The India Kids Summit Season 5 witnessed a great turnaround this year, where dignified professionals assembled together to have insightful conversations about several topics that shape the ecosystem and business. One of the burning topics has been that of key trends that shape the kids entertainment scene.

Ms. Soumini Paul, Senior Vice President, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment moderated the session with Ms. Avani Bhanchawat, Vice President & Head, Revenue, KC Global Media; Mr. Sourabh Kumar, Founder & CEO, Puntoon Kids & Vidunit Media Pvt Ltd; Ms. Preeti Vyas, President, CEO & Chief Storyteller, Amar Chitra Katha Pvt. Ltd. in attendance.

Ms. Paul- Let us know how has changing trends affected or modified your strategies and how have you adapted to it.

Ms. Vyas – Tinkle is one of the oldest children’s magazines and for something that is so nostalgic, we have tried to adapt to changing times by having apps since the last three or four years. I would say, it is obviously challenging but also exciting. In the end, you can’t force the kids to see, watch or read what they don’t like. 87% of our revenue comes from content consumption. For instance, you can’t expect kids who love to watch anime to connect with the old tinkle stories. The pace of content creation and exhibition is faster than ever. Apart from your loved characters like Supandi and Shikari Shambhu, you have new characters, who are also rated high. We even tried vertical content in terms of web stories where you can go through it in a single scroll. That’s great to keep up with technology but as of now, it is just an add-on for engagement.

Mr. Kumar– With PunToon Kids, our vision has always been very clear. We were trying to build real heroes and not superheroes. This motive is also why I thought of venturing into kids content. We see how MSR companies are creating content outside India which adds some value to their lives. Hence, we were clear – whatever we create, we wanted kids to envision to be real heroes. In terms of keeping up with short form content, we have tried YouTube shorts which is great but it isn’t for revenue. That’s purely for engagement as YouTube as a platform promotes it.

Ms. Bhanchawat– We have AXN channel and the biggest entry into India for us has been the Japanese entertainment brand, Animax. People know that Animax was launched two decades ago and has been there around in India as well. But only recently, we have really solidified Indian audiences’ interest. The biggest misconception with anime is that people confuse it to be regular animation and cartoon. I can assure you, it is definitely not. Japanese anime fans are gamers and it’s gradually becoming mainstream. When it comes to our revenue, bulk of it comes from subscription. We initial started with Prime Video and now are reaching a wife range of demographic. We absolutely don’t promote ourselves as content for kids as even the Japanese owners are very protective about not commercialising. For advertising, online gaming has been a very viable segment. We also tried anime in vertical content but we have noticed our fanbase is very rooted and deep.

Ms. Paul – How do you work with brands? What the kinds of yes’s and no’s you have?

Mr. Kumar– The biggest problem has been that many brands say that they cannot target kids. We did have a brand from Finland reach out to us. We integrated with them and it worked. With brands we always try to understand their objective. There was a popular chips brand that approached us but we disagreed. We collaborate with brands, who we feel will be great for kids.

Ms. Bhanchawat– We do branded content with a good return on investment (ROI). Of course, we cannot do it with the original IP and commercialise it because it isn’t owned by us. But there’s been a resurgence with the music spending. I guess not many people would know but there’s a whole music industry on anime with the original soundtracks. And hence, for brands this is a huge attraction where you see fly away contests, cosplay events and so on. We mostly rely on that.

Ms. Vyas– For us, it’s simple. Everywhere where kids are goin we are going there. Amar Chitra Katha is known to give stories and we will keep making and delivering stories.

Associate Partner: Neela Film Productions

Partners: Puntoon Kids, ProAce

An initiative by IWMBuzz Live