The Hindu Business Line : `The creativity out here is incredible!'

MTV India's new MD, Amit Jain, is impressed by the media industry's capability to think out of the box. So much so, that he thinks the FMCG sector should learn from it.

In FMCG, all the creativity is outsourced. At MTV, everything is done in-house, be it marketing, advertising or consumer-connect programmes.

AMIT JAIN, Managing Director, MTV India - Shashi Ashiwal

Unlike most television companies, which focus mostly on their programming strategy, MTV India's new Managing Director, Amit Jain, is all set to create a brand out of all its channels. Trying to use his vast experience in the fast moving consumer goods industry, Jain says that his focus clearly will be to enable his target audience get a unique brand experience through each of the channels from the MTV (MTV, Nick, Vh1) stable, as he believes that there is a lot of opportunity for strategic marketing which has not been tapped by most media companies.

In an interview with BrandLine, Jain talks about the positives and challenges facing the media industry as well his overall plans for the company.

Excerpts:

You were in the FMCG industry for the larger part of your career, how different is media from the FMCG industry?

I thought there would be a huge difference, but actually there isn't. The consumer is God and distribution is king in both the businesses. While FMCG is all about brand loyalty, media is about stickiness and how we engage the consumer.

Similarly, as it is in the case of colas or any FMCG industry, distribution is a big challenge for the media industry as well.

However, the big difference is the culture. Media is far more informal and free-flowing than FMCG, and an informal business process, to my mind, is needed for creativity. I must say that the creativity out here is incredible. We have people from all kinds of discipline and what's common to all of them is their ability to come up with ideas which you can't anticipate. This is something that the FMCG industry should pick from the media industry — get people to think out-of-the-box.

In FMCG, all the creativity is outsourced. At MTV, everything is done in-house, be it marketing, advertising or consumer-connect programmes.

What, according to you, are the shortfalls of the media industry?

There is a clear shortage of trained manpower in the industry. There are very few institutes which impart competencies to be a successful media person.

Would you be looking at offering organised training to media personnel in future?

We would love to look at it as a strategy in future, but we don't have the business scale to do it. At MTV, our focus is to recruit people who are used to thinking differently. They need not necessarily be from media or advertising.

What are your plans for the company?

All our three brands (MTV, Nick and VH1) are aimed at unique audiences and the real opportunity is to look at the entire business as a network and look at synergies. Now is the time we can look at the best practices of Viacom. The focus in the coming months would be on clear positioning of our brands.

MTV is gifted with a unique positioning, `M,' which can stand for anything (music, masti) that is key to the life of youth. While we will be in the youth territory and reflect their attitude and views, the `M' in MTV would also represent `marketing.' We are going to be more than a TV channel which would be a pipe for advertisers to push their ads.

We are going to innovate harder than any channel. Not only are we going to offer our target audience differential programming, but also offer our clients a 360-degree platform to reach their target audience through us. We want our clients to use the MTV brand to connect with the youth consumers. In fact, we are working with media agencies to give our clients a unique client solution.

This could be through our in-house production capabilities, deals for advertising and PR stunts, partnerships with FM radio stations, client-led events, roadshows and music events. We are going to brand this offering as Viacom Brand Solution in the coming months.

In fact, we are going to reduce commercial time drastically. We have already reduced it by 30 per cent since January.

On the programming front, initiatives such as Ghoom (a spoof on the Bollywood blockbuster, Dhoom) and Semi Girebal (a spoof on Rendezvous with Simi Garewal) are a big hit. In fact, the day Ghoom was premiered (June 17), the TVR of MTV between 8 p. m. and 9 p. m. was higher than ESPN which was airing FIFA.

You had also experimented with fiction on MTV. What is going to be your stand on that?

Fiction received a mixed response. However, I feel that a classical soap will not do well on a channel such as MTV. We need to do something different.

The music genre has been virtually stagnant for the last few years. Would a repositioning exercise help? My take on this is limited, but I do believe that most music channels have not marketed themselves as well as they could have. We have the advantage of being a brand and can therefore position ourselves as more than a music channel. I don't think the other channels have the luxury and licence to do so. May be they should package their music in a different way.

MTV is quite dissimilar to an average TV channel. While most of them outsource content, we have our own studios and our talent is also in-house. This gives us the flexibility to create content which is close to our target audience.

What are your plans for the merchandising business?

We are in the process of re-evaluating it. We believe that there is a much bigger opportunity, therefore, we are trying to put in place a strategy of how to build our various brands.

Coming back to your core business of TV channels, what is going to be your approach towards Nick? It is one of the most widely watched kids' channels in most international markets but is yet to make its presence felt in India.

We are trying to get the basics right. The channel was not getting adequate management focus, but now it has got its own place in the sun. We have a top-notch team headed by Hema Govindan which is already doing a great job. We are also getting a lot of new content to engage our Hindi-speaking viewers. Since the beginning of this year, the viewership of Nick has doubled. Its position has gone up to number five in the kid's genre, but it is still early days.

One of the biggest challenges of Nick was its ailing distribution network. But in the last few months we have made a lot strides to overcome it.

What are your plans for Vh1?

Vh1 is rocking. It is doing extremely well within its target audience.

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