‘Our zeal for improvement never takes a back seat’

From introducing the first multiplex experience in India, to becoming the undisputed leader in the space, the PVR group is one of India’s most successful entrepreneurial ventures. In the first part of an interview series of companies who wrote or rewrote the norms in their respective industries, marketing veteran Anisha Motwani and innovation expert Ranjan Malik interview the visionary chairman and managing director of PVR, Ajay Bijli, who was featured in Storm the Norm.

Did the PVR model work because they launched first in the North where consumers prefer being seen enjoying the good things in life and did not mind paying a little premium over the rest of the country?

Victor Hugo, the French novelist and poet said, “There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” When PVR pioneered the multiplex revolution in India in 1997, the time had already come for people to accept this better way to watch movies. They were longing for a better ambience, new technology and clean hygienic places to watch movies. PVR provided the platform for people to enjoy movies in a colourful and vibrant cinema ambience quite characterised by PVR.

Our vision is to excel by providing movie lovers a premier experience by redefining cinema viewing. The model would have been successful anywhere in India simply because of the fact that cinema is always considered to be a staple entertainment for the masses. PVR doesn’t think itself to be just a conduit between the movie makers and watchers. PVR takes pride in setting itself to become the best out-of-home entertainment destination in the country.

If you had to do it all over again what would you do differently?

India is the sixth largest movie market with the largest number of movies being released in the world. Considering the size of our country, it is still an under-screened market and has huge potential for growth. PVR commands the highest cinema occupancy and the highest admissions per screen across the globe and is amongst the top 10 multiplex chains across the globe in terms of footfalls. PVR ‘s dominance goes beyond its reach to being the market leader with approximately 35-40 per cent share of Hollywood movie collections and 20-25 per cent share of Bollywood movie collections in India. PVR also records the highest advertising revenue per seat across the world. Hence, to maintain its leadership position and continue to be the preferred movie brand of choice among viewers, it needs to ensure that the zeal for improvement never takes a back seat. Even if PVR had to do it all over again, its fundamentals would remain the same — to become “the best destination for out-of-home entertainment. However, scaling up the business would have taken a much shorter time as it would have already learnt the nuances of the business.

The PVR experience has gone beyond cinema into sports and F&B? Is there a danger in spreading yourself too thin or in going beyond your core area of expertise?

Going beyond cinema into a leisure sport such as bowling and F&B can only be considered as extensions of its core philosophy of becoming the “the best destination for out-of-home entertainment.”

PVR, through its subsidiaryPVR Leisure, focuses on rolling out F&B and retail entertainment concepts including leisure/gaming, fitness/wellness, food (bars and cocktail lounges, casual dining, fast casual dining).

This includes PVR bluO spread out in six centres offering 135 cosmic bowling lanes and the casual dining concepts which PVR has ventured into, such as ‘Mistral’ at Ambience Mall, Vasant Kunj and Mr. Hong at Orion Mall, Bengaluru.

In an extremely price-sensitive India of the 1990s, how did you decide on the pricing of the tickets in the initial days of PVR?

Considering consumers are time-poor, they see the movie as part of a bigger experience. To meet this objective, PVR strives to push the envelope in providing the best and holistic cinematic experience to its patrons. We also ensure that PVR is located in the best of malls in the city where it operates.

A cinema ticket price is a component of entertainment tax, distributor share and PVR share, of which the lion’s share comprises the e-tax and distributor share. While the e-tax, a State prerogative, varies from State to State, the distributor share varies from movie to movie.

Besides these factors, there are market factors like the location of the mall, the catchment area of the cinema, propensity to consume movies by the customer, the profile of the customer, consumer sentiments. To sum up, the PVR ticket pricing is decided in order to provide the best of class experience to the consumer within the constraints and demands of regulatory and business consideration.