The Hindu Business Line : Star to offer comprehensive branding solutions

A 30-second insurance commercial, for instance, would now become more interactive with a strapline prompting viewers to get more information on the same by either sending an SMS to 7827 along with the name of the brand or logging on to the Web site Indya.com, where there would be a micro-site of the insurance company.

Mr Paritosh Joshi, President (Advertising Sales and Distribution), Star India, said that the company's focus would be to talk to its advertising clients as partners in their brand solution effort. He said that the company is even looking at coming up with a brand name for its comprehensive branding solutions effort.

However, the immediate focus would be to grow the various verticals such as its mobile vertical 7827 and the Web site Indya.com. The company is also shortly going to launch a separate vertical for events. "Star will be a bouquet beyond TV. 7827, for instance, is no longer a sidekick of big brother Star TV. Similarly, Indya.com is growing from an information adjunct to Star TV, to an information and entertainment portal on its own merit," said Mr Joshi.

The company is right now testing Indyasports, which would be a sports portal within Indya.com.

Revenues

On whether the focus on offering complete branding solutions to its clients would lead to incremental revenues for the network, Mr Joshi said, "Incremental revenue would be modest this year. It is going to be more of a test marketing phase where we will develop working models and case studies."

Star TV would also be focusing on branded content in a big way this year. "We are one of the last to get into branded content, as we didn't want to do what we were seeing in this space. We are going to take creative calls to ensure that the brand integrations are done so naturally that it is not at all obvious."