“We’re living in the golden age of television”: Jaskaran Singh Kapany, Xiaomi

A conversation with Xiaomi’s marketing head about smart TV consumption patterns in India during this festive season.

Indians typically make big-ticket purchases during the festive season. The leading brand in the market today is a new entrant on the block. Xiaomi smart TVs are becoming increasingly popular now.

During the first wave of the Diwali sale, eight out of the top 10 best-selling smart TVs listed on leading e-commerce platform Amazon were from the house of Redmi and Mi. Redmi Smart TV X (50 inches), Mi TV 4A (32 inches) and Mi TV 5X (43 inches) witnessed maximum consumer demand. Overall, the festive period is expected to end on a high note.

We caught up with Jaskaran Singh Kapany, CMO, Xiaomi India, to find out more about this festive season sale, and also understand the marketing and consumer insights.

Edited excerpts:

We also observed consumers moving to bigger screen sizes, and expect this trend to continue in the near future. We’re confident of ending the festive period on a high note. It’s safe to say, we’re witnessing renewed consumer sentiment, which augurs well for the industry.

In addition, brand trust plays a very important role and eases the consumer decision towards online purchases. For our Xiaomi range of TVs, there are more than a million verified online reviews across trusted e-commerce platforms, immersive detailed online product videos, product reviews from trusted online reviewers, online demo videos, etc. All these have been instrumental in a healthy growth of online purchases. At an overall company level, we have a balanced approach to both the offline and online channels.

At Xiaomi, we’ve been working relentlessly towards amplifying user experience, with our in-house software, PatchWall. We’ve become one of the largest and most intuitive TV content hubs. We’re offering deep integration with 30-plus content partners, with a clear focus on making television viewing an enjoyable experience.

For us, this was the insight, i.e., How can you be ‘smart’ if you don’t demonstrate or show how ‘smart’ you are?

We wanted to not only educate the customer, but also ‘demonstrate’ how Xiaomi TVs are the ‘smartest’. The campaign takes this head-on and also showcases how they need to opt for the ‘smartest TV’, not just a ‘smart TV’.

We have showcased the power of PatchWall - our unique ‘software’ interface. It gives a variety of useful features to the consumers and eases their content discovery journey. PatchWall has been designed especially for India after taking feedback from thousands of consumers over the last few years. Today, it’s the foremost smart software experience in the market.

In addition to the six films across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and presence on leading OTT platforms, there is also a large surround digital campaign. It will feature engaging statistics, social contests, other content-driven interventions, etc.

For us, these were the critical considerations. The challenge was magnified by the inertia that COVID brings with it and the operational issues of executing such a large multi-film campaign in such critical period for businesses.