MTV Insights Studio presents new report - ‘Mera Bharat Amazeballs’

With 600 million people below the age of 25, India is home to one of the world's youngest populations. MTV Insights Studio has launched the 2020 edition of its youth insights study titled 'Mera Bharat Amazeballs', a study that focuses on the changing mindsets of Indian youth who seem resolved to make India great again.

The MTV Youth Insights Study reflects unique choices and preferences that define young India. A press release claims that the study explores the multi-dimensional and conscientious facets of youth – highlighting their belief in a new India that is replete with opportunities and progress and in alignment with their world view.

Going local and thinking global is now the emergent code of new-age cool. From 78 per cent of young people giving more importance to family over career and 83 per cent preferring to work in their hometowns, the case study covers insights from 25,000 + youngsters across 400+ cities between the ages of 15 – 25 years. The five key themes of the study are – ‘Make India Great Again’, ‘Bharat = India’, ‘Girl on Top’, ‘Thank God It's Family’ and ‘I am Who I am’.

We took the opportunity to catch up with Navin Shenoy, head - marketing, Youth, Music and English Entertainment, Viacom18, who elaborated on the methodology that the channel employed. "We chose to do a qualitative study to try and understand audience needs. We did in-depth interviews, identified four sets of friends, spent time with them, identified their needs etc. Then we gathered a digital footprint, basically trying to understand if what they’re saying and doing is corroborating with their behaviour online – what their social handles are, what they’re talking about, etc. What helps us is that we have a large campus programme. We cover 1000 campuses and 15 campus ambassadors - so we try to get responses from them as well," he says.

When quizzed on how he plans to use the study's insights in the workings of the channels, he replies, "We just learnt from this study that this generation is very action oriented – they want to act on things rather than just commenting on them. We’ve integrated a cause into the theme of Roadies by making the participants perform tasks which are related to a charity/cause. MTV Hustle was a result of insights too – we learned that young people give importance to talent in the area of poetry. For the hip-hop genre, you don’t need to be classically trained, you need to have a sense of rhythm. Since the entry barrier to hip-hop is lower than that required for a trained singer, hip-hop culture is spreading but in an underground way. We got behind the movement even though it's not filled with glamorous people because the musicians believed in their music."

According to Shenoy, India is more likely to be a AVOD platform for some time to come. "A BCG report says India would be a 60-70 per cent AVOD driven market rather than a subscription driven market. The consumer is ultimately the same – it’s just the medium that he’s consuming content on, that differs. In the last few years, our target demographic 15-25 has consistently been watching three hours of TV a day. In addition to that, when a user is commuting or has free time, he consumes online videos," he says. Shenoy elaborates that as far as Indian households go, competing for screen time is a tradition of sorts, since 90 per cent of Indian households are still single TV consumption households.

Read about some insights from the report, in a media release issued, below.

At afaqs!' own event, the 'Great Lifestyle Brands' conference, hosted in Noida, Shenoy has spoken in detail on this topic. His presentation was titled 'Keeping in tune with Young India' and Shenoy's presentation borrowed from the insights offered in this report.

Watch the full presentation below.