The kid inside

Entertainment is the name of the game as the industry’s related sectors vie with one another to capture the minds, moods and money of people seeking fun-filled moments aside from their daily routine in life.

 Today , even as India boasts of being the third largest television market in the world, entertainment continues to be a big business,  drawing billions of rupees in different ways, wherein companies and organisations constantly redefine their activities in keeping with the times and efforts globally, attracting the crowds to their products.

Indian kids in the age group of four to 14 years represent a spending potential of about Rs 22,594 crores and have more money to spend than the GDP of 50 smaller countries such as Bhutan, Aruba and the Maldives. Turner International India Private Limited, recently noted in its 12th edition of its flagship research study- behavioural pattern and spending habits of over 6,690 kids in a pan-India survey in many towns. The study found out that kids are no longer only consumers, rather they are high purchase-influencers today by being extremely conscious about the environment they live in.

“While our study showed that 75 per cent kids preferred animated television content, India’s animation is still in a nascent stage and we are trying to spread it abroad by tying up with local talent,” said Siddharth Jain, MD-South Asia, Turner International India Pvt Ltd. “Digital consumption market and the influence of multi-television markets abroad is much higher than in India. Television remains the number one entertainment vehicle and cartoons are the preferred choice.

 The study highlighted over 50 per cent of the parents watching television with their kids, amongst millions entertained in India. "While our study is more India-specific, it will help not only in improving our content for our target audiences – kids, but also provide an insight to our partners in advertising and marketing", Jain added.

Other interesting aspects of the study included a whopping 78 per cent kids helping their parents in choosing vacation destinations, while 50 per cent kids influencing their parents’ purchases. Two in 3 kids were aware of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, while 55 per cent parents encourage their kids to read.

Salman Khan emerged as a clear favourite among kids, while Katrina Kaif topped among Bollywood divas. Sachin Tendulkar, a favourite male sports icon followed by Sania Mirza as number one sports woman.

 About 97 per cent are single television households; 16 per cent kids use computers at home and 50 per cent access internet at home, one in four kids claim to be active on social network; 71 per cent kids are mobile phone users while 17 per cent parents use more than one mobile phone. With this fast growing attraction towards technology, gaming is termed to be a number one online leisure activity with 53 per cent boys and 44 per cent girls being professional video-gamers.

Kids interested in sports too are playing an important role in entertaining public as well as drawing the youth towards it. Motorsports recently drew cricketing legend Mohammed Azharuddin to its avenue of supporters, who urged for not comparing cricket with other games. He rather lend support to all other sports including badminton and hockey that have brought many medals and laurels for India.

“Motorsports, while being a great entertainer, is not easy. It is tough because an individuals' performance counts,” Azharuddin said while expressing support for 18-year-old Indian racing sensation Nayan Chatterjee, who had won second place in the Asia Max Championship in Malaysia, this year. 

In a bid to increase his entertainment and career graph, Motosports racer Nayan Chatterjee joined Meco Motorsports for training under India’s biggest racing mentor Akbar Ebrahim, who has chalked out his growth plan for 2016-2017. 

“Cricket is the mother of all sports entertainment, but when youngsters like Nayan Chatterjee come up with such achievements, at a tender age, it highlights the hidden potential talents in other sporting youngsters who start motor sports at between 7 to 8 years of age today", Meco Motorsports founder Akbar Ibrahim said. 

Chatterjee was being groomed to race in the 2017 Asian FIA Formula 4 Championship and in one of the European FIA Formula 4 Championship.  

Entertainment via Mobile phones technology witnessed Vodafone, in its quest for providing mobile entertainment choices, recently launching 'U'– a one-of-its-kind lifestyle entertainment proposition for the Indian youth that was highlighted in collaboration with popular youth icons such as Kanan Gill, rapper Raftaar and The Viral Fever.

 Describing India’s 200 million strong youth as optimistic, vocal, trendsetting and very social media savvy, alongside being comfortable with technology, Sandeep Kataria, Director (Commercials), Vodafone India, said "the mobile phone played a central role in their lives both as command center and companion. 'Vodafone U' would ensure their connectivity with friends and fun via Internet, voice, music round the clock. Youth in India is the highest consumer of data. out of which 70 million people in urban India are our target audience."

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in entertainment was the mantra as one of the entertainment TV channels- Viacom18 , highlighted a social initiative about the road to prosperity through cleanliness in its 'Swach Bharat to Chakachak Mumbai' campaign. With more than half of the country’s population having no access to toilets and the peril of open defecation highlighting a sanitation crisis in India, this cannel flagged off its CSR Behaviour Change Communication campaign to tackle the unhygienic sanitation condition in the slums of Mumbai by adopting four slums.

“We are India’s favourite storytellers and we decided to leverage that primary strength into building a story of why good sanitary practices are important. Our entire campaign focuses on how cleanliness leads to prosperity,” said Sudhanshu Vats, Group CEO, Viacom18, who flagged off the initiative witnessing a year-long renovation and reconstruction of over 200 toilets in these areas. Vats has been at the forefront of amplifying socially relevant issues, through movies, television series, support for social causes and various on ground activities by touching the lives of people through properties on air, online, on ground, in shop and through cinema.

Meanwhile, Amusement Parks too are introducing various activities for drawing both kids and grownups in huge numbers. While Kashmir offers a peek into the snowy world of winter, the same has been recreated in the hot climes of India’s economic hub- Mumbai, through the recently-launched Imagica Snow Park where one can witness snowfall amidst sub-zero temperatures in a 50-foot-high snow dome on a 30,000 square feet area in Khopoli, off the Mumbai-Pune expressway.

Kapil Bagla, Director and CEO, Imagica, told Millennium Post that the snow park, built at a cost of Rs 20 crores, uses distilled water in producing snow through technology that had been imported from different countries.

“India is an entertainment-starved nation and following the setting up of Imagica theme park’s in 2013, we have had over 3.3 million visitors, requesting to add on more entertainment activities. They want us to include an 'adventure park' in the next phase. Our snow park is the largest in India and built in record time of 13 months to provide toboggan slides and rafts, rocky mountain climbing; making a snowman or snowball battles, ice sculptures, snow castle and even an ice café, igloo and discotheque,” he added. 

"Hygiene is maintained by the snow park being gutted after every session, besides the shoes and jackets being washed and sun-dried every hour", he said, adding that tourists coming from far off places stay over for several days at hotel Novotel in the park’s area in order to enjoy the water, the snow and other activities.

On the other hand, gamers in India too got a boost just as top global laptop vendor ASUS unveiled its new line up of ‘Republic of Gamers’ (ROG) series in India with their latest six additions of hi-performance laptop and  desktops (for gamers), taking the gaming experience on a different level. Describing Gaming technology as ever-evolving, Peter Chang, Regional Head - South Asia & Country Manager – System Business Group - ASUS India, said "today’s gamers sought high performance and graphics along with portable and light-weight machines, and our new ROG series aims at catering to demands of all the gaming segments.

The Indian gaming industry is worth approximately $890 million and has crossed an inflection point. With a huge skill base across IT, testing and art design, the future of the gaming industry in the country looks bright in the years to come.

 

ASUS, which  is collectively responsible for one-third of global PC shipments, is focusing on integrating up-to-date technology and upgrading its gaming series to keep pace with growing demands in the gaming space. With such innovation and a constant eye on the market, it anticipates being top soon in terms of gaming devices, besides reaching the top 3 in the Indian market as well, which introduced the entry-level and mainstream gaming devices to help them indulge in their kind of gaming with the latest technology.