Customers are in an omnichannel world now, reaching them is a lot more complex: Tata Sky's Anurag Kumar

KOLKATA: India’s undisputed DTH leader Tata Sky unveiled a digital campaign to celebrate its 14 anniversary recently. Of all other usual campaigns, it stands out in its approach of keeping consumers at the heart of the video. Rather than boasting of success with putting a few numbers together, the company has conveyed its journey through its loyal subscribers. While it has invoked a sense of authenticity, Tata Sky chief communication officer Anurag Kumar reiterated more empathy, more authenticity, talking about community, the family in communication are making it easier to connect with consumers in the post-Covid2019 period.

To get a sense of the campaign, Tata Sky’s challenges and opportunities going forward, we caught up with Kumar. He shared that when they were ideating about what would be the best way to reach consumers, they thought of going back to subscribers who have been a part of the brand’s journey for a long time. The subscribers spoke their mind, did not read a script given by the company, and the videos were shot on the phone. 

According to Kumar, such pieces of content created around consumers have greater engagement on social media platforms while TVC would have been one-way. Hence, the company opted for a digital campaign. Even so, the campaign was put up on Tata Sky’s landing page for a short period of time. The video on the digital medium has garnered 23 million impressions and 5.9 million views within seven days.

“I think what we have seen in lockdown is the desire to care about the community and the family has increased. People are more aware of who is around them, they are helping each other a lot. Hence, what we have found is that communication which will be conveyed with sympathy for consumers, authenticity in terms representing real life, what the customer is going through, how they are at home, that is connecting much better in the post-Covid2019 period than before. communication filled with more empathy, more authenticity, talking about community, the family is connecting more,” Kumar opined.

While pandemic is accelerating an overall change, the media and entertainment industry has already started facing an overhaul of the ecosystem. Standing at the critical juncture, Tata Sky is treating OTT as a friend rather than foe. While it has forayed into the video-on-demand market through Tata Sky Binge, Kumar said the overall challenge is now how do they make the brand as phenomenal for OTT as it has been for live TV. 

He shared their approach to counter that challenge. Tata Sky is an expert at aggregating content and brings it to consumers. Now, it is looking at bringing the same kind of convenience and aggregation to OTT. “We have to continuously innovate, try to be relevant in future, from a TV point of view and OTT point of view,” Kumar contended. He said along with opportunities in OTT, pay-TV still has opportunities with 100 million TV unpenetrated households. 

There are challenges in the industry along with opportunities. Kumar said the regulatory uncertainty, that industry faces, is a big challenge  As a result of frequent regulatory changes, the entire relationship between the various players in the value chain has to be evolved constantly resulting in a change in the business model, customer selling strategy, customer management approach. 

“The other challenge is a significant cost and investment which we have to spend to reach consumers via media as it is expensive in India. Earlier, it was TV and print while now there are so many platforms. The customer is actually in an omnichannel world now. If we want to reach a consumer that is a lot more complex now. It is true even for sales as they can go to e-commerce, a physical dealer can contact the call centre. Hence, reaching the consumer in an efficient way via media and physical channels is a challenge. It’s not insurmountable, but it is something which we have to keep in mind,” Kumar commented.