3 Reasons Why Bharat Is A Driver Of Growth For The Media And Entertainment Industry
Home to 22 official languages and several dialects, India exhibits an internet consumption behaviour that mirrors its diversity of languages. 49% urban active internet users prefer to consume internet content in Indic languages*. These users, who we collectively refer to as Bharat, love to consume digital content for their entertainment and hence, form a critical peg in the growth strategy of the media and entertainment industry.
Brands need to get familiar with Bharat’s behaviour patterns to finetune their engagement strategies. ShareChat’s Bharat – The Neo India report decodes Bharat’s behaviour and debunks some of the common myths.
Here’s why Bharat should be a focus of the media and entertainment industry:
1. An affluent, educated segment that is investing in online premium subscriptions
Data shows that Bharat is over-indexed in NCCS A and B segments, at 33% and 34% respectively. Even in higher education segments, Bharat has a higher representation, at 39%, as compared to the overall urban active internet user, which is at 35%.*
Its willingness to spend on key consumption categories such as gadgets, travel, food, beauty and skincare, clothing and electronic goods showcases Bharat’s strong affluence and spending power.
An important and rather new category on which Bharat doesn’t shy away from spending is paid video streaming, a phenomena that is assumed to be largely relevant to India (social media users who prefer English as their main language.)
2. Loves online entertainment
Bharat has readily embraced technology as a way to stay entertained. It ranks in music consumption, video streaming and watching movies among its top three online activities.
Entertainment apps are an inseparable part of Bharat’s lives featuring among its top five most engaged app categories.
3. Video streaming rules the content landscape
Free video streaming has also emerged as Bharat’s top source of daily content consumption, ahead of conventional mediums such as TV and radio, with 50% of Bharat opting for it.
With such a clear love for content and online streaming, Bharat is a must-have in the audience mix for brands in this industry. However, to effectively reach Bharat, brands need to opt for platforms that enable them to engage with Bharat in the language that it prefers.
Video streaming platform MX Player wanted to ensure maximum viewership for its show, “Aashram”. It partnered with ShareChat, the leading social media platform with the largest number of Indic users, to create a buzz around the show within Bharat.
The brand promoted the show’s trailer on ShareChat using roadblock ads and banners to get Bharat’s attention. The campaign garnered a significant viewership for the show by generating over 11.5 Cr views on the back of more than 5.69 Lakh clicks and more than 1.60 Lakh shares. This helped MX Player achieve its promotion target.
Build your Bharat audience
With its growing online entertainment consumption and increasing lean towards paid video subscriptions, Bharat presents itself as an important segment for the Media & Entertainment industry. Given the preference of Bharat for Indic languages, it’s critical for brands to identify and partner with language first platforms that are engaging Bharat at scale.
Data Source:
Kantar ICUBE
Kantar NICS 2021
YouGov Study for ShareChat, Dec 2021
