How Worldwide Media transformed from print to entertainment and lifestyle content company

Worldwide Media (The Times Group), which has magazines such as Femina, Filmfare, Hello, Top Gear, Grazia, GoodHomes, Home & Design Trends and Lonely Planet, has transformed itself into a 360-degree content and media company with an aim to become India’s largest entertainment and lifestyle content creator.

Priyadarshi Banerjee

“Our goal is to establish ourselves as a 360-degree content and media company and to do away with the legacy of just being a print organisation, ”Priyadarshi Banerjee, National Revenue Head, Digital and Marketing Head, International Brands, Worldwide Media, told BuzzInContent.com.

“Unlike West and European markets where we have seen a sharp decline in print, India is still a print-friendly market. What specialised magazine companies like us bring on the table is the brand credibility. Whether it rests on the legacy that our magazines have or the international feel with global titles like Lonely Planet, it has led to huge power of our survival and growth story,” he added.

Explaining the rationale behind the transition from a print-first organisation to a content-first organisation, Banerjee said, “If you look at the overall print market, it is de-growing. Television has consistently grown although the growth rate has slowed down. So, digital and videos were the only form of medium that was growing at a fast pace.”

The group is strengthening its digital-first and platform-agnostic strategy with shows that can fit across television and digital. Even as the magazine business is largely profitable for the company, Banerjee said that the move was very organic.

The company that offers content solutions across platforms including print, digital or TV, positions itself as a content-first, platform-agnostic and consumer-focused organisation. Banerjee said, “Our vision is to become India’s largest entertainment and lifestyle content company.”

“In the last couple of years, we have been more strategic in our approach where we explored multiple formats and built multiple teams separately for short-form and long-form video content and branded content,” he said.

Vidyut Patra

While the company is aggressive on long-form content, Vidyut Patra, Head of Content Studio, Worldwide Media, feels that long-form content are the pieces for which the gestation period is larger but snackable short pieces are consumed faster. “If you look at the mobile platform and younger TG, snackable content works there always.”

When asked if the importance of textual content space is depleting as the world,including WWM, is focusing on video more, Patra said, “If it is not growing drastically, it is also not depleting for us. The way in which textual content is presented might change.”

With content increasingly becoming the new form of advertising which is more cognitive in nature and which appeals to more of human emotions, the company claims to have moved its pure-play print advertising business to content conversations.

“Our goal also has shifted to reinventing ourselves as a content-first organisation. A big part of the goal is educating the market and making them realise that we are not only a magazine company but our capability now lies in understanding brand proposition and objective and to provide a holistic solution,” said Banerjee.

One has to keep the thin line between branded content and content marketing in mind while creating content to avoid making the piece as on-face advertising. The consumer today is intelligent enough to understand the nuances, feels Patra. “Content marketing has to be very smartly done because gone are those days when you could place a bottle of ‘X’ product on the table and directly talk about it. It is still happening but that is not going to drive engagement for the brand. Engagement will take place when the product is placed in the right environment with the right TG and the right content around it.”

Giving an example of the right product placement, Patra said, “When we did the show with Nexa, we drove from Delhi to Bangkok through Burma and we created a long-form content that was aired on Discovery, the vehicle was the part of the journey. The experience of driving and exploring places was the crux of the story that actually got people hooked on to it. That is what worked for the show. But without the vehicle, the show wouldn’t be possible. So it was all about placing the product in the right environment. Even if it was a branded content, nowhere the consumer felt that the brand is overwhelming and the content was still the king.”

When it comes to platforms for distribution of content, Worldwide Media remains open to go cross platforms. According to Banerjee, “One is that we create branded content on our own platform and that adds the level of credibility. The second layer of this is when we produce content and we take it to the platform that does not belong to us but required to reach out to the target audience. We work with a lot of brands to do white-labelled associations for syndicating our content to their platform.”

Fashion and beauty are two categories that are investing a lot in content, especially the giants like Unilever, P&G and Marico, according to Banerjee. Even as more and more brands and categories are increasing including content marketing in their media mix, he feels that real estate and BFSI are categories that are far behind in tapping the potential of content. “Large part of their investment goes into performance-led campaigns. When they talk about digital, they go for lead generation. But I think the consumer journey does not start from getting them to click on a form and enter their details but it starts much in advance.”

Given the increasing number of content creators and everyone claiming to be different from others, WWM claims to have the huge repository of insights and research with its existing brands. “Our access to the entire fraternity, whether it is Bollywood or automotive sector,is helping us. Because of our existing understanding of the brands, the ability to add value to the content is much more,” said Patra. “There are multiple players in the market but people who will be able to provide content based on insights and tap into what consumer is actually looking at are more likely to succeed.”