Viacom18’s digital video-on-demand streaming service and India’s second largest AVOD OTT platform –VOOT has been on the turf for three years now. The platform is celebrating its third anniversary and has revealed that it has crossed the milestone figure of 100+ billion minutes of watch time. VOOT has also said that it plans to touch 100 million monthly active users by the end of the current Fiscal Year.
VOOT Announces Thirty New Original Shows
The company has also announced more than thirty new VOOT Originals which will be across many genres and languages and will be launched this year only. Some of the titles which VOOT has teased from its Originals roster include Law and Honour, Naaz, Love All, The Raikar Case, Kaisi Yeh Yaariaan - Season 4, Marzi and Asura.
Speaking about the growth and future vision of VOOT, Sudhanshu Vats, Group CEO and MD said, “India will have an online consumer base of more than 500mn by 2022. Of this, more than 3/4th will be consuming video content. While technological advancements allow us to personalise content consumption, growth for the category will come from our ability to segment our offerings to multiple consumer segments accelerated by the three A’s – accessibility, availability and affordability.” He further added, “VOOT has crossed the 100bn watch minutes’ mark in 3 years, and we are now targeting 100mn monthly active users within this financial year. Additionally, we are segmenting the VOOT business into four uniquely focussed propositions – the existing AVOD model and the upcoming freemium offering, VOOT Kids and VOOT International.”
VOOT Studios to Help Advertisers Rollout Branded Content
Another major announcement that VOOT made during the event was about the launch of VOOT Studios which is a business performance-oriented content tech solution for advertisers. The new platform will connect digital audiences with branded shows and sponsorships. It will also avail these advertisers a method to implement interactive solutions for their advertisements.
Akash Banerji, Head of AVOD Business, VOOT said about new VOOT Studios “Brands today realise regular ad spot while important is not sufficient to drive resonance with the consumer. Branded content solution is hence the way forward given that it allows for bespoke content curation and subtle communication embedded into the narrative of the show. VOOT Studios will allow brands to bring the world of story-telling, data and tech all together to deliver the brand message and the ROI effectively for the business.”
He also talked about VOOT’s consumer insights product MAVARIC which is built to help advertisers identify the right audience thus ensuring high impact via communication. He noted that MAVARIC goes beyond simple demographic profiles, and also inherits parameters like purchase behaviour, affinity, online behaviour and more.
Banerji said that interactivity is one of the novelty offerings from VOOT when it comes to branded content play. Combined with deep insights from MAVARIC, these are further strengthened to provide results to the advertisers who use the platform. He also later announced that VOOT would be introducing five new programmes in the next few months which will fuel further growth and attract users to the platform.
