MBRYO: INDIAN OCEAN

Team: The Katchers in the rye

Suraj Dash Ankit Mahendru Ritika Kathuria

surajpd16@iimk.ac.in ankitm16@iimk.ac.in ritikak16@iimk.ac.in

+91 9048440432 +91 9645930621 +91 9745002082
IIM Kozhikode IIM Kozhikode IIM Kozhikode
PGP16 (2nd Year) PGP16 (2nd Year) PGP16 (2nd Year)
Contents
Indian Music Industry: Evolution and Outlook ....................................................... 3
Music Industry Outlook [India] ........................................................................... 4
Competitor Analysis ............................................................................................... 4
Primary Research: Consumer survey reveals that Indian Ocean has a high recall
but people know only a few songs ......................................................................... 5
Indian Ocean 2.0: The Ocean of Young Voices ....................................................... 6
Branding Strategy .................................................................................................. 6
Go to Market Strategy ........................................................................................... 8
Social Media Strategy ...................................................................................... 8
Channel Selection .......................................................................................... 10
Revenue model and Financial Viability ................................................................. 11
Tackling the Issues Plaguing Indian Bands ............................................................ 12
Piracy ............................................................................................................. 12
Less awareness about Indian bands ............................................................... 12

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Indian Music Industry: Evolution and Outlook
The internet is known for the convenience and comfort it brings at our fingertips. Be it shopping, travel, insurance
or food, the web empowers us to do all these things with a simple click. While online shopping is just taking off in
India, online music distribution has been around for some time and has grown over the past 5 years. Digital
consumption, distribution and availability of the catalogue in the digital space are only a logical progression and
evolution of the Indian music market.

According to a FICCI-KPMG Indian Media and Entertainment

Industry Report 2012, the Indian music industry achieved a 19
% year-on-year decline in sales of physical music which was
compensated by a significant jump of 24 % year-on-year in
digital music consumed last year. Physical sales of music
continue to slide with digital music consumption on a steady
rise. This phenomenon was more pronounced in the urban
centers where mobile and Internet penetration is higher;
however regional markets were less affected.
 27 Million Smartphone users in Urban India across 1 lakh+
towns
 Mobile contributes around 85-90 % to the total digital music consumption in India

Emergence of Online Channels

 Integrating iCLoud with iTunes so that people can store their music as well
 Spotify is a global subscription service with 5mn plus users
 Rara.com is similar and present in 33 countries and comes pre-installed in Lenovo laptops
 YouTube is the most popular streaming website
 Vevo is the most viewed channel on YouTube

New Sources of Income

 Selling music rights to operators for using as ringtones and caller tunes
 Ad supported streaming networks like you tube
 Smartphone music stores like Nokia Ovi
 Legal use of songs by broadcasting studios and tv shows like Nach Baliye, Jhalak Dikhla Jaa

According to Nokia India, music is the most downloaded application and the second most used application after
social networking.

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Music Industry Outlook [India]
 Digital music industry to grow at an expected CAGR of 22% till 2016.

 Digital music will account over 60% of the entire music industry in 2013 and consumption would largely
be driven by mobile and wireless connection

Competitor Analysis

Tie up
between
Likes/ Fans/ MySpace Total no. of First Album and year of
Bands Genre Tools of Engagement
Followers and albums launch
Facebook
page

Indian Rock, Facebook, Twitter, 125,942 likes Yes (Listen 0 (mostly No full length album till
Blues Website, /2,762 widget on singles) date, "make ur album
Blog,myspace followers facebook) the way u want it"
(1991/Delhi)

Hindi Rock Facebook, Twitter, 466,561 Yes (Listen 7 Dhoom (1998/Delhi)

Website, Blog, likes/3,030 widget on
mysapce followers facebook)

Folk rock, Pop- Facebook, Twitter, 335,480 likes No 2, rest singles Agnee(2006/Pune)
Rock with Website, Radio / 3,839
elements partnership with followers
of Funk, Jazz and Radio Mirchi,
Carnatic music myspace

Rock with an Facebook, Website, 6,631 likes No - (1996/ Delhi)

essence of Indian Blog, Myspace
classical

Medieval Indian Facebook, Website, 1525 likes Yes (Listen 4 Kailasa (2005)
music, Sufi and Google hangout, widget on
Western music Blog, iStore, Twitter facebook)

Urban folk, Facebook, Twitter, - No 5 Jatra shuru

fusion Website (1999/Kolkata)

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Primary Research: Consumer survey reveals that Indian Ocean has a
high recall but people know only a few songs
Music Genres
A survey was conducted with a sample size of 140 people with age ranging
from 18-30 and following are some of the findings about the music tastes, Pop 58%
Indian Ocean’s perception etc Fusion 41%
Folk 3%
Finding 1: Classical Indian 2%
Rock 61%
• Influence of Bollywood is unmatched probably because of the reach Bollywood 94%

• However rock and pop music are growing and are substantial
Source of Music
Finding 2:
Online music stores like
• Online streaming like you tube is the major source of music iTunes
45%

• However iTunes is growing rapidly-a sector we should target for Online Streaming 100%
creating more apps
CDs 5%
Finding 3:

Music Exposure
• Music channels and peers play an important role in musical influence
Music ratings 10%
• Hence presence on Tv channels and regular radio is essential Parents 12%
Music Channels 66%
Radio 31%
Peers 70%
Finding 4:

• Initially people were asked to name 5 rock bands. No Indian bands Indian Band Recall
featured
Indian Ocean 66%
• On asking for 5 Indian bands these were the names that came up and
most people could not go beyond 3 Jal 44%

• People were also unaware that Jal was NOT an Indian Band
Parikrama 71%

Finding 5:

• Most people start listening to music in the range of 15-19 Introduction Age

• This is the point when musical taste develops

>19 6%
• Important to catch them young
15-19 83%

• Hence this is our identifiable TG <15 11%

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Finding 6:

• People are aware of Indian ocean’s

existence hence the strong aided recall Attended Concert Aided Recall
Yes No Yes No
• However people haven’t attended many
concerts 21% 17%

• Also song awareness is not that high with

most people quoting “Bandey” followed by
“Jhini Jhini” 79% 83%

Indian Ocean 2.0: The Ocean of Young Voices

Branding Strategy
As a part of branding strategy and for increasing awareness about Indian Ocean, we came up with the below
mentioned strategies, each of these has been elaborately explained later:

1. Indian Ocean School of Music

2. Brand Mascot
3. Merchandise Stores
4. TV/Radio Partners
5. Association with IPL

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A. Indian Ocean School of Music

Open a music school where people can learn guitar, tabla etc from trained professionals. Indian Ocean
members can conduct workshops in the music school on the non-touring days. This will benefit the band in
multiple ways:

 Branding Opportunity: The school would serve as an excellent branding opportunity for Indian Ocean
 Additional Revenue Stream: This would also act as an additional revenue stream and if successful,
can open more such schools later and expand through franchise model
 Increasing the reach: It would help grab the attention of young who would come to learn the music
and thus would increase the fan base of Indian Ocean

B. Brand Mascot

A band mascot which would personify the values for which the band stands for should be created. Fans
associated with mascots better and would give a new image to the band. It can make appearances in live
shows or music video. It can be used on album covers or merchandise such as band T-shirts. Following are the
benefits of a brand mascot:

1. Brand Personality
2. Brand Association
3. Increased Recall
4. Differentiation

C. Merchandise Stores

Selling merchandise for Indian Ocean would help the band in the following way:

1. Increased brand association: Fans feel connected to the band while using the merchandise like T-shirts
mugs etc
2. Positive word of mouth: The merchandise becomes a topic of discussions and fans will endorse Indian
Ocean and increase the awareness about the kind of music Indian Ocean plays
3. Increased Revenue stream: Bands today are earning as much as 6-10% of their yearly revenue from
merchandising [source: Asian Age]

Channels of Distribution:

 Official Website:
o Develops a direct link between the artist and the fans
o News on what’s latest Indian Ocean music also spreads
 Online Retail Stores
o Online shopping has increased in India over the past few years
o Flipkart, Myntra, Jabong can be used to showcase the merchandise and fans can purchase it from
these sites
 Concerts/Shows
o Concerts are places where probability of impulse purchase is highest

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 o Young people have higher purchase tendency and hence conversion rate would be higher
D. TV/Radio Partners

Indian Ocean can get associated with Music channels like MTV and make them your official music partner.
Since environmentalism is one of the themes of the band, events like Greenathon by NDTV would be a good
association and would positively reinforce band’s image and widen the fan base.

For Radio partner, Indian Ocean can:

 Target morning and evening shows on radio during the album launch
 This is the time Indian Ocean’s core TG would listen to radio
 Revenue sharing model can be used by giving rights to other channels to play Indian Ocean songs

E. Event Association with IPL

Viewership of IPL reached a new high last year with 140 million viewers for first 16 games [refer graph below].
Association with IPL, writing a new theme song for IPL season 7 can get Indian Ocean an image makeover and
instant recognition among millions of viewers. Indian Ocean can also consider association with Delhi
Daredevils, since it’s a Delhi based band.

Viewership of IPL over the years

160 140
Viewership ( in millions)

140 123 117

120 109
92
100 78
80
60
40
20
0
IPL 1 IPL 2 IPL 3 IPL 4 IPL 5 IPL 6
Series1 78 92 109 123 117 140

Go to Market Strategy
We have adopted a two-pronged approach for Go-to-market strategy:

1. Social Media Strategy

2. Channel Selection for driving sales

Social Media Strategy

This is divided into 3 main approaches:

1. Twitter
2. Facebook
3. YouTube

A.1. Twitter
a. Share what Indian Ocean are doing: post links, take photos of concerts/shows

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 b. Ask fans what's happening
c. Share band’s info and other suggested music information
d. Fans can ask questions and seek advice on music
e. Look for those who talk about the band via the Twitter research function, follow them and answer
their questions
f. Indian Ocean can send special offers to your followers
g. Conduct weekly contest about Band trivia, taglines, themes etc
h. Winners can be given concert passes/merchandise etc

A.2. YouTube

 Watermark the videos (place a tiny translucent logo in the corner of the video)
 Take advantage of writing directly on the video: notes, subtitles, descriptions and links
 Install a call to action button on music video that shows: “click here to become a fan on our FB page”, and
the viewer visits the site
 Invite people to join
 Activate the option diffuse and share on each video
 Use the most relevant key words with the video name. Use the word “video” ; the result will come up
faster
 Video description which is as relevant for the search engine as the title. Insert key words and use Indian
Ocean’s website URL & FB fan page right at the beginning

A.3. Facebook

Indian Ocean should launch Facebook apps to keep fans engaged on the social networking site like a plug in
for listening to their music online, online app store, concert app where information about the latest Indian
Ocean concerts can be found out
Indian Ocean Merchandise App
 Displays merchandising materials, which will be sold through an online retail channel like Flipkart, Myntra
 Have the site integration with the app
 Merchandising includes Stickers, T-shirts, posters, key chains, mouse pads and pens

Online Store App

 Have integration with sites like Hungama.com from where users can either purchase CDs or electronically
download music

MySpace App

 To help user go to the live music streaming site MySpace and listen to songs by embedding the button on
the FB page

Concert App

 Fans can get information about the latest Indian Ocean concert

Facebook contests should be held in order to increase the interest of fans further engaging them. According to
primary survey conducted, users prefer peer recommendation (47%) than any other external factor in the kind

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 of music they listen to. Brand advocates would help in creating a positive word of mouth and thus increasing
awareness about Indian Ocean.

FB Contest Concept
 Start a contest on FB pages for fans to share their themes they want the next Indian Ocean song to be
on
 Ask them to share the theme and the motivation for the song in the form of a note
 The post with the maximum ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ would win and can be given cash prizes or appear-in-
next-video opportunity
 It would be shared on the cover image of Indian Ocean page
 This will lead to the winners becoming brand advocates
 It would result in more crowd pulling and widened fan base

Online Channels
Channel Selection
Online music streaming sites such as Hugama.com works on revenue
sharing basis. Indian Ocean can sell their music to these sites. Ten online Saregama myMusic
partners identified [ refer table on the right]
Hungama iMusti
YouTube Channel

 Indian Ocean should come up with videos of at least one or two Saavn NH7
key songs in their album
Gaana Apple’s iTune[recently
 Video lets the user better connect to a song and retention also
launched]
improves [ Source: Musicinfo.com]

 A dedicated YouTube channel for band videos should be created or Dhingana Hungama
a tie-up with an already established channel such as Vevo can be
worked out

 YouTube channel can have ad revenue model where in the percentage of revenue from ads would come
to Indian Ocean

Tie-ups with mobile operators

 Growing number of internet and Smartphone users

 120mn internet users and 27mn Smartphone users
 Selling music rights to mobile network operators (MNOs) like Airtel, Vodafone, Idea etc for using as
ringtones and caller tunes
 Airtel has come up with video for Re 1 scheme and by releasing videos Indian Ocean can leverage on such
schemes offered by various MNOs

Online Music Stores Apps

 Smartphone music stores like Nokia Ovi, Android apps have a repository of songs

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  Pay per download with pricing of each song at Rs.5 can bring in another revenue stream for Indian Ocean

E-commerce Stores

 Songs can be made available on the e-commerce sites in the music section in two forms

 CDs and DVDs

 Electronic form

Revenue model and Financial Viability

Total number of people on social

media in India 57900000

Assuming 70% of Indians

People with interest in music
People with interest in sufi,
environment music
People who listen to bands
40530000 are interested in music
Assuming 50% of
Indianswho listen to music
20265000 like this genre
Our target (Assuming only
10% out of these are aware
2026500 of bands

Current number of like on facebook 306997 Current penetration 15.15 percent

Facebook ads ₹ 60/cpc
Youtube Revenue sharing model 3.25
Radio partners 20000 (Fixed Cost)

Expenses Revenues

Web site maintenance(Adding

interactive interface and tie up with
flipkart/myntra for merchandising) 5,00,000 Youtube 401753.6
Advertisements and Promotions 141590 Merchandise 36250000
Merchandise 10250000 T-shirts 22500000
T-shirts 7500000 Mugs 6250000
Mugs 1750000 Posters 7500000
Assuming 100 students in
Posters 1000000 Online school 1220000 a year
Ring tones 3647700
TOTAL 1,08,91,590 TOTAL 41519454

Based on the suggestions for adding new revenue channels and extra cost incurred to advertise the band, it can
be seen that the band can make an approximate profit of ₹3,06,27,864

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Tackling the Issues Plaguing Indian Bands

A. Piracy
B. Less awareness about Indian bands

Piracy

Problems

• Issue of piracy exists because most of the people are not aware of the affect that it has on the music
industry
• Since many people indulge in downloading music from torrent and similar sites, they don’t think that they
would be caught

Solutions

• The anti-piracy wing of the Indian Piracy agency should create awareness amongst the youth of the theft
that they are doing
• They should also teach the police about the cyber-crimes that are happening so that the police can take
appropriate actions to curb them
• IPR laws need to be strengthened
Easier and cheaper access of legal music will discourage people to engage in illegal downloads

Less awareness about Indian bands

Problems

• In India almost 1000 songs are released in Bollywood movies alone

• Diversity in language in different parts of the country make it difficult for any one language songs to
become popular on a nation wide scale
• Limited promotion by Indian bands
Lack of infrastructure availability to support the rock concerts by bands as compared to world ( Not even
a single stage countrywide which has full infrastructure support for live performance

Solutions

• Need for fully engaged music managers who can take care of the promotions and advertisements
• Entrepreneurs who can invest in infrastructure for live band performances. This will take care of not only
Indian bands, but also International bands
• Tie ups with radio channels with exclusive time for band (2-3 hour slots) since the radio has the maximum
reach (70-75% of Indian youth listen to radios)

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