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Akash Chawla, Marketing Head, Zee TV and Zee Cinema feels just spending big bucks doesn’t deliver glued eyeballs. In a conversation with MediaWorldBuzz’s Pallavi Srivastava, he affirms that innovation is the key in the marketing of TV shows. Excerpts of the interview:
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MediaWorldBuzz: Zee TV has been among the top 3 GECs for quite some time now and has taken the top slot in certain weeks. But when do we see the channel being a clear number one in the category?
Akash: I have a very simple question for you: What is the number one position that we are talking about? See, we at Zee are not in the game of buying ratings. We are not in the game of doing break free episodes or putting huge blockbusters at weekends and spicing up our numbers. Neither are we in the race of getting all kind of Bollywood celebrities to spike up our shows. We are in the game of getting the numbers which can be encash and result in increased profitability for our shareholders. From that perspective, we are number one and we are very happy to be the number one profitable channel.
MediaWorldBuzz: So what is that success formula?
Akash: If I give you that success formula than somebody else will come and take our seat(laughs)… In broader terms, I would say that keeping a tab on cost while delivering ratings is our forte. Also we believe that television don’t need stars to survive rather it create its own stars.
MediaWorldBuzz: DID Season 2 was marketed in a very interesting way, especially the dance carnival at the time of the finale. So what was the whole idea behind that?
Akash: If you look at the marketing of DID season 2, we started with a mass media launch. And talking about interactivity, it was the first time that a campaign has happened on mass media for a cause of action in new media whether it is Facebook or Twitter or any other such medium. So when it came to the interaction level, we reached people through mass media and called them to interact directly with the participants on these new media platforms. Due to this the Facebook DID 2 community got maximum number of fans amongst the reality show communities on the site. On youtube, it was continuously number one or number two most watched channel on the site.
And finally, we culminated DID 2 with a huge ground activity which we termed the Dance Carnival. It was a kilometer long procession where we had all kind of dancers from Indian dancers to international dancers, the judges, the mentors and the participants. The thought process behind this was that these participants have become so popular because of the huge adulation they have received from the audiences. They are the dancing icons and thus an activity like this where people were taking autographs from them and clicking pictures further enforced DID as an iconic brand when it comes to dancing talent.
MediaWorldBuzz: What is the marketing plan for the recently launched show ‘DID Little Masters?
Akash: To be very honest with you, I can not share any details right now about the marketing plan of this show because of competitive reasons. We will share those details formally, sometime later. At present I can only say the focus for the DID season 2 was innovation. Innovation across various media platforms and a similar approach will be carried for DID Little Masters. That is all I am at the liberty to share right now.
MediaWorldBuzz: What is the marketing budget for the DID Little masters?
Akash: We really don’t believe in the idea that ‘the more money you spend the more eyeballs you will attract or the better marketing plan you will do’. So rather than focusing on how much more money we can spend we will focus on how are we going to spend those marketing bucks and what are they going to contribute to the show. That is what is important.
MediaWorldBuzz: DID Season2 has ended just two week back and DID Little Masters is now on-air. Don’t you think this immediate brand extension can lead to audience fatigue? Shouldn’t there be a small break between the two?
Akash: Good question. I will answer that in two parts. First, DID season 2 happened after a break from DID Season 1. So it isn’t like we are doing it one after the other. Secondly, take the example of SaReGaMaPa. Look at the way it was conducted. It was a stamp on music and was hugely successful. And we took that brand and extended it to Little Champs. The same thing happened with DID Little Masters. And for the records, Little Champs became a higher rating grosser than SaReGaMaPa. So we don’t think that this will create any fatigue. The season is short and crisp and the talent is great.
MediaWorldBuzz: Talent is one thing that you claim to be one of the biggest strength of the show. What else is going to be the USP of the show, especially keeping in mind the fact that Colors too is launching a kids dance reality show?
Akash:New forms of dancing and the extensive training of these kids by the mentors will be one of the biggest strengths. Apart from that the two judges Farah Khan and Sandeep’s presence and guidance will be another added advantage as they are one of the most respected personalities in the field of dance.
As far as competition is concerned, it is very simple: we put a stamp on music through SaReGaMaPa and that became successful and many such brands in music came up. Now we have put a stamp on dancing and we know that many other channels will launch dance based shows. So that is absolutely not a problem for us.
MediaWorldBuzz: I agree with you that SaReGaMaPa put a stamp on music. But don’t you think when it comes to dancing Sony’s Boogie Woogie is the first and a very strong brand in the category. Soon, the channel is launching a new season of the show in a complete new avatar. How do you look at that as a competition?
Akash:See, I am not discounting anybody. All I am saying is that the numbers surely prove a fact that today dancing has become a phenomenon and choreography is emerging as a profession because of the direct result of the mania that DID has caught. And numbers prove this. Going forward, let the numbers talk.
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