'Building Kids Brands and Audiences'

Lured by the potential of owning intellectual property and driven by the passion of creating Indian content, a growing number of Indian animation studios and boutique shops are beginning to take interest in the local market. As these studios set about designing and writing their series, who better to inform them about how to keep a tab on 'What kids want?' than the Kids Broadcasters themselves?

The session 'Building Kids Brands and Audiences' at NASSCOM Animation India 2006 boasted of a panel comprising of programming heads from the leading kids channels in the country including Hungama TV's Zarina Mehta, Cartoon Network's Vishnu Athreya, Disney's Nachiket Pantvaidya and MTV's Sylvia Schmoeller.

The importance of Audience Research
In a nation that boasts of 330 million kids, keeping a tab on thier pulse is as challenging as it is rewarding. The importance of constant audience reasearch and interaction was stressed upon by all the panelists.

Taking first strike Disney's Nachiket Pantvaidya remarked,"People are creating products in isolation, they need to delve deep into the psyche of Indian kids before they set about their projects"

Sharing some insight he further added," Animation driven programming is more pre dominant in the sub 9 year old age demo. The Indian market is still very much a single TV viewing and parents have a greater degree of control. Kids themselves are growing up quick and 83% of the programming that they consume is general entertainment while only 17% of programming consumed is the 'Specially made for kids' kind"

Cartoon Network's Vishnu Athreya too remarked,"You have to be like kids to be liked by them. To be like them you have to observe them, interact with them all the time. Studios should make use of the in depth knowledge of the audience that broadcasters like us have and should work closely with broadcasters"

Using some of Hungama TVs interactive contests and advertising campaigns as case studies, Hungama TV head Zarina Mehta demonstrated how the channel has been procedurally evolving based on audience feedback and choice.

"Kids want their faces on hoardings and ads. They want to be heros" remarked Zarina, citing the example of the recent Hungama Captains campaigns.

Adding on to the research theme, MTV Networks' Sylvia Schmoeller stated that "Studios also ought to know what the Channel that they are pitching to stands for, in terms of its positioning and the kind of programming space it is in"

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The opportunities in Local content
"We need to give a local context to all our shows and there is a lot of opportunity for local animation in Interstitials, Interactive Eelements and Endorsements" said Disney's Pantvaidya.

He also stressed that content had to be visually homogenous with the on air environment of a channel, as well as in the language used.

In what was music to the entire audience's ears at NASSCOM Animation India 06, Cartoon Network's Vishnu Athreya quipped,"2006 is going to be a pronounced year for the Indian animation industry. There have been till now around 10 products on air which have been created locally"

"There needs to be constant experimentation and evaluation and the studios have to think content beyond simple plain staid animation" he added.

Citing the example of Hungaming, (Hungama TV content as games on Mobile with Indiagames), Hungama's Zarina Mehta said,"Today all content is cross platform and localised content too has to be made in a manner that it can lend itself across platforms"

The need to explore alternative financial models
The value proposition in selecting programming is in direct relation to the ratings potential and value the programming offers in terms of generating advertising revenues.

"There is need for a model that effectively demonstrates a significant gain in using customised locally created content as against non customised content" stated Disney's Pantvaidya.

"We need to explore alternative financial models for creating local content such as
advertiser funded programming or content sharing across platforms and revenue share models" he added.