Pendulum to swing back to data: Yaacov Ben-Yaacov
Technology Company Catch Media has been in India for over five years now but has been a silent player in the space. One reason for this is that the company believes in entering newer markets with local partners.
Catch Media is in touch with Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) in order to develop a system that will track television, music and books (publishing) industry. This means the measuring system will shift from (at present) Nielsen type people metering environment to a real-user data collection environment, said Catch Media, CEO and founder Yaacov Ben-Yaacov.
Commenting about the activity with BARC, he said, “We will move from Nielsen type people metering environment to a real-user data collection environment.” Yaacov, who was in Mumbai to deliver a session organised by Rotary Club of Bombay, said that he thinks he is in the right place and Indian market is still evolving.
It is through the process of tracking and data analysis that Catch Media has been able to understand the trends in India. He stated that if you move away from creating a genre-based playlist (for music) to creating a playlist specifically for an individual, one can see 50 per cent increase in consumption.
Metadata
After Google came in existence, metadata was replaced by adverts or tags. In the past music and videos were all organised but now metadata is missing. “Google only cared about tags that you could search. Most of those videos that are uploaded on YouTube does not have metadata.” But the pendulum will swing back as the big data analytics will come back in picture, stated Yaacov.
Labels versus distribution companies
Yaacov’s company has been working with Indian music label companies including names like T-Series, Universal Music and so on, through Hungama. The company has a joint venture with music distribution and streaming company Hungama, called ‘Hungama Smart Cloud’. Yaacov casually said that the company has been away from the limelight of the music (entertainment industry).
Veteran US-Israeli hi-tech entrepreneur, however, is quite optimistic that in ten years’ time the company will be well positioned. “In ten years' time, we will be well positioned to be the leader in tracking in this market.” He also highlighted that it will take some time for the music companies to understand the importance of data. It was only last year that Warner music got a chief data officer, making it the only Music Company to have one, added Yaacov.
He also stressed up on the need for music labels to work with distribution companies which will help them to market the catalogue. “Today, distribution channels like Hungama, Deezer or Saavn, think label is their enemy and labels think distribution companies are their enemy. They need to work hand in hand with data in order to retain customers and that shift will happen.”
Amazon Prime: Might hurt Flipkart and Snapdeal
About 90 per cent of people with cell phones, listen to music on their cell phones and for them to listen to music or watch videos they will need a service. One can target that area, according to Yaacov. However, he believes that customers will not pay directly for the music service but if it is bundled with other services it will work.
“Flipkarts and Snapdeals of today don't understand music, the way Amazon understands music and movies.”He added that the e-commerce industry needs to realise that music is a way to own the customer and is a retention tool. “Music industry can grow tenfold compared to what it is today,” founder of PictureVision added.
Yet another problem is that e-commerce companies and telcos are trying to do everything on their own. “People like Hungama will be the key here as Flipkart does not understand this kind of licensing.” Yaacov added that working with partners will bring down cost. For instance, Jio, Idea and Vodafone are at some level doing things on their own but he believes they will learn.
“Pain is a wonderful thing as they get hurt by Amazon they will understand quicker,” Yaacov added. Quoting the example of Walmart, he said it took Walmart to get hurt by Amazon for them to spend a billion dollars to buy Jet and enter the e-commerce space.