Disney India's goal is to create a content omni-bus, says Subramaniam

Disney India's goal is to create a content omni-bus, says Subramaniam

Vijay Subramaniam

MUMBAI: Bindass’ maiden web series Girl in the City - a story of a girl who steps into the bustling city of Mumbai to fulfil her dream of being in the fashion industry - has turned out to be a huge success for the channel. According to the channel, it has garnered 53 million views including all the micro-content, episodes, and live interactions with the cast. After 13 triumphant episodes, the channel is all geared up to launch the second installment.

The channel is also launching another show next month.

“The first season has done stupendously well for us. It was one of the most talked about series in its first chapter. I am very happy to say that the success of the first chapter has made us launch the second chapter,” said Disney India VP Media Networks Vijay Subramaniam.

Girl in the City chapter two will go live with its first episode in March following a omni platform strategy wherein it will launch on all the platforms at the same time (YouTube and TV). This year too, Castrol Activ Scooter is back on board as the presenting sponsor with Titan (Tanishq Mia) and Zydus (Everyuth) as associate sponsors.

“The biggest validation is that the title sponsor has come back for the second season clearly indicating that the show has exceeded their expectations. We don’t take too many advertisers because this content effectively works for brands as we are able to seamlessly integrate them into our story telling. In order to do that, we tend to restrict the number of brands we work with and it also gives us time to crate very interesting integrations that are within the story and don’t look forced,” asserted the VP.

The story builds on the first season and moves in a very interesting direction full of surprises. It moves ahead from where it ended last season. This chapter of her life will chronicle Meera’s journey of self-discovery as she comes of age through. Through this journey of realizing her dreams and fulfilling her aspirations, she comes across Kiran (Karanvir Sharma), Areem (Preetika Chawla) along with Kartik (Rajat Barmecha) who play a pivotal role in helping Meera move a step closer to her ultimate goal.

Girl in the City season two is directed by Samar Shaikh, written by Sanyukta Shaikh and is produced by Still and Still Moving Pictures.

The marketing strategy of the show is on the similar grounds like its previous season. It will be conversational and will go wherever the viewers already are. “When we look back at the success of Girl In The City, the whole social engagement that we created by putting Meera Sehgal on Facebook and getting live updates about what is happening in her world was a huge hit. So, we are going to do something similar to help spread the buzz about season two. We are seeing a lot of demand already,” added Subramaniam.

He said further, “We are pretty confident that it will beat all the metrics, every benchmark it has set with the season one. That is my expectation. We believe that it will do better than the first one. Our goal is to create a content omni-bus, which is truly a reflector of the world of millennial and is related to them. It should also have a unique bindass take on the story. We will perceive omni content strategy for consumption,” concluded Subramaniam.

Bindass’ other web-series, The Trip, has also received a tremendous response from the viewers with around 20 million views. Though, the channel has not yet decided on launching a second season.