The Hindu Business Line : Zee Star salvo

Star and Zee have adopted a single point strategy to sell their entire bouquet of channels to advertisers. Opinion is divided, however, on whether this is the best strategy to offer better value.

IS selling a bouquet of channels better than selling a TV channel alone? Two big daddies of television, Star and Zee, have gone back to bouquet sales after having done individual channel selling in the past. And, it's not just them; today TV networks are constantly experimenting with new ad sales strategies to rope in more clients.

Recently, the Star group decided to go back to bouquet sales along with introducing a new rate card on its Web site to drive more `transparency' into the system. Calling it the `Star advantage,' the broadcaster has decided to emulate the print medium's strategy. It has centralised its ad sales team. There will now be two divisions under its account and channel teams to cater to its 400-odd advertisers. While the channel team is expected to sell all the eight channels of the network, the account team will service its top 50 advertisers with its combined bouquet of channels. In fact, the account team's functions will be akin to that of the account or client servicing function in an advertising agency.

At a select press briefing, Sameer Nair, Chief Operating Officer, Star India, said, "This will help us service our clients better. If a client wants to place an ad at a particular time across all channels on the Star Network, our team will make it a possibility. So instead of many teams visiting the same client for the several channels in the network, there will be this one salesperson servicing a couple of clients and posing as a one-stop shop."

And it is not just Star which has decided to re-introduce bouquet sales for its clients. Some months ago, Zee too decided to adopt a similar strategy. The broadcaster group has decided to have a unified sales policy and has already identified Madison Media and Group M as its partners in Mumbai and Delhi to initiate network sales for its top 50 clients. In the South and East, the group continues to conduct the entire network sales for its clients.

Claims Joy Chakraborthy, Executive Vice-President (Network Sales), Zee Television, "Today we are not selling but servicing our clients. If buying agencies can consolidate, so can we. It gives a uniform image to the company and also saves time for the channel executives. They, in fact, become the brand's custodians or ambassadors by having a single point of contact."

Giving a media planner's insight, Punitha Arumugam, Group CEO, Madison Media, says, "Network sales is essentially when you sell more than one channel. It is a brilliant idea since that one person understands the client's requirements much better and becomes a one-point contact."

But the Zee Channels have still not decided to offer a rate card that will drive more transparency into the system. "We do have a rate card but we have not stuck to it. Rates are fixed depending on the market dynamics of demand and supply," says Chakraborthy.

Streamlining its operations, the Zee Network now has sales personnel who are being trained so that they have the necessary information on all of the network's channels. The new system is expected to avoid clashes and provides a uniform sales policy.

But network sales seem to be useful when the bouquet already has a few weak or new channels which can ride on the strength of the more popular channels. Industry observers feel that by getting the big advertisers on board, the less popular channels get their share of them. For instance, Star would be still struggling to get the big advertisers for its relatively new offerings such as Star One but bouquet sales negotiations could lead to big advertisers getting roped in. Observes Vikram Sakhuja, Managing Director, Mindshare, "Network sales would apply to large buyers since it allows them more freedom to negotiate compared to the standalone channels. Star Plus is possibly not getting the numbers for its new channels such as Star One. In fact, it is in the absence of numbers that network sales come in." Riding on the success of Star Plus' ratings might bring in the numbers Star has been looking for.

The absence of numbers is what prompted Sony to try out bouquet sales before it moved back to channel sales. As Rohit Gupta, Head of Ad Sales, Sony India Pvt Ltd, says, "Each network has its own ad sales strategy. In the past we had moved to network sales due to certain objectives that we had set for ourselves. It was at a time when Max and AXN were still not as big as Sony. But now with the rest of the bouquet becoming strong we want to focus on individual channels." This year, Sony restructured its ad sales functions and moved back to individual channel sales having distributed its sales force among its clients.

A former Star executive feels that it is a wrong strategy altogether. "How is one salesperson expected to remember so many facts about each channel on the network? It is a humungous task. From the client's perspective, with more money being spent while buying into the entire network, their bargaining powers become stronger. In fact, the share of voice of the ad space seller is much stronger when individual channels are being sold," says he.

Driving more transparency into the system, Star has also decided to put up its rate card on its Web site.

"We plan to make space selling on television very transparent. Earlier the rate cards were not taken too seriously as it was common practice to give discounts up to 75-80 per cent. But now, we will restrict the discounts between 10 and 15 per cent," says Kevin Vaaz, Executive Vice-President, Star India.

However, media planners are not exactly impressed with Star's attempts to drive transparency into the system, which relies heavily on negotiations. Says Sakhuja of Mindhare, "A rate card is simply a unilateral aspiration of the price they would like to get. The reality is always going to be the fee at which they negotiate. The rates can be fixed only if there is a guarantee of the audience, which becomes the currency for rates."

Star's Nair, however, claims that the purpose was to structure ad rates across the group's eight channels and thereby monetise its value offering a better deal to its advertisers.

Highlighting the nuances of having a new rate card, Tapan Pal, CEO, Audience Measurement and Analytics (P) Ltd, an online TV audience measurement entity, says, "As long as the channel is in a dominant position it can go by its rate card but the moment it starts slipping it will get difficult, and that's when the discounting starts. Star is already losing out in the afternoon and weekend slots and it is only in the post 10 o'clock slots that it continues to dominate. The fact that Eenadu and Sun TV charge fixed rates like the print media is primarily because they tend to rule in their respective regions. However, the fact that different clients charge different rates will now become redundant with transparency coming into the system."

Star continues to rule the roost with Sony and Zee trailing behind in the overall ratings. With intentions of beefing up its weekend programming, Star Plus has decided to bring in Kaun Banega Crorepati 2 and has plans to launch a new show in the 10 p.m. slot. "The Star Plus programmes continue to dominate in the weekdays but we are expecting KBC 2 to lift the overall deliveries during the weekend," says Ajay Vidyasagar, Senior Vice-President (Marketing & Communication), Star, admitting to Star's weak ratings over the weekend.

The other channels have adopted a wait-and-watch policy to see if a rate card actually brings in more transparency into the system. "Star is a big network and we are waiting to learn from its learnings. We would like to see how media buyers and clients react to the new system," adds Zee's Chakraborthy.

Emulating the print medium's way of functioning, Star, with its bouquet, is hoping for a boost in its ad revenues. "We are expecting double digit growth, that is all that I can say," says Nair, without divulging any numbers. The `Star advantage' should hopefully live up to its name as far as its advertisers are concerned, apart from driving some amount of transparency into the media buying process.

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