❝ Kids don ’ t care when and where they consume content , but they do care what they want to watchgood news for us content producers .❞
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16 THURSDAY
@ ConnecTechAsia2018
28 June 2018
Listen to those little voices
BY SHAD HASHMI
My two daughters are my best teachers and personal diviners pointing me to what could be next . They do this , as all kids do , by just being themselves and leaving it to us to learn the lessons they impart . Every afternoon , my three-year-old comes home from school and asks her older sister to call me and then , innocently and persistently asks me “ Can me ( sic ) watch one episode pleeeaase ?”. This fills me with a warm glow because
( A ) they still call their dad ; and ( B ) there is hope for my industry yet .
While I admit that there is no scientific rigour in my interpretation , there is definitely a deeper message to divine from “ can me ( sic ) watch one episode please ?”. With infinite content choices , there is but one imperative driving my three-year-old daughter — to watch an episode . There is no loyalty of content destination . She is perfectly happy ( even at home ) watching on the big screen , a tablet or a handphone and , she has
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formed this viewing location disassociation at the age of three . There is no link between her choice of content , viewing habits and patterns ( location , time or device ) and I posit that this generation will grow up consuming content wherever they want , whenever they can and however they can find it .
After the emotional warmth of the daily call fades , cold realisation sets in — kids do not care when and where they consume content , but they do care what they want to
❝ Kids don ’ t care when and where they consume content , but they do care what they want to watchgood news for us content producers .❞
— Shad Hashmi , Vice-President ,
Digital Development , Global Markets , BBC Studios Asia . He is also an APB panellist .
watch — good news for us content producers . Linear is an unfathomable concept in her on-demand existence , but she has an unwavering loyalty to her favorite TV shows — Hey Duggee in this case .
Extrapolating from my daughter , children have thrown down the gauntlet . The obvious challenge — make compelling content but equally important is to ensure that the content is everywhere ; the tree falling in the forest analogy applied to content .
The business goal , beyond linear TV , is that the content has to be available on every device and across different platforms — this means that where a content producer has invested in building a subscription video-on-demand ( SVoD ) platform , they have to be available for a wide range of devices and specifications . Either that or , the bold decision has to be made to license the content to an omni-present platform provider .
Once that ‘ everywhere ’ decision is out of the way , the next hurdle rears its ugly head : content discovery . We must be able to viscerally connect to this audience across a multitude of communication channels and get them to respond to our message of : “ Hey , watch this HERE !”. Even if you get consumer consent ( privacy issue ), how do you correctly identify them as they switch from one content location to another ?
Without being able to tell who they are , you cannot effectively tailor a message that resonates . This , again , means being adaptable to an ever-changing communication landscape and being able to gather expertise at pace , with new technology .
Agility , mastery and pace will be our new corporate DNA . Children , unlike adults , do not struggle with these issues . They learn fast and change even faster . Surely , the answer to our challenges lies in learning from our best teachers .