The Hindu Business Line : The advent of entertainment marketing

WHILE media companies at the Entertainment, Media and Marketing Forum — EM2 2005 organised by the Film and Television Guild of India and Hungama.com, stressed the need for conscious marketing and involvement of brands in the entertainment business, advertisers felt that the best way to leverage themselves is to blend their brands subtly into programming.

"If content is king, marketing is the crown prince," said Mr Samir Nair, Chief Operating Officer, Star India. At the one-day seminar on how brands connect with India's entertainment industry, eminent media personalities and advertisers felt that with 63 million cable viewing homes in India, entertainment marketing will be an integral part of every marketers' budget in the coming months.

Mr Nair, who spoke about Star's marketing strategy for Kaun Banega Crorepati 2 (KBC), said that the channel's entire marketing approach for the second round of KBC had to be changed. "Life has changed in the last five years, therefore, we had to pitch the show in an all new way. Therefore, we kick-started the marketing activities by first getting Mr Bachchan to talk about the programme to the advertisers and re-impose their faith on the programme."

Presenting an advertiser's point of view, Mr Bijou Kurien, Chief Executive Officer, Titan Industries, said that with the convergence of technologies, the consumer today has access to newer media, and it is a challenge for the advertiser to translate their brand message across multiple dimensions. "Gone are the days when soaps such as Buniyaad or Mahabharat were the only channels to get to consumers. Today, there is no concept of captive audience," he said.

Mr Kurien said that if media is the hardware, advertising is the software. He added that advertisers have to go beyond traditional advertising, and have to look at ways to engage consumers at various levels. He stressed on the need for integrating the brand with the programmes, and also creating opportunities for the consumer to interact with the brand beyond the programme, at the shop level or retail level. "Brands have to find ways to create activity beyond the screen also."

Agreeing with Mr Kurien, Mr Santosh Desai, President, McCann Erickson, said that 30-second commercials are dead and advertisers should focus on experiential marketing. "The role of experiential marketing is to make the brand alive and make it part of the lived experience."

Mr Desai quoted the example of Bose, which in its communication invites its target audience to walk into its showrooms to experience the pleasure of sound and not the gadget that creates it. "It allows to understand the philosophy of Bose, which talks about buying the sound and not the gadget."

"Flashing your banner in a programme is not enough, the challenge is to make it interesting and become a part of people's lives," he added.

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