Mumbai: Pocket Aces’ lifestyle channel, Gobble, in collaboration with DEWAR’S double aged Scotch Whisky by Bacardi, is back with the third season of “You Got Chef’d”.
The latest season will have Bollywood celebs Arjun Kapoor, Tahira Kashyap, Pratik Gandhi, and Rohan Joshi, cooking their gourmet creations with chef and host Ranveer Brar, the channel said. Under the supervision of DEWAR’S India brand ambassadors, Greg Benson and Myles Carroll, the guests will be challenged to try bartending tricks that boost their chances of winning, it added.
“You Got Chef’d! helps bring out the finest cocktail and food pairings alongside fun banter and highlights the amazing occasions at home and otherwise to experience with DEWAR’S,” Bacardi India’s consumer marketing lead-Whiskies, Vijay Dev said. “We hope consumers enjoy this season as well and try their hand at these easy-to-make DEWAR’S Highball cocktails.”
DEWAR’S brand ambassador-India Greg Benson shared, “As DEWAR’S continues to champion innovative Scotch whisky highball cocktail experiences for consumers across the world, You Got Chef’d will further enable the brand in doing so. Especially, at a time when consumers are actively seeking to experiment with easy-to-make cocktails at home, we will help them take their Highball cocktail experiences a notch higher through the show. Furthermore, with Chef Brar as my co-host for the second consecutive season, I am elated as the two of us together effortlessly bring out the Double is Better spirit.”
“Thanks to our unique offerings, viewers are hooked to Gobble for lifestyle content, resulting in our audience base having tripled over the last two years. After the success of the previous two seasons, we decided to push the boundaries and make our guests attempt more difficult cuisines in this season,” Gobble channel manager Ankit Chhabra shared. “The idea was to have our viewers experience global culture from the comfort of their homes. It is going to be super fun to watch the audiences’ favorite celebrities putting their culinary and bartending skills to test. We could not have been happier with the lineup of this season.”
“With every passing season, we have been able to widen the scale of the show in terms of production and viewership,” Pocket Aces’ VP-sales and brand solutions, Vishwanath Shetty said. “Dewar’s, our brand partner, has been on-board for three consecutive seasons for one of Gobble’s ‘Impact property’, making this our longest association with a brand for a given series. This goes to show the merit brands seek in our content and hence choose to associate themselves with it. We have been able to initiate conversations with potential brand partners, taking into account the strong backing of our previously successful associations. This also gives other brands an opportunity to visualise different ways in which they can integrate themselves into seamlessly flowing content like ours; furthermore, witness scale year-on-year.”
Mumbai: Digital entertainment company Pocket Aces Monday has announced the elevation of co-founder Aditi Shrivastava to the newly created position of chief executive officer.
Aditi will headline Pocket Aces’ three lines of business – social distribution, which houses FilterCopy, Dice Media and Gobble, a talent manager Clout, and a studio for digital content.
Aditi will lead Pocket Aces in its next phase of growth and continue to be a member of the board of directors of the company. Founders Ashwin Suresh and Anirudh Pandita, will also continue to remain shareholders and board members, running Loco, the game streaming platform incubated at Pocket Aces, which was recently spun off into a separate entity, the company said in a statement.
Speaking on her new role, Aditi shared, “We have built a strong foundation for Pocket Aces, and I am thrilled to grow it to one of the largest new-age media companies globally. Our core moat gives us the competitive advantage – a highly meritocratic culture with a diverse high-performance team; a data-driven approach to content creation that turns the traditional media model around its head and dramatically increases hit rate; and an ecosystem approach that leverages all major opportunities – capturing media real estate, building large IPs, and growing talent into brands. We have clear visibility of our content strategy and revenue leading us to profitability, and some very exciting new initiatives launching later this year as well.”
Ashwin Suresh said, “Over the past few years Pocket Aces has cemented its leadership position within the digital entertainment ecosystem while championing the overall growth of the industry. In addition to building out monetization for the Social Distribution business and overseeing the growth of Clout, Aditi also put together an impressive slate of shows for the Studio business. Under her new mandate as CEO and supported by a capable leadership team with a healthy mix of industry experience, first-principles thinking, and creative innovation, Aditi is all set to write the next chapter in the Pocket Aces growth story. We are in the first innings of the digital media revolution and I am excited to see Aditi and our leadership team take Pocket Aces to new heights.”
Anirudh Pandita said, “Pocket Aces has set the pace for innovation in digital entertainment and we are more confident than ever of delivering on our promise of solving boredom. The Pocket Aces leadership team led by Aditi, has the right mix of industry veterans and new-age digital-first thinkers, to execute on the exponential growth opportunity that we see in entertainment. Aditi has played a pivotal part in getting the company to where we are today and I am excited to see the new heights she will help the company scale with this expanded mandate.”
3one4 Capital’s founding partner, Pranav Pai, a large investor in Pocket Aces, said, “The Pocket Aces team has used their deep experience in the field to connect with and grow amongst the largest digital audiences in India. Through grounded empathy for their audience’s consumption behaviours and tastes, Pocket Aces has reimagined the digital entertainment model. The company’s content channels are vertically integrated, from the creators up to the audience, and now leverage their position of strength and scale to continuously innovate and expand the frontier. We are excited to continue our support for the next wave of growth as the team pursues an orbital shift to newer heights.”
Pocket Aces reaches over 50 million people on a weekly basis clocking over 700 million video views every month. The company has grown its revenue seven times in the last three years and is on track to become profitable this year, the company further said.
KOLKATA: Pocket Aces’ lifestyle channel Gobble and Flipkart Furniture have launched their first home makeover series – Home Genie. After entertaining millions with its many food and travel series like Love Travel Repeat, You Got Chef’d and Bazaar Travels, Gobble’s latest venture into the home category attempts to create spaces which are a reflection of its residents’ personalities. Hosted by actor Shruti Seth, the quintessential genie with a keen sense of aesthetics, and award-winning interior designer Ali Baldiwala of Baldiwala Associates, the series released on Gobble’s YouTube channel on 25 February.
The series through its tagline ‘Don’t just dream, make it happen’, showcases the transformational journey of couples’ homes, catering to all kinds of home design aspirations and offers the most creative solutions, be it trendy, vintage, or even a modern chic look.
The first of the three-episode series features OTT favourite Abhishek Banerjee along with his wife Tina, who need a living room that offers ample seating for guests, but is minimalistic at the same time. Working with smart seating solutions and sleek furniture selected from Flipkart, Ali creates a space that strikes the right chord by curating the perfect look and feel to meet the couples’ home goals. The series also features TV's favourite couple, Mohit Sehgal and Sanaya Irani, who have personally selected the furniture pieces from Flipkart Furniture as their home office dream becomes a reality, with foldable, multi-utility pieces. The aesthetic designs make their tiny room a grand Insta-worthy, multi-functional home office.
To give back to the Gobble community, the series created a unique opportunity for fans to win a chance to feature on the show. Mumbai-based Florence Saldanha, a die-hard Gobble fan, and her husband Shailesh were chosen as the winners. The channel provided a complete makeover of their master bedroom which as per their wish was intimate, yet functional. While working with these couples, Baldiwala also shared useful tips for audiences to implement and transform their spaces into their dream homes.
Flipkart senior director (furniture, beauty, personal care, baby care) Kanchan Mishra said, “Transforming a house into a home is a very emotional and personal engagement and at Flipkart, we take pride in facilitating this journey for our customers and providing a hassle-free furniture buying experience through our home delivery and installation services. Our association with Gobble will enable lakhs of their viewers to witness home makeovers, get expert tips and hacks on transforming their personal or professional spaces. With Home Genie, we wish to familiarise the audience with the latest home décor trends and ideas to create spaces that resonate with their personalities.”
Pocket Aces VP Sales Vishwanath Shetty said, “Being at home for most of 2020 led to a need to have quality multipurpose spaces which are a reflection of residents’ personalities. Home Genie is a show that enables and inspires couples to bring about this change in their spaces, while also encouraging them to adopt a unique approach to the functionality of their homes. Flipkart Furniture, much like Gobble, offers something for everyone, and so the brand fits in perfectly with our ethos of relatability among our audiences. The resounding response to the contest is a testament of how audiences are seeking new sources of inspiration to make changes in their lives, which inspires us to push the creative boundaries with each property that we create.”
KOLKATA: Stride Ventures has led a Rs 17 crore debt round in digital entertainment company Pocket Aces. Stride will be a strategic partner in Pocket Aces’ growth journey with their customised offerings and deep relationships across banks and corporates.
This partnership with Pocket Aces is the twelfth investment from Stride Ventures’ maiden fund, marking its foray in the digital media and entertainment space as gaming and OTT has had a breakthrough year with industry revenues surging and subscriptions rising through the lockdown.
Stride Ventures founder and managing partner Ishpreet Gandhi said, “Pocket Aces has truly pioneered digital content in India through its data driven approach to content creation. More importantly, the company creates highly relatable content, making it appealing especially for the younger demographic. At Stride, we strive to partner with indigenous companies which have the ability to scale up rapidly by leveraging technology and we see Pocket Aces as a great addition to our portfolio.”
Pocket Aces co-founder Aditi Shrivastava added, “2020 was an unprecedented challenge for humanity and we were privileged to entertain the Indian audience during this difficult time. The lockdown accelerated adoption of digital media as the primary source of consumer entertainment , and so we innovated rapidly to ensure that we could continue to thrive and increase content output in this new normal. As a result, we saw growth in all our major business lines this year. As we go into 2021, we are more excited than ever about the size of the entertainment opportunity in India and are happy to partner with Stride Ventures on our growth journey. This debt instrument is one of the first of its kind for the sector and we think it underlines Pocket Aces’ leadership of the sector as well as the innovation focus of Stride Ventures.”
Pocket Aces will utilise the capital raised to scale the current content output and invest further in new content formats and distribution channels. In 2020, Pocket Aces released multiple shows across its channels that kept audiences gripped with stories of love, life, and the new normal. The company has worked with over 100 brands across sectors including Tinder, Hindustan Unilever, PureMe, Bacardi, Unacademy, and Mondelez, among others.
On the other hand, its game streaming and e-sports platform Loco, has hosted some of the biggest mobile gaming tournaments India has ever seen. Loco also entered into strategic partnerships with Red Bull, Fnatic, NBA 2K League, and other leading brands. The year also saw Pocket Aces launch Clout, its talent management division, which exclusively represents over 60 of the digital industry’s finest and most popular faces.
MUMBAI: Bringing the thrill of popular music festivals home, Gobble, a lifestyle channel by Pocket Aces, has created a cocktail anthem for Bacardi NH7 Weekender in collaboration with OML Entertainment. The endeavour features independent musician Ambika Nayak and acapella group Instrumen to demonstrate two easy yet delicious cocktail recipes that can be mastered at home using Bacardi Rum.
The video, which was released ahead of the Bacardi NH7 Weekender on Gobble’s YouTube, Facebook and Instagram pages, saw Ambika Nayak take viewers through quick cocktail preparations – an aam panna mojito, and a piña colada. She was accompanied by acapella artists from the Instrumen group who created the perfect sound using their beatboxing skills and vocals to emulate instruments and unusual beats while also lending their melodious voices to the lyrics. The sound of the track complimented the visuals of the video, bringing out the young and upbeat vibe of the Bacardi NH7 Weekender. Since its release, the foot-tapping video has caught the nerve of netizens.
Bacardi India and southeast Asia senior brand manager Sameeksha Uniyal said, “For over a decade we’ve been hosting Bacardi NH7 Weekender, that brings alive different music, food and culture experiences for audiences to come together and do what moves them. In this year’s digital avatar, we wanted to leave no stone unturned in getting everyone in the Weekender state of mind. So, we partnered with Gobble for India’s first-ever cocktail anthem, that shows some delicious cocktails to get the party going.”
Gobble channel manager Sonalika Mehra said, “This year’s Bacardi NH7 Weekender focused on bringing the community together in a virtual world with exceptional performances from indie as well as international artists. This fits well into Gobble’s ethos of being a platform for young talented independent creators to deliver engaging content that is fun, quirky, and relatable to our audience. When we came up with the idea for an acapella cocktail anthem, we were confident that this would work well with Bacardi NH7 Weekender’s positioning, while being able to generate the right buzz among its target audiences. The success of the cocktail anthem is an indication that we are on the right path, and the sky is the limit when it comes to our creative avenues to work with our partner brands.”
MUMBAI: Pocket Aces is back with a new season of the hit Instagram series, Firsts. Presented by Tinder and PureMe, Firsts Season 3 explores a same-sex romantic relationship between two young women, who match on the dating app and experience an exhilarating journey of understanding love, life, and more together. A heart-warming story that blossoms during the lockdown, this season is a tale of acceptance, and coming together to celebrate the beauty of love, which has no labels.
Firsts Season 3 stars the talented young actors Shreya Gupto and Himika Bose, who play the role of the protagonists – Ritu Chatterjee and Lavanya Vijaya, respectively – both in their early twenties. Their first match on Tinder leads to a whirlwind online romance, which sees them decide to move in together, after a mere month of knowing each other. Worlds collide when the carefree Lavanya, and the slightly uptight Ritu explore their many ‘firsts’ as a same-sex couple. Being as different as chalk and cheese, their story is both entertaining and relatable for couples across the board.
The series and its production team is a beautiful representation of the LGBTQIA+ community. One of the protagonists identifies as queer, while the other is bisexual. Drawing from real-life experiences, the story is penned by Sulagna Chatterjee who identifies as queer, and is directed by the talented Bharat Misra. Over the course of the 20 one-minute episodes, Firsts Season 3 showcases how couples from the queer community cope with and navigate being in a live-in relationship in a largely heterosexual society.
From their first confession, and first gift, to the first fight, and first feelings of uncertainty, the show captures the sensitivities of a newfound relationship, especially among those breaking stereotypes in society.
The series, which was shot in the midst of the Covid2019 pandemic, promotes the importance of wearing masks to check the spread of the virus by seamlessly weaving in PureMe’s range of linen masks into the episodes. The partnership is the first of its kind for PureMe and the brands’ message “Be Different” was visibly highlighted throughout the show.
PureMe co-founder Arti Yadav said, “Being our first ever digital partnership, we felt it was the right opportunity to not only showcase our range of cute and trendy masks, but also reinforce their importance. We were also drawn towards the beautiful message of love, and breaking stereotypes, which is what ‘Be Different’ is all about. Having said that, we feel extremely thrilled to have begun this journey with Dice Media and look forward to more such mutually rewarding partnerships.”
Kunal Langer, AVP client acquisition & growth, Pocket Aces said, “Firsts as a property is an extremely unique and a disruptive format for story-telling that we at Pocket Aces introduced earlier this year. So far with all the 3 seasons, brands have shown immense interest in the format as the concept is new and highly relatable in nature. ”
Langer said they zeroed in and decided to focus on a topic that content creators have shied away from, and through this season of Firsts, tried to normalise the conversations around queer relationships.
“Amidst these unprecedented times, we have tried to weave in how dating and romantic relationships are transforming and the sole objective behind this season was very different from its predecessors. In addition, over the last few months, we have consistently pushed our boundaries with different takes on relationships, and this has encouraged us to continue bringing out more such content with different themes. I am exhilarated to have partners like Tinder and PureMe as they bring in their unique identities which called for the perfect fit for this season’s concept,” he adds.
MUMBAI: Live streaming technology has come a long way since its inception, and live stream viewers in India are on the rise. From conventional mainstream sports to e-sports, gaming, and online entertainment, live streaming has been used successfully in India in order to bridge the gap between new technology and traditional formats. There are about two dozen streaming services in India like Twitch, Mixer, YouTube Gaming and Hitbox, to name a few; digital subscriptions had risen by 50 per cent to Rs 3.9 billion in 2017, and are expected to hit Rs 20 billion by 2020.
Watch the session here:
During GEMS 2020, industry leaders and experts – Pocket Aces founder Anirudh Pandita, Rooter Sports Tech founder & CEO Piyush Kumar, game caster Raman Chopra and The E-sports Club co-founder Ishan Arya – discussed the future of live streaming in India.
The rise of live casting
Live streaming took off when Hotstar began streaming the IPL live in 2016. It has quickly gained ground since then, with the rise of popular game casters like Dynamo, CarryMinati, ScoutOP, and others. What started as a hobby for these YouTubers soon helped them rack up millions of followers, while also spreading the live streaming bug far and wide.
Raman Chopra started doing live streams by watching gamers on YouTube and Twitch. From being on the platform just two days a week, he started playing games every day. Initially, the gamer had a minuscule audience but it grew quickly and today, he has over 2 lakh 74 thousand followers. Just like Chopra, there are many gamers in India who have made live streaming a fully-fledged career.
With the growing popularity of live streaming, digital entertainment companies like Pocket Aces are helping streamers build their careers and make a profit. Founder Anirudh Pandita said the company has witnessed a whole new breed of content creators cropping up. For instance, there has been a marked rise in the number of game casters on YouTube in the last few years.
To cater to this segment, they’re focusing on building interactivity between gamers, streamers, and audiences through their digital streaming platform Loco. The challenges are many, but so are the rewards, and the team’s developing features and tools around it, said Pandita.
“We know talent very well; we have built some of the biggest live streams on our platform. We also know how to monetize the content, that is how we have built Pocket Aces. It was a very natural offering that we could provide to game streamers,” he further added.
Boosting viewership and scaling
In the live streaming industry, tournament organisers play a big part when it comes to promoting competitive multiplayers. E-sports platform The E-sports Club believes in building an ecosystem where gaming is conducted in a sustainable and scalable manner that is ideal for both sponsors and players.
The Esports Club co-founder Ishaan Arya highlighted that the viewership and excitement level around game casting has increased. As an e-sports organizer, Arya found out that the only way to encourage gamers to participate is by giving them real-life experiences. The company has grown from one event at a time to organising events on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.
Arya said: “The daily-weekly engagement for our content is growing massively. For instance, a campaign we did six months ago fetched us over half-a million views, and on the other hand, for another campaign that we did three weeks ago, we have already touched a million views.”
‘Live streaming next best option to real-life experience’
On similar grounds, Rooter Sports Tech is a social platform that connects sports fans and engages them during live sporting events. It launched its audio and video feature with the start of IPL and world cup matches in 2019. And for the company, the streaming business has been building up for the past 18 months.
Rooter Sports Tech founder & CEO Piyush Kumar said 2019 was a challenging year as the company was deciding to move into sports content. He focussed on building a technology that works in real-time and streaming appeared to be the best option. The reaction of fans that happens in real-time is altogether a different experience because the maximum reaction comes when the match is live.
“YouTubers and Instagrammers used to do commentary here and there to develop some audio-video content so they reached out to us. We built a set up where there are ten languages and different sets of commentators, which has now grown to 100 current commentators while the match is ongoing. It all happened with the help of UGC (User Generated Content),” he explained.
The Covid2019 pandemic led Kumar to think that the logical extension of this product would be to get into the gaming content. He pointed out that 70 to 80 per cent of content in gaming comes through streaming. He built the entire technology in the month of June, and in the last three months, it has scaled massively. The company has added 1.5 million users on its app on a monthly basis.
Monetising content: Experts debate
In Kumar’s opinion, streaming has a well-developed monetisation model. 90 per cent of the revenue made by all the key players is through monetization and the rest 10 per cent is through advertising.
“The system works by paying good publishers to create content for your platform. Firstly, we monetise through advertising which we started last year. So, we have a certain pipeline, brands and partnerships. Post this you provide them the distribution model; it could be on both apps and websites. Like Paytm and Samsung are some of your partners so we decide how to distribute them there. Eventually, take them to a level where they can monetise their content,” he said.
He went on to say that though YouTube has lots of features, it is not customized for Indian audiences.
Reports state that in the next three years, streaming will become 10 to 15 percent of revenue share of the overall gaming market. But more than monetisation, it is important to create engagement that attracts advertisers, put in Pandita.
In a similar vein, Arya said that he believes it is about giving value to sponsors who are investing money. In fact, he has increased the prize money of players by 33 per cent to motivate them.
The panellists came to a common conclusion: that e-sports and gaming is completely different from entertainment, where content could be published weekly. But when it comes to live streaming, the content needs to be created on a daily basis.
KOLKATA: Pocket Aces, India’s leading digital entertainment company, unveiled new branding for its talent management division, labeling it “Clout”.Clout, which means the ability to influence, will focus on exclusively representing the digital industry’s finest and most popular faces.
It will be responsible for offering comprehensive and fully integrated services, facilitating social media growth, IP creation, branded content and endorsements, PR and events, training across various skillsets, casting across all touchpoints including films, web series and TVCs. The team will also act as mentors and sounding boards for important career decisions in the fast-evolving media landscape. Exclusive talent will also have dedicated business managers to ensure high quality, high touch engagement.
Clout’s roster currently boasts of 50+ exclusive talents including popular faces like Barkha Singh, Ayush Mehra, Ahsaas Channa, Komal Pandey, Yashaswini Dayama, Viraj Ghelani, Kriti Vij, Pranay Manchanda, Vrushika Mehta, Disha Madan, in addition to 100+ non-exclusive talentClout has executed successful campaigns for brands like UberEats, Amazon Pay, Swarovski, Revv Cars, Hotstar, and Prime Video, Bumble, Aditya Birla Investing, to name a few. The wing has also played a pivotal role in casting talented actors like Akashdeep Arora in the movie Uri, Rohan Khurana in Thappad, Sukant Goel in Ghost Stories among many others.
Pocket Aces has a massive advantage compared to other talent management companies – they know how to build brands on digital, they have their own channels platforms to give the talent unparalleled visibility, and have a global footprint that the talent can leverage.
Speaking on the unveiling, Pocket Aces co-founder Aditi Shrivastava said, “We are thrilled to add Clout, another strong media brand, to our kitty. Ever since our inception, Pocket Aces has been discovering and giving a growth path to talented actors and creators via our own channels, as well as via our strong partnerships with brands and OTT platforms. Now with the creation of Clout, we are excited to formally spur the growth of this talent, build their individual brands, and give them visibility at a global level. In just a few months, we’ve built an extremely strong and passionate team, and are well on our way to becoming the #1 talent managers in the digital landscape.”
Clout co-lead Juhi Singh shared, “We’ve built out our talent wing with great care and aim to build a well-balanced pool of talent to represent. By focusing on casting or brand associations for talent most suited to their profile, we look forward to creating opportunities that will bring them in the forefront of some great shows, series, films and brands. From the casting viewpoint, many avenues are opening up where digital talent is front lining shows and films. Scoping these out for our talent is our primary objective and in order to achieve this, we are constantly working with industry’s leading producers, directors and casting agencies.”
Commenting on this announcement, Clout co-lead Vinay Pillai added, “Being a pioneer of creating original and noteworthy content, we see tremendous potential in Clout providing talented creators and actors a strong medium to collaborate with leading brands. We truly believe that our country is home for some outstanding talent and Clout will help them get the right opportunities at the right time. We have been successful with striking collaborations like Gillette Venus and we look forward to many more. We also plan to introduce workshops for our digital influencers in the near future. Having pioneered branded content on digital, we are excited to expand this out to creators we work with and further strengthen our partnerships with reputed brands.”
KOLKATA: With the lockdown accelerating the growth of India’s gaming market, the country’s leading game streaming and esports app, Loco, has witnessed a 6x growth in DAUs in the past month. The viewership increase has been driven by a growth in the number of active streamers on the platform, including India’s top streamers, who are now actively streaming on Loco. Monthly active streamers have increased by 122 per cent month on month during the last three months and continue to accelerate at a breakneck pace.
Loco sees over 1,000+ hours of live gaming content being streamed per day and this is likely to grow further in the coming months. The platform enables users to watch and stream gameplays of different games such as PUBG Mobile, FreeFire, and Call of Duty Mobile. Loco houses some of India’s top competitive gamers such as Jonathan, Ghatak, IND Snax, and Xyaa, who, along with top teams like Fnatic, IND, 8bit, and Team Tamilas, provide viewers with the very best of gaming entertainment. The platform is also pioneering the regional language game streaming space with regular South India-focused programming being created in association with Sky esports and Midfail, the leading Tamil streamer, streaming on the platform.
Commenting on Loco’s growth trajectory, Pocket Aces founders Anirudh Pandita and Ashwin Suresh said, “With game streaming and esports, we are witnessing the rise of a completely new category in entertainment and we are excited to serve this ecosystem through Loco. Over the past few months, we have seen consumption growing rapidly and this has been accompanied by strong positive sentiment from content creators, publishers, and advertisers. The gaming community and culture is getting stronger by the day as the sector transitions from a niche hobby to a mainstream interest. We are now seeing streamers come to the fore from various walks of life and different parts of the country, entertaining audiences in their own unique way. We are really grateful for the support of various ecosystem participants and believe that we are just scratching the surface when it comes to the potential of this sector.”
Loco’s notable growth comes amidst a recent report on India’s media and entertainment sector by FICCI and EY, stating that the online gaming industry grew at a rapid rate of 40 per cent in the year 2020. With a mission of transforming esports into popular culture in India, the homegrown app forged an esports partnership with Redbull, manufacturer of the world’s leading energy drink to broadcast the finale of the Red Bull Flick tournament. The platform has also struck an industry-defining strategic alliance with Fnatic India, where the two will co-create unique esports content together which includes multiple tournaments and non-fiction shows. In August, Loco, in association with the POCO M2 Pro hosted its first ever original PUBG tournament that garnered over three million views, with Team Celtz winning the tournament and 8bit Akshat winning the MVP title.
Being one of the earliest entrants in the Indian game streaming and esports broadcasting space, Loco has cemented its position in the rapidly growing ecosystem which comprises over 600 million gamers.
NEW DELHI: The lockdown saw a double whammy – people stuck at home with an appetite for content and the inability to venture out and satiate that demand. While content creators tried to produce new and interactive content, this also gave an opportunity for brands to engage with online audiences by working with content creators. Pocket Aces VP sales and brand solution Vishwanath Shetty spoke to Indiantelevision.com on the new trends and shifts being observed in brand engagements in the pandemic and the change in consumption patterns among viewers.
As everything went into lockdown, shooting from home emerged as a new trend. According to Shetty, “Working remotely has been a great learning experience for all of us as we experimented with different methods of production and created content that was lockdown-friendly. During this phase, we have been able to maintain a steady flow of operations over the last four months. Our first piece of content produced remotely along with a popular whiskey brand saw a phenomenal response. We garnered over four million views on Filter Copy and around 215,000 conversations, as well as an engagement ratio of about 5.78 per cent, which motivated us to know that we are on the right track.”
There has been a different set of advertisers showing interest as well. “The lockdown has created a unique opportunity for brands to reach out to users through innovative ways and introduce new products specially catered to the needs of the hour. Ready to eat foods, dating apps, edutainment and ed-tech dominated this list. Fitness portals and health brands are actively promoting across channels. The new ‘big thing’ in the market today is Covid2019 insurance, a new offering from insurance brands, which is being widely advertised,” he shares.
“A lot of other large companies are also moving budgets internally, to promote relevant products, while staying sensitive to the situation at hand. Food delivery aggregators and services have also increased their marketing and advertising activities. While on a less grand scale, festive sales will still take place, which will, of course, be boosted across channels. So, advertising spends while reduced in some areas, have gone up in others,” he adds.
Shetty asserts that it would be wrong to say that there has been absolutely no impact of the pandemic on the advertising industry. “Across the board, we have seen spends on OOH, TV, and others significantly drop. As brands and channel partners, we need to relook at our strategies and create value propositions that are mutually beneficial. Essential services and technology-powered brands will be drivers of the economy this year and will be the ones to invest in advertising. Brands are now focusing more on performance marketing, which is the need of the hour and this will continue to drive conversations and spends during the festive season and the rest of 2020.”
He shares that the second season of Firsts was entirely shot at the actors’ homes, and they saw 30 per cent more views than the first season. “As a result of the success, brands saw this as a good opportunity to engage with their target audiences and in this manner, we continue to produce short format shows. The more such content we uploaded, the higher our engagement rates went, even touching over 13 per cent.”
The brand's content channels have seen an overall 20 per cent rise in figures. Shetty shares, “The increase in views can also be attributed to curiosity, as audiences were exposed to new formats, which piqued their interest, and contributed to the success of our lockdown content.”
Pocket aces eSports platform Loco has seen a huge uptake when it comes to the amount of content being streamed. Partnerships with influencers too brought in new users, and today it has 24 million registered users with an average time of 30 minutes spent on the app.
