MUMBAI: India, in the middle of a digital boom, has seen a stupendous growth in the OTT industry. Once considered a traditional audio-video market, India is increasingly taking to digital platforms for entertainment. The audio industry is the next big thing in the Indian OTT world. As revealed by IFPI Global Music Report 2019, which surveyed music consumers aged 16–64 across nine geographical locations in India, 97 per cent of the respondents admitted to listening to music on their smartphones.
Gaana CEO Prashan Agarwal says, “Currently more than 225 million users in India are consuming music online. The Indian music streaming industry is booming, and the market will grow to 400 million monthly active users in the next two years. As the country’s go-to music app, our users are streaming over 3.5 billion songs every month.”
IVM Podcast spokesperson also notes that audio platforms in India are increasing in popularity every day. “Currently in India, there are 200-300 million subscribers on OTT music streaming platforms and approximately 10 million listeners for podcasts.”
This makes for a good opportunity for advertisers to tap this gold mine of communication to reach their target consumers as the same report reveals that 86 per cent of consumers engage with on-demand streaming services for their music. Subscription streaming revenues grew by 33.3 per cent from Rs 73.2 crore to Rs 292.8 crore and ad-supported audio streaming income rose by 43.6 per cent to Rs 78 crore to Rs 257 crore in 2018.
Agarwal says that platforms like Gaana empower advertisers to connect to the consumers at a personal level, enabling them to create hyper-personalised ads in real-time by tagging parts of commercial scripts to create and serve relevant ads. Gaana also offers a suite of advertising opportunities including premium dynamic ads that can be fully customised based on the advertiser’s specific requirements.
Podcasts, which are an equally dynamic category experiencing mammoth growth online, also provide a great platform to advertisers. The IVM Podcast spokesperson says, “Those listening to podcasts generally tune in from the beginning of the episode and stay listening till the end. This gives brands immense scope to explore through the timeline of the episode and place their advertisements for greater impact. The audience that tunes in usually falls in the category of tastemakers and influential listeners. Because of this, the advertisers can carry out hyper-targeting to find their exact target group and approach them in a new fashion.”
The audio-industry is at an inflexion point right now and it will be smarter for advertisers to invest in it. It will not only help them reach their target audience at scale but will also provide a better-targeted reach.
