The Hindu Business Line : Multi-platform push to comics

You wouldn't normally expect someone educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with a Masters from the Sloan School of Management and from the School of Engineering, and a former Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company, New York, to be reading comics. But that's just what Samir Patil, CEO and Co-Founder, ACK Media, Mumbai, is doing for a living.

His company, ACK Media or Amar Chitra Katha Pvt Ltd (www.ack-media.com), is into entertainment and education for young audiences.

ACK Media is investing in `a worldclass creative studio with capabilities in gaming, animation and character development,' and is focusing on `new product development using rich India-centric themes, characters and stories for the Indian and international markets,' in multiple formats including `print, DVDs, online services, games, TV and film.'

"How do your MIT, Sloan and McKinsey stints come in handy for the new venture?" we ask Patil. "At McKinsey one deals with complex, multi-dimensional problems and this is definitely one of those," he replies, during the course of a recent e-mail interaction with eWorld. "Another key learning is the need to focus on scalable ideas. Finally, I believe that technology is going to drive a lot of the strategic choices and new products and so it will all come in handy."

Excerpts from the interview:

What are ACK's online initiatives?

We are looking at far more interactive online initiatives including social networking, games, quizzes and puzzles, involving the brand and its characters. We are planning for an Amar Chitra katha exclusive Web site.

You say ACK has a "one-stop-shop with 400+ products, including CDs, VCDs. We also have a fast growing online community and games site tinkleonline. com.'' Please elaborate.

The product offering by ACK Media is in four channels - print, online, mobile and television. In print, ACK Media has revamped the look and feel of the Amar Chitra Katha Books and Tinkle Magazine. It will also announce new titles and characters soon.

As regards online media, all the print products can now be ordered online through the ACK shop in India and abroad. In the broadcast media we will soon launch DTH videos through DVDs and VCDs, online games and mobile platforms - SMS-based content, wall papers and games.

Please give details of teenager/adult interest in online comic reading, the download patterns, the Web site's strike rate.

We do not offer online comic viewing, apart from a few extracts, as an online platform is better for more interactive stuff such as games and puzzles. As of now, tinkleonline. com has a strike rate of 3,000-5,000 users in a day. In terms of readership, it varies from different age groups, our research shows that 50 per cent of children's parents read tinkle magazine along with their kids.

Also, Amar Chitra Katha books have always been known as Indian stories for everyone, irrespective of their age group.

Is the effort of bundling books with DVDs yielding fruit?

The success of Karadi Tales, the brand in which we recently acquired a controlling stake, shows that it is a successful initiative. CDs and DVDs are more appealing to children under five years of age, and above that age group, kids love to read books.

How has been the growth in the print comics industry, given the popularity of video/electronic games and TV entertainment? What is the size of the market for children's entertainment through comics and so forth?

Growth varies from 5-10 per cent, today. Two past inflection points are important: in the late 80s, the advent of the TV sent the comics into a tailspin; then in the late 90s, it stabilised at a lower point and began to grow again. No good estimates, however, are available of the comics market.

Amar Chitra Katha has traditionally focussed on Indian mythology and history. Can that focus be carried forward? ACK's bestsellers are mythology, history, fables and folktales (e.g. Panchatantra), and wit and wisdom (Birbal). So it is pretty broad. The core brand in our view stands for Indian heroes and stories. It can be carried forward because these themes resonate even today with audiences across India (taking the Hindi cinema as one barometer). The challenge is to present our products to media, from which today's youngsters consume.

Much of today's comics/animation/ gaming is superhero-centric. Do you see the need for creating or acquiring a superhero for ACK Media? `Shikari Shambhu' is invariably an accidental hero.

Comic or children's characters in general (which is our focus) tend to be some well established archetypes - explorer/adventurers, detectives, group of friends, funnies, etc. `Superheroes' of course is a very popular archetype but there are other successful examples (e.g. Tintin).

We will introduce a set of new characters in Tinkle and other formats to fill the definite gaps in our `portfolio' as well as the gaps we see in the market. This will not necessarily mean superheroes.

What is more common about successful business models today is less that they are about superheroes and more that they take an integrated approach to the market - comics, film, TV, games and merchandise. This multi-platform approach will be critical for us and others.

As for the rural market, do you see an untapped potential, where taking ACK Media's characters through the vernacular media will give you an as-yet unexplored market?

Yes, we see a big potential in rural and regional markets, for example, through syndication via newspapers. We have more than 200 titles in eight languages. There is also potential for low-cost titles.

Do you see the lack of copyright protection as a major stumbling block? How do you propose to overcome the limitations in this front?

Piracy is a big issue that limits viable business models. As an entrepreneur, we have to bake it into our plans because compliance is unlikely to change dramatically in the next few years. While there is no silver bullet, we see three key levers for addressing the challenge: product bundling (books + DVDs), offline + online hybrid models (e.g. online services available only to genuine users), and pricing (attractive enough for the emerging middle class to want to pay for originals).

On your plans for integrating cultural values and educational inputs into ACK Media's products.

Our core value proposition is `education + entertainment and Indian-ness'. All our products will reflect that. The Indian consumer is very value-sensitive and in the children's category that value is its educational or learning quotient. Pure entertainment products will often, therefore, not have a mass market.

What, in your assessment, is the difference in the psyche between the average American comic-reader and his Indian counterpart?

Historically, the function of comics in the US has been quite different. Many (though not all) started their lives as niche appeal to youngsters who in some ways were alienated. A lot of superheroes are misfits in `real' life but are redeemed by their ability to help others through super powers. In my assessment the super power is incidental; the core is the emotional link that this misfit had with the American audience and its anxieties.

Indian comics (as opposed to the imports), especially ACK on the other hand, started with the best known Indian stories and so in a way started with the mainstream audience in mind while the American comics moved from the periphery to the mainstream through movies and TV.

(Patil has 10 years of strategy, operations, and technology experience in media, hi-tech, and healthcare firms. He has worked with most of the top global media firms including magazine and newspaper publishers, consumer electronics companies, and cable TV and online service providers. Before going to business school, Mr Patil worked as project manager in Parametric Technologies. He also founded Vertex Software India, a boutique services firm funded by Mitsui Ventures and acquired by NTT Data Corporation of Japan.)

dmurali@thehindu.co.in

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