AMAR CHITRA KATHA

Group P
Ashish Guneta | Dylan Fernandes | Shanthini R | Tvisha Dholakia | Utkarsh Rustogi
AMAR CHITRA KATHA
One of Indias largest comic and graphic content series, Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) aspires to be
the leading provider of quality education and entertainment experiences for children. In the light
of changing generational preferences and competition from other comic books and alternative
media, ACK faces a challenge of staying relevant and maintaining its position and presence.

AS-IS ANALYSIS
ACKS CURRENT FOCUS:
The primary consumers of the ACK publications, media, and other content are children
(although ACK also has viewership from audience interested in learning about the cultural
values) and hence, most of ACK content is in the form of illustrations and graphics, both print
and digital. The focus of the content, characterization, and stories is to communicate Indian
values, culture and legends to the audience.
ACK REVENUE STREAMS:
Revenue sources include sale of the print magazine titles, subscriptions, books, licensing
royalties, merchandizing (activity books, jigsaw puzzles, etc., and toys) and sale of popular ACK
characters, sale of related products including. ACK has also established its presence in the
digital media through its arm ACK-Media, having forged partnerships to make its content
available on the mobile and tablet platform, home video, TV, and online. Advertising as a
source of revenue from print media is limited due to negative feedback as well as reluctance of
advertisers because of the lower pester power of Indian children in driving purchases.
ACK COMPETITION
Although a leader in its domain, ACK faces competition not only from other indigenous graphic
content companies, (Chandamama, Champak, Childrens Digest, etc), international comic books
(Tintin, Asterix, Marvel and DC titles, etc), but also from television and internet media (cartoons
and children shows on Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Pogo, etc, childrens movies, YouTube
video channels including Chu Chu TV, HooplaKidz, etc.) and childrens games.

WHAT COULD THEY HAVE DONE IN 2008?

2008 was characterized by an ecosystem where smartphones didnt exist, broadband internet
speeds in India were slow, Orkut was the primary social media platform and Facebook was just
gaining prominence. We believe that ACK has the content and the products (books, toys etc)
but lacks a strategy which will help them gain visibility. Given this background, we suggest the
following merchandising initiatives:
a. Develop emoticons, stickers and skins for messengers such as Yahoo messenger and MSN
messenger so as create awareness and recognition about its characters and themes

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b. Create and host flash games on its own website to drive traffic and ensure engagement
c. Develop a merchandising strategy which involves tie-ups with restaurant chains such as
McDonalds. This strategy would involve distributing toys of ACK characters along with meals
served by McDonalds.
d. In order to create an impression in the minds of a younger audience school going children
ACK can create labels etc which are used on school notebooks and textbooks. Taking this
concept forward, ACK can also create stickers and posters which will be distributed through
their books. This will act as an incentive to for children to buy the comics. As an example,
the sales of Lays chips saw great traction when they dished out free Tazos.

WHAT CAN THEY DO IN 2015?

We believe ACK should undertake an introspective exercise and analyze its content strategy.
This would include content development, content curation and content repurposing.

WHAT FORM OF CONTENT REALLY WORKS?

Given the current migration to digital content, we believe ACK ought to pursue an aggressive
digital content strategy. , especially interactive and animated content. To set some context as
of December 2014, YouTube has 60 million monthly active usersi in India, of which 40% was
driven by mobile phonesi. The number of smartphone users in India, on the other hand, are
expected to grow from 29 million in 2012 to 382 million in 2016 at a CAGR of 91%. Leveraging
the potential of both these enablers would require ACK to create and distribute good quality
interactive and animated digital content which will ensure higher levels of user-engagement.
This would include games, videos, quizzes and other forms of content that require the
consumer to be actively engaged instead of passive engagement

CONTENT CREATION
Staying in sync with ACKs themes, we suggest that the content creation team focus on creating
content around historical characters such as Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vivekananda or Indian
emperors and kings which will resonate with a wider audience domestically and globally. As
regards the source of content creation, ACK should continue resorting to user-generated crowd
sourced content which will allows its editorial teams to focus on curation and therefore put out
content (under the same title) and new titles more frequently. Once ACK gets its house in order
with a content strategy, stable audience and revenue streams, it can consider the idea of
creating a digital magazine for its title either an umbrella magazine or multiple magazines for
multiple titles. These magazines can be distributed though aggregation platforms such as
Magzter and Flipboard.

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AUDIENCE SEGMENTATION & TARGETTING
We strongly believe that ACK ought to repurpose its content to suit the tastes, preferences and
consumption peculiarities of various audience segments. An appropriate segmentation would
be: 1-5 years, 5-10 years, 10-18 years and 18+. As regards the first segment, ACKs content
should resemble the content put out by Hooplkidz, Chu Chu Tv etc where the content is heavily
graphical, minimal text and audio and progresses very slowly. With increase in the age of the
reader, ACKs content should progressively mature similar to international comics such as
Batman where the content is repurposed to appeal to various age groups.

EXPANSION INTO EDUCATIONAL CONTENT

Although ACK has tie-ups with schools and libraries to make their books available, they do not
have strong presence in primary educational material. Entering this classroom teaching space
would involve designing modules that are relevant to school board curriculum and innovating
with the content to make it enjoyable for classroom discussion. ACK can also explore weaving
stories, using immersive graphics and using famous ACK characters to create alternative
teaching methodologies for in-school as well as out-of-school education.

CONTENT DISTRIBUTION
1. Interactive and engaging mobile content:
In order to leverage the smartphone and 3G connection penetration, ACK needs to overhaul
its mobile-focused digital content. ACKs previous attempts at putting out interactive content
in the form of games and audio books has met with limited success. We believe ACK should
create an umbrella mobile app (something like WeChat or Line) wherein it can distribute
games, audio books and other animated content.
2. Tie-up with a multi-channel network:
Currently, ACK manages its own YouTube channel which is off the pace with only 724
subscribers and 357,000 views since 2008 ii . Managing a YouTube channel as regards
publishing content, maintaining it and monetizing it requires significantly different skill and
expertise which are the forte of multi-channel networks. A multi-channel network typically
aggregates video (especially YouTube) content, manages YouTube channels and helps
optimize ad-revenues through targeting, positioning etc. In the Indian context, YoBoHo has
built significant expertise in managing and monetizing kids content. An MCN can add value
to ACK in the following ways:
a. MCNs can reach a younger demographic who spend more time online than on TV.

b. Real-time data visuals which reveal which videos are working and when they're working.

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 c. MCNs offer instantaneous scale to legacy media and content companies. Similarly, the
MCNs possess invaluable technology capabilities, especially predictive analytics and
content management which are quintessential for managing YouTube content.

3. Facebooks Instant Articles

Facebook recently launched Instant Articles, which allows publishers to create content that
stays native to the social media platform, rather than requiring users to click through to the
content publisher's website. By using Instant Articles, ACK (or for that matter any publisher)
gains access to a huge audience base. Facebook is aiming to entice publishers by offering
100% of the ad revenue that they sell around articles, and 70% of the advertising inventory
that Facebook sellsiii.
4. Unbundling of comics:
Single frames or short strips that is easily sharable on social media or over mobile data
channels. Although this is free content, this increases ACKs visibility and reinforces the
brand in the mind space of the digital consumer.
5. Tie-up with in-travel entertainment providers
As an alternative mechanism for distributing content, ACK can tie-up with in-travel
entertainment providers such as PressPlay. PressPlay is a paid app which allows users to
stream entertainment content on PressPlays Wi-Fi during long travels.

MONETIZATION & REVENUE STREAMS

Native advertising
As specified in the case, ACKs current display and banner advertisement is unable to cover its
cost. Staying true to ACKs philosophy of not disrupting reader experience through banner
advertisements, we suggest ACK to use native advertising. Native advertisements are units
that rely on content and are incorporated seamlessly into the website experience. As content
consumers embrace the mobile phone, display ads are becoming undesirable. On a smaller
screen, banner ads are almost a nuisance occupying precious real estate. Industry studies
report that mobile native advertisements boast click-through rates (CTR) of 1.37% against
0.35% CTR for the traditional mobile banner advertisement. Similarly, the CTR of 1.37%
significantly trumps the CTR of 0.65% for desktops.

REFERENCES
i
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2014/12/12/youtube-offline-videos_n_6313250.html
ii
https://www.youtube.com/user/ackmedia/about
iii
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/may/13/bbc-news-guardian-facebook-instant-articles

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