“The more local you are, the more global you are”: Aparna Purohit, Amazon Prime Video

Head of India Originals Aparna Purohit and Sushant Sreeram, director, SVOD at Amazon Prime Video get down to explaining why the service has done so stunningly well in India.

Despite being an outsider to the Indian subcontinent, Amazon Prime Video quickly succeeded in creating a rapport with Indian viewers with original shows like 'Inside Edge', 'Mirzapur' and 'The Family Man'. These series allowed the relatively new player in the streaming space to go beyond the metros and enter the heartland.

Many of these shows have subsequently gone on to have multiple seasons, which is the best possible proof of success. The platform now has content in nine Indian languages and even the interface is available in three Indian languages - Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.

In an exclusive interview with Sreekant Khandekar, co-founder and CEO at afaqs!, as a part of vdonxt Week 2022, presented by VOOT, Aparna Purohit, head of India Originals, and Sushant Sreeram, director, SVOD at Amazon Prime Video, India share their excitement about the future.

Edited Excerpts

Khandekar: Amazon Prime Video has created a number of shows that have gone into multiple seasons. What are the big lessons learnt in creating shows that people want to watch season after season?

Purohit: We live in a very unique time. This is the renaissance of Indian entertainment where all kinds of stories are being told and all kinds of genres are being explored.

Indian consumers have developed a voracious appetite for content and this need for entertainment is pervasive. It's no longer limited to a few hours in front of a television or to an occasional outing with the family for a movie. People are watching content on the go, while travelling, at any time that is convenient to them and on the devices that they prefer. So, it's important to engage them.

For us, everything begins with a good, authentic story. We cater to evolving customers, and their tastes and preferences are changing. They're watching content from not just across the country, but across the world. Their demand is both local and international content. We are all vying for that same span of attention.

Khandekar: Isn’t it paradoxical that it is the most local stories that travel the best internationally?

Purohit: We have always believed that the more local you are, the more global you are. Stories that are rooted in the soil and provide a window into your culture are the ones that have the legs to travel.

If you look even in the past, at Satyajit Ray’s films, the stories were so intensely local that they became global. That’s why I think that the representation of the diversity of our culture is the key to success.

Khandekar: Sushant, on the business side, one of many things could have tripped you in getting consumers to pay. What were the big decisions you took that have worked out?

Sreeram: You're absolutely right. At any point in time, one of many things could have tripped us over.

We realised early on that we had to solve multiple customer expectations all together and not one after the other. So, we had to deal with distribution, accessibility and range of devices; there was marketing, too - and we had to do all of this at once. We had to go all guns blazing on each of them. We figured that if we worked backwards from the customer consistently, the chances of us tripping up would be low.

Three or four key themes emerged. One was that we had to super-serve our diverse customer tastes: fantastic cinematic quality content across genres and languages. We had to do this while working with a diverse set of storytellers. If you look at the last 18 months, we have premiered 52 films across six languages.

We have to offer access via distribution. In a country where if you have a large set of customers sitting on the fence about an SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand) service, we had to make it easy for them to sample and engage with the category and then go on to become avid customers. Fortunately, customers have been extremely welcoming.

Khandekar: There is so much of content on Amazon Prime Video. Within that, what do you see as the central role of Originals?

Purohit: Local Originals have been the key pillar of our growth here. They really help define the service. The fact that we are authentic, diverse and inclusive gets represented through our content. It allows us to tell authentic stories that are entrenched in our culture. We are able to cast for characters without worrying about star power, whether it is Jaideep Ahlawat as Hathi Ram Chaudhary, or Manoj Bajpayee as Srikanth Tiwari or Mairembam Ronaldo Singh as Cheeni in 'Paatal Lok'. We are able to provide a platform to not just established talent, but also emerging new independent cinematic voices.

Tell me about any Hindi show that begins with 5 minutes in Malayalam – 'The Family Man' did. The kind of cross-pollination that’s happening is amazing.

Khandekar: The creative ecosystem in each language is at different stages of maturity. How do you deal with that centrally?

Purohit: We believe in having local boots on the ground. We have a team in each of these languages. This is helping us tap into the local ecosystem. I don’t profess to know (all the local nuances). Our tenet across the company remains the same: keeping the customer at the front and centre of all decisions.

Khandekar: Aparna, how have viewers’ expectations evolved over the past five to six years? Is the bar much higher than it used to be?

Purohit: When we started out, we went knocking on creators' doors asking them to make shows for us. Now, we have talent from across the country wanting to create content for us.

Also, the audience has become more discerning and are now watching the best content from not just within our country, but across the globe. So, we have a greater responsibility to continuously raise the bar. One of the challenges that we continue to face - and the pandemic didn't make it easy for us - is to come back with the subsequent season in time.

Khandekar: One of the big advantages on OTT is that the feedback mechanism is phenomenal. You know exactly how many people have watched a certain show for how long. So, here’s the question: What influences your decision to go with a show - available data or the script?

Purohit: For me, the most important thing is the story. How engaging, compelling and differentiated is the story? Why must that story be told out of all the hundreds of concepts that are sitting on our table? How passionate is this storyteller? Is the story keeping him up at night? That is the starting point for us.

And the second factor is the interest in that genre. Are audiences watching a lot of it?

Once a story goes into season two, that tells you whether it's been successful or not, because the customers have asked for it.

Khandekar: Sushant, how do you know if the content available is compelling enough to get a large number of potential subscribers?

Sreeram: To answer the previous question, data can help sharpen instinct, but I don't think it's meant to replace it. Insights essentially come into the fold when we have a show and have to ask ourselves who this is for and how do we position it?

Back to this question. We have a steady drumbeat of shows and movies. So, every time members turn on the Prime Video app, they have something new and exciting to watch. We bring together the twin engines of Originals and licensed content to make sure that we're always hitting that drumbeat. If we start missing beats, that's when we start asking ourselves, how do we address this? Because at the end of the day, customers have paid for the Prime membership, and a key benefit of that is Prime Video.

Khandekar: Now that the world is opening up and we are heading towards normalcy, how's it going to influence trends in content?

Purohit: Over the last two years, consuming content on digital has become a habit; it’s a part of our existence now.

Viewers are turning borderless and entertainment itself is becoming non-binary. Viewers don't just watch one genre, language, or category of entertainment. And that is why we are trying to address this growing thirst for local, Original and relatable stories across new categories, languages and genres.

Our audience will continue to demand choice. As the idea of a personalised, programmable entertainment watch list is becoming more mainstream, the demand for international content will increase. And the growth is going to come from both Tier-II towns and rural areas. Today, Amazon Prime Video is serving almost 99 per cent of all pincodes in the country.

The Indian content is going to be watched by viewers from not just across the length and breadth of the country, but also across the world.

One out of every five viewers of our Originals or films is from outside India. So, I feel that we can continue to take this content international.

Khandekar: How will the opening up change things from the subscription point of view?

Sreeram: I think it'll give a boost to the entire storytelling ecosystem. Storytellers have had to struggle to tell the stories and produce them at a scale that they would like to and get them accessible to customers in a manner that they would like to. I'm hoping that as the world returns to some sense of normalcy, customers will be exposed to a new wave of storytelling.

Nepa India

Nepa India is a consumer science firm helping some of the world's most reputable brands in more than 50 countries to unlock growth and profitability across all main areas impacting their customer relationship: Marketing Optimization, Innovation and Customer Experience.

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Nepa is known for its straightforward, no-nonsense consumer insights approach to nurture and grow its client's brands. Nepa also creates thought-provoking and powerful thought leadership content through its marquee properties, Originals & Espresso.