Mobile-first in mind, MMT bets on vernacular content to upscale engagement with travellers

With an upsurge in content consumption on mobile phones and the mobile becoming the ‘first screen’ for media consumption, offering vernacular content has become favourable or rather more profitable for brands. More and more brands are trying to interact with consumers via mobile screens in local and regional languages for better connect.

“Creating content in vernacular languages has become really critical as India’s language internet users are growing at a rapid pace in comparison to English-speaking internet users,” said Saujanya Srivastava, Chief Business Officer, MakeMyTrip.

Srivastava, in an interaction with BuzzInContent.com, shared how brand is offering its content to travellers in multiple languages via mobile screens. Cashing on these two big trends, the brand is also closely looking at the OTT space.

According to a recent industry report, regional language users have registered a 13% growth in the country whereas English users showed only 1% growth over the past year. Keeping this in mind, to help people travel better in localised content, MMT had launched MMT blogs to share tips and tricks on all things travel.  The blog is available in six languages, including English.

Srivastava said the brand chose six most popular regional languages to engage better with travellers. He said that the brand is aiming to help our customers meet their travel aspirations and if content brings them closer to travel, then it will invest in it.

Last month, MMT had launched in-app travel game show series, Knock-Knock, to drive customer engagement through multiple content offerings.

In-app travel game show series Knock-Knock

The 30-minute live game show is one of the many offerings. When asked why the brand is majorly focusing just on applications and not digital platforms, Srivastava said, “As smartphone penetration further drives growth for online travel bookings in India, we have seen how travellers frequently turn to mobile devices for travel planning whether inspirational travel research, planning an existing trip or booking a last-minute getaway. We hope to acquire new users while driving long-term user retention.”

With an increase of smartphone penetration and low-cost data packages, there is an upsurge in content consumption on mobile. Content consumption on mobile itself accounts for nearly 70% of the overall digital media time spent. While desktop still remains a very important medium, smartphones are clearly dominating the space.

To make the most of the 30 minutes window of customers via on mobile phones, the brand is focusing on content that will bring in the aspect of travel, game show and real time live contests.

For the contests, MMT has partnered with several tourism boards, airlines and hotels to offer travel deals, rewards and prizes. Adding to this, he said, “Any brand collaboration that we do has to resonate well with our brand values and has to be authentic to our true self, that’s the lens we use.”

To a question if the brand is planning to launch any series as well as collaborate with OTT platforms, Srivastava said, “There are no immediate plans of doing another one just off the bat but we will be closely looking at this space.”