, maybe not as known as Alde Balaji. International. International, okay. So are spending exorbitant amounts on developing content? Do you think the Indian OTT owners will exhibit the same spending power or appetite to create good original? Are they spending as much as... See, I can only talk. I do not know the balance sheets of other companies. They're privately held. I can tell you this much that in the last one year that we've been in existence, we have produced more original exclusives than anybody else in India on the OTT space, as simple as that. And it doesn't come cheap. This is not about money. This is about engagement, entertainment and empowerment, as simple as that. So what do you do to engage people, entertain them and empower them to watch this nature of content, right? It takes passion. It takes cash. If you spend good cash behind a good plot and a good story, that same cash comes back to you. So Alde Balaji has done some 24 original shows in the last one year. But somehow we have not seen, I mean, you've not done as much marketing as others would. So can we expert a turn in the media plan of Alde Balaji or you have your own plan? I mean, if you can just... We have a large base of consumers who subscribe to the... It's a paid platform who subscribe to the platform. They watch the platform. How did they come to know about it? Because we targeted them in the right fashion. By putting and holding out there, I'm not going to necessarily attract people to download things and to watch it. You start by catching these people in social digital environments. Then you use the audio visual content and only then, when necessary, you get closer to a reminder medium, right? So to us, the larger reminder medium basis print, outdoor, static medium is good to try and convert people. Television is good to try and convert people to the habit who have not seen that content. The digital space allows you to look for people who are looking for content. So it's very easy to find. I can go there and put your name and say, you know, I want people, I want people who like the following stars, like the following content, who track the following apps. And through that, I come to know that you're one person who's looking for OTT content and I can target you. I put a hoarding outside here near the airport. How do I know whether you like it? It's sensible marketing in my view, right? Coming back to branded content. So the branded content runs the risk of being over-branded. How do you strike the right balance in creating branded content? See, if there's a, so in my mind, there really should be a role for it. You know, in 2003, I did a show called Jassi Jassi Koi Nahi, right, which is 15 years back. And when Jassi gets a promotion, her company gives her a car, right? So we chose the car and we played, the whole story was built around her favorite color versus her father's favorite color because she wants to give the car to her father. A whole episode and more went in there. It was all too, right? Yeah. Right? It was a whole episode which went in there. To me, it was so interestingly built into the story that nobody complained. Right? The market here got there in bank. The story had its value and the fans of Jassi had their value. Now, if you can keep repeating this, I was telling you in Viredi wedding, when the girls are depressed and crying and they want, the thing that they want, they come for food is ice cream, right? And they go to this push cart which is selling ice cream. Their fellow has gone to sleep. It's late in the night. They open his push cart. They take a tub. They go to eat. One of the heroines realized that we got to pay him and they leave money on the table. I saw this film in Metro and there were two or three people behind me and I heard one of the girls tell the person she was with, see, this is the way brands are going to catch you now. They are going to put it into the content. They are not going to advertise because then you can't leave the theater and go away and this is what they're going to do. Now, it works in the plot. If it doesn't work in the plot, it doesn't work in the plot. I think you've already answered what is at the heart of your content strategy for all this entertainment. Entertainment, entertainment, entertainment. And profit. See profit is, if you put profit as an objective, you'll never make it. Profit is a by-product of what you do. Entertainment is at the heart. It's been there for 24 years of this company. Which is your favorite content marketing case study of another brand? I mean something that you have not done. Something that I have not done. Okay? I've not done any of them. Somebody else has done it. Not your production house or not your show. No, so I think I like James Bond the best. But I think James Bond started with one brand, two brands actually, a car and a vodka and I've now added a portfolio of nine brands. And you still do not feel it's overwhelming. I don't think there's anything better than James Bond. Which is your favorite recent Balaji produced content? So I'll get whipped when I leave this room. But the show which is recent, which is home, which is based on the whole family being thrown out of their apartment block because of a civic issue. I think it talks of the story of urban living and what happens in urban households where the family has different views but they never share it. But this event gets everybody to both de-franchise and come back together. You don't watch Nagin? I do watch Nagin. But Nagin not on alt as yet. Home is. Okay. We have exactly 10 minutes and we can open it for the audiences if they want to ask more questions. No, nobody has questions. They have, they have them. Sure they have. See there's one right there. Thank you. Hello Sunil. Hi. Yeah, I noticed through this conversation that you prefer branding and content to be natural, seamless, subtle. But are there times where you think it's more impactful for it to be obvious? And is that considered something that you can leverage as a brand, like a brand could leverage more if it's considered obvious? So I actually prefer branding not to be there in content. Okay. But having said that, if it's a natural role, right? Because so if it's a natural role and it plays a natural role into it, if there's a car sequence and you want to use a high powered car or you want to use a specific kind of truck, it's a nice way to place it into that. If you have to show us a situation in a restaurant, if the restaurant has cult value, right, and it's not some, any restaurant that you're branding, then there's a nice story to it, right? You got to make it work into the story. If you're going to do it. Most important thing, it's not about the economics. I think it's whether that brand can co-market what you are creating as content. Because if you use them to pay cash, then it's you are going to destroy what you are creating as value. But if you get them to participate in the marketing, they will target their consumers to push that piece of content. And therefore, their customers will also come back to you and you may not have targeted their consumers. So you've got to use it as a marketing program and not as a PNL item. There's one gentleman there. Hello, hello everyone. I just wanted to ask you that you have said that you all know that, I mean digital content is very different from television content. You're not very clear, sir, if you can repeat. I said that digital content is different from television content. Yes. So I would like to ask you your opinion on how do you hire for digital content? From which, what kind of industries would you hire people, journalists, or, you know, advertising agency, copywriters or, you know, how do you hire this kind of people? So not to say that people in television are older, they just older there because of experience, but you find people who are younger in their outlook, not about age, younger in their outlook, who understand the idea of a short story, right? A television series can run for a year. A digital content usually will not run for a year. It's a habit is very different. I think somebody asked about this question of, she asked about the habit. Digital is about binge viewing. You have to create the culture of binge viewing. So you write differently so that people stay over there, right? And you would like that to be in television content too, but you're not consuming all of that over there. So I think you look for good craft people. We've been able to have a Rajkumar Rao player role who's a movie actor. We've been able to have Nimrit Kaur player role who's also a movie actor, right? We have directors who come both from movie and theatre who come into writing content. So I think the pool is pick a mix of cinema, TV, theatre and try and craft it. There is no, per se, cinema industry because it's an old industry has many people. TV industry is a reasonably sized industry has many. OTT still has a way to go. And I think it'll get mixed up as time goes by. We can take one more question, the last question. There's one, the two people, we can take only one question because we're running out of time. Okay, so my question is that for marketeers who are not traditionally into content making, they are into other products and they develop content as well. Do you think they are doing a great job in creating content that is engaging and entertaining for the consumers? Can you give me an example? Any of the marketing companies, Kellogg's, Lever's, I think, okay, I got where you're going. I think that people who have set up very specific channels of communication with their consumer base that they have understood and designed content. So like a lot of the food companies do recipes and they do it in different formats. A lot of the grooming companies do it on duty and maintenance of your body or your skin or your diet. I think they're doing an excellent job. But we know that they are not telling a story in the format that they are doing it for a purpose. They want to sell a product at the end of the day. A content creator wants to sell a vision, an idea. He doesn't want to sell a product. Is that where they are going wrong? Sorry? Is that where they are going wrong when you're trying to sell a product through content? But you know, you try going to Hindustan, Lever and say sell a vision and don't put a product in it. I can only wish you good luck. So on that note, I think we should close in that you should try to sell the idea and not the product. Yeah. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much for joining. Thank you very much. I'm going to request you to please give a token of our appreciation to Mr. Lula and sir, thank you very much for this very practical insights you shared during the conversation. Ladies and gentlemen, can we have a round of applause for Mr. Lula? Thank you very much.