Dare to be different
David Blaine the Illusionist markets his credentials on the streets of New York as a street magician and rises to the top of magician charts and you are left wondering at his gall.
Barack Obama speaks at U of Michigan and tries to sell his performance and goals in schools and colleges.
George Bush during his Presidency spent time in that infamous 911 incident reading a nursery rhyme at Booker Elementary School to show the grandfatherly gentleman that is the Commander-in-Chief.
The Orson Welles adaptation of the H.G. Wells story the "War of the Worlds" lead to a scream with Welles's War of the Worlds radio broadcast on October 30, 1938, convincing Americans that Martians were attacking Grover's Mill, New Jersey.and people were seen running in fear that Martians were all set to take over from earthlings.
Closer home, and in recent times, Aamir Khan's 3 Idiots saw some innovative marketing techniques with the famous butt chairs making their presence felt in super malls and public places with being pictured in it becoming a fad or fashion and Khan himself roaming around the country for two weeks in disguise and challenging his fans to spot him.
Shahid Kapoor and Genelia
D'Souza spent a night together in a car to promote their film Chance Pe Dance, Amitabh Bachchan read news on a
TV channel to promote Rann, while actress Neha Dhupia threw condoms at a college crowd -
all this to publicize their films.That old belief that quality begets you an audience is a thing of the past when choices have multiplied.The below-the-line activities,
a marketing parlance for non-mass media promotions, was a successful formula that producers and stars, even established ones are hitting on to market their product, be it a film or a book or a work of art.
Creating a buzz is the keyword that drives product positioning and it has triggered a new race for
fresh and more aggressive marketing methods.
Part II: The Marathon, The Marathon Runner, The PodiumThe MarathonThe Boston Marathon or The New York Marathon or even the Pune Marathon always aim to succeed.
It is a long stretch, it is not like a 100 M sprint that is done and over with in the current world record of 9.69 seconds something.by Usain Bolt.
The organizer has to plan for any unplanned event as most times Marathons be it the New York Marathon or the Pune Marathon run on the streets where there could be other eventualities that derail the course of the event or impact it.
The ChannelStar One's overall GEC is about 3 as compared to Star Plus which is about 30 odd. Therein, lies the difference between a 4.0 or something TRP that a show on Star Plus generates in the same time slot against Star One's GHSP.
So, the channel being the event organizer or the host should first off broaden it's marketing spectrum and consider newer and unique segments to target in terms of consumers for their overall content as well as in terms of age group, markets, consumer base. I am sure their marketing heads with great credentials from premier business schools should all be considering factors such as reach, availability, and exploited or currently utilized.
There is a saying this side of the street that you can't know what you are losing until you are losing it and you can't know what you would gain had you been looking at B Street from the intersection point of D and L street . Well, to befit that analogy, let me give you a simple example, your target consumers are 13-30+ though you might say it is 18-35, cause today youngsters at 13-14 look for serials and most have a mix of literature ranging from Harry Potter to Jane Austen to an M & B on their shelves and these are the consumers that watch with avid interest an SRK-Kajol film.
They start young these days and it is not limited to teenagers alone, even pre-teens watch romance and drama.
Some suggestions:-
Every college has an annual fest and it has some random cultural fest or something. These are good places for getting publicity through viral marketing and sponsorship of a part of the program like a fancy dress competition or even a dance competition with theme of the Channel's main shows. It would work.
Precent/Proof of Concept: A college fest managed by a Geetian/Geet fan in Ahmedabad had some of the contestants don the garb of GEET the main protagonist in Geet HSP. And it was a roaring success.
- Kitty parties/ladies clubs: These are places where women randomly socialize and share thoughts and ideologies. The Channel could target these groups and try to garner their responses by tailoring one or two episodes based on their needs and fancies.
- Social organizations: A strong concept or theme that can be marketed to specific core social group such as GEET HSP's initial storyline of a small town girl who is deceived etc., within the subject matter and framework of honor killings.
- Location: Being able to weave in all the locations they want to target by using local famous spots eg., like they used the Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah for the Teri Deewani segment during that specific time and marketing it to the specific consumers through viral marketing or internet could help fuel more mileage.
Here I would like to add why the Hoshiarpur segment did not work in the initial days in generating TRPs and the Delhi segment worked was that at that time, GHSP had low visibility on online or social media, there was less buzz and lower volumes of content on GHSP generated everywhere
- Billboards. Most shows that are popular in rival channels seem to have well placed Billboards or placards in all the right places and points, which is something to be considered.
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Support a Cause: If the channel is smart, it would tie itself into one of the causes like NDTV has tied itself in to the "Save the tiger" campaign and as a BYPRODUCT of that support is reaping benefits with celebrity marketing of that cause thereby, positioning its brand internationally with the extinct tigers that is a cause for concern from Africa to Americas.
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Promos Commissioning of and Airing of: I know for a fact that it is the channel's prerogative and that it costs tremendous amounts of money, air time, production time, and may be even the Production House is charged/debited for the aired slots as per rate/per airing. So, would it not make sense to make these promos intelligent and superior than the run of the mill products? There was a time when the promos were unique and had a varied flavor and design. They were also well crafted. That is the way to go, SUBTLE marketing wins over quantity.
Merchandising
It has been brought to our attention that it is the Channel that holds Copyrights on all brands of the Serials that it airs such as GHSP/Geet/Geet Hui Sabsey Parayi/Maan/Maan Singh Khurana, which are brands in itself with a strong social presence and online market positioning. I think the channel should capitalize on it and cross sell these brands to advertisers as well as utilize these brands in pushing their products. As also, start to build on these brands through merchandising T-shirts, caps, clothe bags that are modeled on products that are used by these protagonists. These can be done through online Paypal or Ebay account through their official channel and some form of payment systems built into their system and handling and logistics outsourced.
Here I would like to recommend to the Channel a few important posts that could give a glimpse or idea as to what or how:
Which Brands Could 'Geet HSP' Characters Endorse by deejayaqueel
Geet Merchandising Random Ideas Horseplay
Bring on Ur White T's [this could be run as a slogan contest by the official channel web site and the T's could be sold by the web site with a few given off as freebies]
The Production House
They already have existing Facebook and Twitter pages where their FB page has touched a 6-figure mark in 8 months.
They should capitalize on these numbers.
Invisible marketers/Backup marketing team: A one third of those 100,000 above users on Facebook that have liked GHSP are your invisible and backup marketing team whose word-of-mouth marketing, whose engagement, whose buzz could act as positive channels or negative channels.
Leveraging them and utilizing them successfully, strategically will lead to a great success story that has not been envisaged when originally the page was conceived. For this you need to get out of your traditional thinking patterns and adapt to a new and fierce marketing technique that may be none of the B-schools of today teach and can only be learned at Starbucks or at how an American traditional blue denim has become a matter of choice to a young 16-yr, old traditional Muslim boy in Muzzfarpur, if you can understand that, you can understand what I am implying.
The power of the web is like hydel electricity power generation, harness it and channel it properly and it could lead to humongous groW*H and success stories. But for that you need out-of-the-box thinking and realization that this is one loyal customer base that you need to exploit to germinate and pollinate.
Local Print Media/Regional Press/Language Press
The PH should also think of using the local media and regional press to
push its product with paper inserts/news items in language dailies, or
sponsoring story contests in regional/lanugage weeklies and monthlies
such as Lokmat, Anand Bazar Patrika, Navbharat Times, Mayapuri etc.,
The Marathon Runner
If we can conceive a story that can catch up with the times and weave current events as sub plots or variations in theme, or as just anecdotes then we can really play a different ball game altogether.
You started with the story of a girl who fights odds, weaved in the social evil of honor killings. Till date it is still rampant in Haryana. But there are about so many wonderful women who have been rehabilitated and there are people fighting the kaap panchayats. If you can bring these anecdotes as a sub text into the story in the end and map it to how real stories like Geet have coped and survived to emerge victorious against such social evils, you can easily catch the pulse of the audience and build on the ship of faith and hope. Think how inspiring it will work as a backbone to the story.
If you can weave in elements like the current injustice of the Arushi murder case etc., into it, don't you think intelligent news items in popular media could push your serial into the limelight?
The Podium
It is actually the pinnacle and these are many, one is from a creative perspective reaching top notch quality where your product speaks for itself. Two, is from a marketing perspective where you brand builds itself and benefits from itself. Brand positioning in people's mind to brand identification with several facets of life, personality, products, consumer choices in consumption of products related or pushed by your brand. Thirdly, it is about the sheer increase in reach, and audience and thereby, the number of persons switching on and tuning in to your product at that specific time eagerly, loyally till kingdom come.
End note on the theme of Marketing & Promotion: I conclude sincerely herewith on my monologue and self dialogue that is inspired from my addiction to Geet HSP for the past 199 episodes. It is a humble and modest attempt to explore possibilities and is NOT a path-breaking effort. It is done purely for my own satisfaction. It is neither comprehensive nor do I claim it to be factual. - Thank you!!!
Episode 199: A few short notes:
- What if Brij would not be the ultimate evil in the long run; he might see his sister's happiness and that she is going to be married. Hence the contention for the family dishonor goes out of the window and the BIG TWISTER what if it is that on the day of the SHAADI it is BRIJ who does the KANYADAAN of GEET or brings the whole HP family to do the KANYADAAN -
Aisa Bhi Ho Sakta Hai ADDENDUM ERRATA:Taking that Athletics analogy further, we can call an individual episode as a 400 M run or 400 M Relay if you take story and time of each episode. So just like a
race strategy is needed to win a 400 M run or 400 M Relay Run, we need to plan and strategize an individual episode.
A Very Unique Suggestion by Blueberry_07Maybe the promotional crew of GHSP could do a MAHIIIIIII roadshow one day...🤣🤣🤣...since everybody go by Geet as being the Mahiiiiiiiii show 🤣🤣Edited by bDgT - 13 years ago
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