We caught up with Ashish Goel, COO of ACK Media the company which has big plans with their brand Amar Chitra Katha. We spoke to him about the launch of the website, ACK’s target audience, future plans, digital media and more. Here is the full interview:
Q) Will ACK Media only launch rehashed titles from the past or will it launch new titles as well?
A) We will absolutely be looking at launching new titles in the next 6 months. But we plan to also relaunch some of the older stories which we feel would be appealing to a younger audience of 8-12 years.
Q) Will e-comics be available online (paid/free)? Will there be merchandise available for buying?
A) We will have an Ecomics section which will be one where you can read for free but it will be one short story from the amar chitra katha comic series. The second type will be paid downloads amar chitra katha’s regional language titles and we are starting with digital downloads of around 80 such titles and plan to 600 titles in the future. As far as merchandising is concerned we are launching a line of merchandise for both amar chitra katha and tinkle and these will be available 3-4 months down the line. We already have other mechandise in the ecommerce section of our site but the ACK specific merchandise will be available 3-4 months down the line. Also we plan to tie this with our overall strategy which is that we are launching across multiple platforms. We are looking at TV programming for both Amar chitra katha and Tinkle and would be working with existing tv channels to launch these.
Q) Who are you targetting? Is it kids or parents of kid who will buy this for their kids?
A) Talking about Amar Chitra Katha we are not targeting any specific age group as we feel anyone who would like to know about Indian Culture should be reading Amar Chitra Katha. That said we would like all children to read Amar Chitra Katha and learn about Indian Culture whether they buy it themselves or its bought by their parents.
Q) What are your future plans with the ACK Brand?
A) We are looking at expanding across the digital media platforms. We will be launching something on the mobile platform soon. On the online front we have two products one is tinkleonline.com which is already one of the top children sites and the other which we launched today is amarchitraatha.com which we want to make the one stop portal on Indian culture. We are also building a large multiplayer online game which would be able to support 40 to 50 thousand user at any given time. This game would would be available in the market in 6-8 months time.
Besides for the above digital distribution we are also looking at TV programming and tying up with some leading channels and also movies are another avenue we will be foraying into.
Q) How much do you think Digital revenues will contribute to your over all revenue?
A) We feel digital will be a substantial contributor to our overall revenues but I can’t specifically state a number
right now. Among digital we feel gaming will be a big segment that we plan to tap aggressively.
Q) Are you looking at targeting the NRI Market?
A) Yes we are very much looking to target the NRI market and this is because we feel the NRI audience has a higher need to connect with Indian Culture and therefore would be more receptive to the Amar Chitra Katha products. We are looking for ways to reach out to this market and build a brand in the NRI segment.
WATBlog Analysis: We at WATBlog do feel that NRI market will be a huge market for ACK’s brands but the difficulty will be reaching out to these markets and of course at a reasonable cost. Also Virgin comics which was mentioned in our review of amarchitrakatha.com has taken a different approach to mythological concepts while ACK chooses to hold the higher moral ground on the content front i.e. keeping it authentic without remixing (or adulteration as some might put it). While this may have worked for them in the 1900′s the question remains is would this work going forward?? What’s your take?
hi rajiv,
myself running my own advertising company having office in bangalore n pune—we focuss on outdoor industry–i would like to express my views on the current matter regarding BBMP putting restrictions on hoardings in bangalore—
could you guide us how do we get it on media—?
Regards
Rupali
9886124636
I disagree.
I think its absolutely essential that the Amar Chitra Katha content is kept authentic.
It is not the responsibility of ACK Media to worry about rehashing it for the the MTV generation…
These are timeless mythological stories — your aware as anyone else that that they pre-date much further back than the 1900′s
If Gautham wants to rein-vision them with Virgin Media — then good luck to him — however honesty of intent, and consistency of purpose is what matters here and Amar Chtira Katha should stay the course — it was successful for a reason — and therefore trying to do something different doesn’t make it better.