We expect India to be in top-ten markets for GoPro: Charles Prober

GoPro, the company known for producing cameras used for adventure photography globally, is now working to build upon this image for the Indian audience. It has modified its focus areas of marketing strategy to festivals, weddings and travel. Chief operating officer Charles Prober, “CJ”, in conversation with Raveena Singh, speaks about the company’s aspirations and strategy for the Indian market.

How do you plan to get traction considering your business-to-consumer (B2C) format?

We have a multi-pronged strategy. One is creating the brand awareness on the back of content creation posted mostly on YouTube. The other thing is getting our products available. Our products are available on Flipkart and Amazon. We also have two main retail partners in Reliance Digital and Croma across which we have 130 stores today. We also have 60-70 smaller retailers under unorganised segment.

What about the competition posed by Clips and Spectacles?

I am not sure if Google Clips will ever be available in India. Google Clips doesn’t enable sound and video. What it is recognised for is its artificial intelligence (AI). We use our algorithms on the back-end. We don’t really see Google Clips as our competitor. Even Snap’s Spectacles has a very different use case. It is integrated with a single platform, creates short videos in round format. Hence, the quality and perspectives we enable are very different from theirs. At the same time, we also like when such big brands come up with innovative solutions and people are experimenting with new ways to capture.

You don’t advertise. Why?

The reason is we want authentic content. By doing so, we are building our own authentic community across the region. We have seen real success in China and Japan and we will replicate it here. That involves working with social influencers and athletes, building up our presence on key social platforms.

AI is the way ahead. What are you doing to tap the section?

Today we have the leading solutions for VR capture in Omni. In anticipation of 360-degree content, we acquired Kolor, a French company, about two years ago. It is a leading software developer for 360-degree stitching technology. So, we have incorporated that technology into a comprehensive workflow for Omni. Fast forward to today, we have made the experience of capturing 360-degree content much more seamless.

What exactly is GoPro's cloud service?

The way GoPro cloud service works is that there is a subscription for consumers with Hero 5,6. They can plug in the device at home and all the content automatically offloads to the cloud and then you can access the content on the app.

Have you collaborated with any companies?

We have a very close partnership with Redbull. It is more of a collaboration than anything for we are very complementary brands. We share a lot of athletes, and capture and share a lot of content at the events. In India, we have a partnership with Harley Davidson. We have hosted a couple of biker events where we have fitted the participants’ accessories with GoPro in HOG (Harley Owners Group) rallies. Another is Huawei, where every phone of theirs is pre-loaded with a Quik App and we provide video-editing service for the content taken from their cameras. There are other event collaborations too with World Surf League (WSL). We have also collaborated with Reliance Digital for our passport programme. Under this, any customer buying a GoPro Hero 6 at Reliance Digital will be issued a GoPro passport and receive offers from GoPro and White Collar Hippie.

Is India a potential growth market for you?

For consumers, the ability to share QuikStories on social media is the biggest factor and we are not really targeting just sports enthusiasts here but those who want to share their life experiences. Given there is a deep penetration in Facebook and the population is growing on Instagram, India fits really well among our [target] markets. Though we have seen a 150-200% annual growth on a small base, we want to take the initial success to another level. We want India to stand in our top-10 or even top-five markets globally.

How will you create content locally?

There are three ways to it. First, we have local production teams that go to the market and create India-centric content. Second, we have aspirational retail partners, not necessarily directly affiliated with the company, who are trained to create content of relevance. Third and the biggest source for us are advocates (global ambassadors). The most important thing in our relationship is that they are passionate about GoPro. We have over 500 advocates across the globe and we work closely. They get the early look and access to use our products and are part of our training programme for content creation and capture. If they happen to capture something brilliant, they share it on our channels, which helps build their profile and become successful. This is really a win-win situation for the folks who are just passionate about living a big life and sharing it socially.