PANAJI
The ongoing 15th edition of Goafest opened with a knowledge seminar on day two with P V Sindhu, India’s number one badminton player and two-time Olympic medal winner, who took the audience through her journey of life.
Focussing on he career, practise sessions, wins and losses, lessons learnt and unlearnt, and experiences as the support of the family that she received from time to time, Sindhu also briefed on her future tournaments that are lined up in 2022 in a candid chat with television presenter, anchor and actor Sameer Kochhar.
“My parents played a very crucial role in my badminton journey,” she admitted. Moving forward, she emphasized 2012 being a breakthrough year, where she questioned herself, "If they can do it, why not I?" referring to her opponent who was an Olympic champion. Later, when Kochchar asked her about her on-court strategies, she said, “I visualise who I am playing against and discuss strategies with my coach.” While speaking about winning Bronze and not Gold, she recalled her father calling reminding her, “There is a lot of difference between getting bronze and standing on the podium than being in the 4th position.”
Next in line were actors Vikrant Massey and Ali Fazal along with Gautam Talwar, chief content officer, MX Player who spoke on OTT superpower – freedom and nuances of creativity. The panellists discussed how OTT has changed consumer behaviour concerning content and democratized content.
“OTT has given a platform for creators to explore their skills and the exposure to international content made them pull their socks up, and I believe in the last two years, we did do that,” said Massey.
Ali Fazal opined that cinema must not die. “Every person in the industry comes with the dream to be a part of movies and this dream always remains. Community watching must not be forgotten. While OTT shares a lot of stories, it doesn’t aim to make the viewer a couch potato.”
Gautam Talwar opinioned that OTT content is for personal watching and 95% of people watch on their phones.
“Only the elite audience will have access to chrome cast and television sets supporting the platforms and they are not necessarily the target always. Family viewing is far away for OTT or may never happen. There are chances that people wouldn’t want to sit with family and watch at all,” stated Talwar, adding, “India is a time rich and money poor country and that is what we consider while targeting.” Anchor and creative director Atika Farooqui anchored the session.
After this, an engaging knowledge seminar, ‘How Brands win with Video Games’ was conducted by Disney Star with Sam Glassenberg, founder and CEO at Level Ex who spoke on the potential of video games and how brands can reach audiences through this medium. In his trademark way of delivering meaningful insights, Sam stressed that the video game industry, this year, crossed the $200 billion mark and is reaching more people than ever; video games, today, are poignant platforms for brands. Further, he also shed light on the application of neuroscience in game designs.
There were also two masterclasses - from Sharechat with Ajit Varghese, chief commercial officer, and Sharechat & Moj along with Simran Gaglani and Palkush Rai Chawla.
