Mumbai: OML or Only Much Louder is a media and entertainment organisation working across various media and experiential formats to impact pop culture. The organisation has pioneered on-ground and online experiences that have resulted in lasting memories shaping how fans know their favourite artists and brands. Apart from continuing to be an artist management company in music and comedy, over the years OML has evolved to include a production house and has also moved into creating television and digital content.

Indiantelevision.com caught up with OML Entertainment CEO Gunjan Arya. She has been working in the field of media, marketing and design since the age of 16 and started her own brand consulting company ‘Design of Information’ in 2009, which won several coveted awards globally. Arya, who has been part of OML since 2015, was instrumental in building OML's global creator network over the last three years which now operates across 20+ countries and 700+ content creators that helps artists, brands and platforms build equity.

On the expectations from the Hypothesis

I am keen to see how people respond but I think that we have something that has gotten a proven track record. It is no secret that influencer marketing is only growing and has become an important part of the media mix for even traditional brands. So, this is literally the need of the hour.

Moreover, anything that promises higher efficiency will have a high offtake. I am keen to get it launched. It is about what artists need. Artists are the media brands of today not of the future. Nobody is telling artists things like which creators their fans follow. And, I truly want to build that intel where artists can take that data and work on it. This will not mechanise the process but will sharpen the brief.

On how the company has benefited from organisational restructuring done a few years back

Our former founder Vijay moved on and I took over. I even replaced him on the board as well. And, I think that we have done fine. We have been profitable for the past four years and are still growing. We did Rs. 300 crores last year - almost 40 percent of that came from abroad and I do not know how many Indian companies can say that.

On the contributions of the three business lines

I would say that brands constitute the highest billing. But given the nature of our work, each business flows into the other because we have a strong artiste roster and various brands come to us. Since brands come to us, artists also want to work with us. Again because we have artistes, platforms work with us. Our teams build original shows and hence artistes come to us. Therefore, each line feeds into the other.

On how OTT allows for experimentation

It is about the barrier to entry. In cinema, there is a certain threshold at which they make sense. It costs money to mount a film. If you have to hit that number you need a certain cast, it has to be worth it for them and the producers. On the other hand, digital has allowed a lot more experimentation. The narratives that we get to see and hear and the people as well both in front and behind the camera, are very exciting. Digital has also changed media planning. It is an audience of one.

Digital has exploded the multiplicity of choices. And because that multiplicity of choice exists, and individual feeds differ because different choices are made, hence it allows for a lot more unique storytelling opportunities. You get to select what you watch. In addition to that, OTT has a richness of data. The data engines have shown that people watch Turkish TV, South Korean content, and even Spanish shows, so maybe it is not all about Bollywood, after all.

On what OML looks for before signing on talent and working with 70 artists across genres

They must be super excited to get their original voice out there. Sumukhi went from being a stand-up comedian to creating a show ‘Pushpavalli’ which got a second season. Now, she is writing movies for big Bollywood producers and writing shows that will soon come out on OTT platforms. It is her individual point of view of the world that makes it so exciting for us to work with her. She has now set up her own content company which has a very specific take on the world. That is what makes it exciting.

Zakir did a video on Mother Dairy. Tanmay has also worked with Netflix. Janice has worked on Social Media Star. There are many examples.

The name of the show is Swipe Ride - Tinder  which actually started with Youtube and ended up on Voot. We also did a show with Bumble called ‘Dating These Days’ that started on Youtube and is now on Disney+Hotstar. In Poland, we started a show about friends hanging out, which was sponsored by Martini, and went on an OTT platform there. All these are wins.

This is not a challenge. There is so much more to do. The roster is super wide. We work with a mentalist who got a chance to work to be the face of Vodafone. We work with Dolly Singh who is a creator who came from Instagram. Due to her crooked teeth, she got the chance to work with Colgate. There is also Zakir Khan who is now the highest-paid comedian in the country. It is a really exciting time to work with all these amazing artistes.

On examples of bringing brands and content creators together

About five years ago, we looked at Lebanon. A brand wanted to activate there and Lebanon has a really big music scene but not a comedy scene. The brand did not have the budget to collaborate with Lebanese musicians. So, we actually looked around and found a comedian who was willing to do a Youtube show. This show was him wheeling around a channel speaker, a speaker on a trolley.

He walked into co-working places, bars, nightclubs, and hobby rooms and tried his 10 minutes routine there. This then became a Youtube comedy show with a host, a live audience, guests, and a band on stage. The best part was that in Lebanon when a show is shot, audiences are paid to sit. But here audiences paid ticket money to be a part of the live taping. This was a three-year journey and it happened due to the support of a brand.

In Poland, four years ago, we worked with a brand that typically activates in the music space. We did a deep dive into the market and felt that hip-hop would explode as people were trying out interesting things. We thought of launching Poland’s first hip-hop awards and this is supported by Bacardi. This year, over 700,000 people voted.

All these were possible because we always look at content creators as being conduits to culture.

On whether more brands are looking at live entertainment as an alternative to ATL

The biggest replacement is digital content. This is where we see the most growth as well. More than two-thirds of our revenue last year came from brands spending on content marketing.

On the key international markets

We will look at the US and the UK in a big way. So far, we have looked at the Middle East, all of Africa, Southeast Asia, and India of course. This year, we are adding Japan, Hungary, the Czech Republic, China, and South Korea.

On the goals that OML has set for itself in 2023

This will be an interesting year. There is a recovery from the break that all of us had due to the pandemic. Now, there is talk of an international recession though it is not so much India-specific. At OML, there are three lines of business – the number one is artistes, the second is content production and the third is brand solutions.

Speaking of our first line of business, we started as an artist management company 20 years back and used to manage independent musicians. Our pitch was that fans will pay to watch them and that bet paid off, all thanks to Youtube! Our artist management roster grew to include digital celebrities of all types- comedians, writers, and directors like Zakir Khan, and on the creator side, there are people like Dolly Singh and many more.

The second line is about content production which was about making videos for musicians. And, now it has become an original content studio for OTT platforms. We work with everyone from Netflix to Amazon to Disney+Hotstar and have altogether produced 76 shows.

The third line is the brand solutions business. We realised that brands want to participate in culture and artistes are the most effective conduit to various communities. And hence, we activate brand campaigns with creators; it could be about brands supporting tours of artistes. This is a full-fledged brand solutions business that operates in over 20 countries. We can even operate there without having teams in those countries as we have built our own social prediction engine.

This guides brands on which creators to work with. And, I think it is one of the most sophisticated tools out there in the market. The proof is in the pudding. We have had 300 top trending videos in countries where we do not even speak the language. We are flipping this to a tech play, a MarTech service provider for agencies and for brands who do not want another retainer agency. But they want the intel, the process, and the know-how. So it is a Saas business. It is an off-the-shelf plug-and-play service called Hypothesis. You can use the tool to plan creator content, and influencer marketing etc. It will help with tracking, planning, and measuring ROI.

Another line that we had was the live events business and we have been known for this due to the B2C angle. We sold this to Nazara last year. We also had Insider which we sold to PayTM in 2018. This was born from an artiste’s need. So today, OML is largely a content business.