The turn of 2021 marked a new chapter in what has been an interesting time for Roar Global. Though the air was still mostly Lysol and coronavirus, there was also stubborn belief that things were going to get better.
Despite the challenges of 2020, we have become bolder, wiser, and more creatively empowered to tell the stories our audiences love to know. We managed to exceed expectations in delivering high-quality impactful content for brands. We continued to help an ever increasing number of local and multinational businesses harness online platforms to achieve their objectives. Despite everything we had been through, we were still the dominant media platform for real, compelling stories and creative digital content solutions from South Asia.
However, 2021 was not just a year of hope. It was also a year that raised the stakes. As the arrival of vaccines promised to fast-track an end to the pandemic, the emergence of newer, stronger variants of the virus threatened to prolong it. As a result, the year wore on as a proper test of humanity’s endurance and resilience. So, we at Roar continued doing our part to help hasten the end of the pandemic and shed light on the incredible stories that were emerging from it.
How did that turn out?
Well, here is our 2021 in numbers.
This year turned out to be both a creative and productive one for our editorial teams. The collaborative work of our journalists, writers, producers, and contributors managed to engage over 332,000 users on the Roar LK platform. Our english articles attracted over 440,000 reads and our videos, nearly 3 million views.
From launching our first ever in-depth interview series ‘The Debrief w/ Roel Raymond’ to evaluating ‘How Expensive Is Your Lunch?’ and investigating the curious case of ‘‘Among Us’ And The Sinhala Alphabet: Cultural Appropriation Or Language Progression’, Roar Media doubled down on its mission to cover the deeper issues and untold tales of Sri Lanka.
What’s more, our editorial team has also been hyper-focused on longer forms of content. This year, we started filming “Project 72”, our first ever full-length documentary production. Set to premier in 2023, the film aims to give our viewers an unprecedented insight into the defining moments, events, debates, and issues of Sri Lanka’s history post-independence.
2021 has also been a productive year for our native language platforms, all of which have achieved impressive year-end statistics of their own.
In 2021, Roar Sinhala, which analyses, dissects, and explores issues around the world in its native Sinhalese, engaged over 1.7 million social media users, amassed 5 million article reads and nearly 11.8 million video views.
Roar Tamil, which presents well-researched perspectives to our Tamil speaking audience, engaged over 150,000 social media users, generating 226,000 article reads and nearly 700,000 video views.
Roar Bangla, which covers stories both local and international, and is Bangladesh’s largest content plaform, engaged over 6.4 million social media users, 20.9 million article reads, and over 23.7 million views.
For our advertorial content teams, the hustle to produce high-quality creative content for brands never stops; and true to form, in 2021, Roar Studios worked meticulously, pushing creative and technical boundaries to achieve the right impact for our clients and audiences. The proof is in the numbers.
This year, our team of in-house and freelance content creators completed 560 video productions, 850 graphics, and 938 written pieces for 114 brands.
A few highlights from the year include the inaugural episode of “Foodscapes”, which tells the fascinating story of specialty coffee in Sri Lanka, new episodes from our architecture series ‘Island Blueprints’, and ‘Surviving COVID-19: Beyond The Physical’, a story-based animated video that explores our role as a society in helping COVID-19 survivors recover from the social and psychological challenges that resulted from being diagnosed.
Another key launch from Roar Studios this year was Project “Hello World”, our initiative to actively expand our content collaborations internationally. As of today, we have successfully commenced long-term partnerships with high-profile clients in Qatar, Taiwan, the UAE, and Singapore, and we look forward to collaborating with many more in the coming years.
Barely a year after META named Roar its Facebook Authorised Sales Partner in Sri Lanka, the Roar Digital team have excelled at their task to deliver high-quality services and aid local and multinational brands towards achieving their business objectives.
Helping these brands set up shop on META’s family of apps, acquire high-value customers through Facebook leads, and educate their clients and the public on campaign optimisation, the Roar Digital team used every trick in the book to help businesses harness the full marketing potential of the internet.
After reaching over 1000 brands by April 2021, the demand for Roar Digital’s services continued to grow exponentially. The team finished the year with over 2000 brands onboard, 3,900 support hours provided, and 4,000 individuals trained through its ongoing series of webinars.
2021 was tough but we have been tougher, converting what has been a challenging year into a time of growth and revival. Not only did we reap the rewards of resilience we’d shown during the year before, we also seized every opportunity to step-up the quality, creativity, and diversity of our content, bond us closer as a team, and cultivate a stronger passion for creative and impactful storytelling.
So, we will be journeying into 2022 with that same stubborn belief that things are going to get better. We will continue to realise our vision for the future of media in South Asia, boldly going where none have gone before to ensure that every story we tell has a positive, far reaching impact on everyone it reaches.
We are still on our way to building South Asia’s largest and most influential digital media company.
