'Every business is about the experience': Devraj Sanyal

The Advertising Club, along with JMC Academy (Australia), hosted a workshop in Mumbai on ‘Entertainment Business Management.’ It featured sessions by Antony Waddington, producer and lecturer, JMC Academy; and Devraj Sanyal, MD, Universal Music and EMI Music, South Asia.

'Constantly Evolving Business'

On the constantly evolving entertainment business, Waddington said, “DVDS are getting obsolete for a film release with greater broadband speed being easily available in the United States and elsewhere. It is on its way out while channels such as Netflix are gaining in popularity. It is fascinating to see that studios offer movies online/digitally for a higher price for a short period such as two weeks as a teaser, and then remove it and release it in cinemas. This is actually resulting in an increase in the number of people who are going to buy cinema tickets to see the film.”

The new marketing paradigm

Sanyal began his talk on ‘Taking Indian creative content onto the world stage’ saying, “Currently every single business (be it event, media or music company) is about experiences and no longer based on the product offered. For an automobile company to succeed, it should position itself on the experience offered by its car rather than the car itself. And that would differentiate it from the rest.”

Taking creative content global

For marketers to take their creative content to the global audiences, Sanyal laid down a five-point strategy:

• 'Incredible' and differentiated product
• Fulfil a subliminal need
• 'Marketing is social and social is marketing'
• Glocalisation
• Real-time feedback loop /big data

The speaker presented cases of Indian content successfully marketed to global audiences.

• My Name is Khan: Typically, a Bollywood film is released in India initially, then is released in the major markets of US and UK and then finally in other countries such as Germany and South East Asia and so on. However, Karan Johar, producer of ‘My Name is Khan’, opted for ‘Systematic Exposure’ wherein the film was released simultaneously in 44 countries in eight different languages. This was the first time that an Indian film was released on such a big scale. This resulted in the global collection of the film equalling the local collections the film made in India. The film went on to make $15 million in four weeks.
• Priyanka Chopra: Universal Music launched Priyanka Chopra’s singing career internationally in 2012. The company got her to collaborate with American rapper will.i.am for her single- ‘In my city’ and with Pitbull for ‘Exotic.’ The song ‘In my city’ went onto debut on NFL Network’s Thursday Night Football in the US. According to Sanyal, collaborating with international artistes helped the singles to penetrate in the international space. Similarly, the company was able to leverage domestic Bollywood fan following to spur sales in the India market for Pitbull and will.i.am. Hence, Universal Music was able to sell half a million copies of the singles in the first week in India and the single ‘Exotic’ made a debut on US Billboard charts at number 16.