In a way to connect with the millennials, Sony Music India partnered with Wattpad, the global entertainment company and the world’s leading storytelling platform, to promote the new single, “Baatein Karo,” by Indian Singer and Songwriter Vayu Srivastav, the artist behind songs in Tanu weds Manu Returns and Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan. The alliance involved the first-ever lyric-writing contest on Wattpad, where users were invited to re-imagine the lyrics to “Baatein Karo” and write their own version of the song. To know more about this collaboration Radioandmusic got in touch with Devashish Sharma, India Country Manager at Wattpad.
Check the interview below.
Please brief us on your collaboration with Sony Music for this project. How did it take place?
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Wattpad offers something truly unique for brands: a massive global community that spends billions of minutes each month deeply engaged in reading, writing, and sharing world-changing stories. Our work with Sony Music India and Vayu Srivastav was aimed at leveraging the power of community storytelling to promote their upcoming song “Baatein Karo” to Gen Z and Millennials on Wattpad and on social channels. The brand engaged its target audience to share re-imagined lyrics to the song “Baatein Karo”, which was then recorded by Vayu and shared with the larger target audience on social channels to promote the original song.
While the songs were promoted via Facebook and Instagram advertisements, what was unique about this collaboration was the authenticity of the connection, they established through Wattpad, with millions of their target listeners both on Wattpad and social media, by making them part of the campaign at scale.
This collaboration has tapped into the best of Wattpad by enabling fans to use their creativity to re-imagine “Baatein Karo.” This project didn’t just tap into fan excitement, we made fans genuine collaborators who inserted their voice into this hit song. That’s the power of storytelling and Wattpad.
What is your vision for Wattpad? Where do you see it in the next 5 years?
Our vision is to be the leading storytelling platform in India and create growth opportunities for writers. We strive to revolutionize how people discover, share and connect through stories. By creating direct connections between the writers and readers, we want to build a socially active community that exchanges ideas. We see Wattpad as being the hub for everything related to entertainment and to build a global multi-platform entertainment company, covering publishing, studios, OTT, brand collaborations, and everything under it
Currently, we all are working through a digital space. What are the plans and strategies you are using to promote Wattpad digitally?
As more people are working digitally, one global trend we saw early this year was more people turning to storytelling as a way to connect and cope with the situation. Users who were previously readers turned to writing as a way to express themselves. In India, we saw a global increase in sign-ups from pre-COVID levels, with a more than 50% increase in overall activity on the platform.
Wattpad is active across digital platforms including the app, website as well as social media, where it engages with its global community of 80 million-plus people. We aim to grow our digital audience further by reaching more readers and writers in the coming months.
Are you going to have a long-time partnership with Sony music? Also, are you going to collaborate with more music labels for other projects?
At Wattpad, we have worked with music labels such as the Universal Music Group, Gaana, BGBNG Music (a JV between KWAN and SonyMusic), to name a few, for song launches and artists’ engagement. We look forward to collaborating with them and also other music labels in the future.
