MUMBAI: Indians are obsessed with their stars and connect on an emotional level to the stories playing out on screens. Catering to this population of cine-lovers is Sony MAX that has been feeding this madness for the last 20 years through its vast content library, offering the best Hindi movies. And now to mark the successful completion of these two decades, it has kick-started months of interesting campaigns with its ‘Yeh Hai Desh Ki Deewangi’ TVC.
The campaign is an extension of its ‘Deewana Bana De’ positioning and features ‘Gullu Gulati’ as a mirror image of every movie lover in the country. Speaking about the celebratory campaign with Indiantelevision.com, Sony SAB, PAL and Sony MAX movie cluster head, marketing, and communications Vaishali Sharma shared that it is a celebration of the channel’s relation with its viewers.
She said, “It is pretty tough to create a campaign for the brand that is already very successful and also has a strong positioning, which it doesn’t want to change. So, we decided to let the campaign be a celebration of our success and the leadership position that we have been maintaining for the past 148 weeks. Also, it is a celebration of our relationship with our viewers and the passion for movies.”
The campaign, which showcases the protagonist recreating iconic characters like Raj from Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Vijay from Don, Munna Bhai from Munna Bhai MBBS and Baahubali from Baahubali has been created by DDB Mudra group. Praising the agency for its cooperation and support, Sharma said that the agency not only knows the channel well but also loves what it does.
Apart from the campaign, the channel will be running a number of online activities to mark the celebration. The campaign will be played on digital and on cross channel platforms along with theatres. The channel will also be doing some interactive activities with its followers online like the #Deewangi challenge and ‘your best deewana fan moment’, revealed Sharma.
Elaborating on how the channel will continue to maintain its strong position in the market as it steps into the 21st year, Sharma said that it is very difficult to share what is going to happen in the next year as the industry is very dynamic.
“Every day the industry is seeing some changes. Especially with the NTO, there has been a great transformation and one needs to adapt to it. Right now, the focus remains on bringing a premium experience to users both on and off-air,” Sharma noted.
She added that the channel has grown tremendously well in the past few years and is planning to continue on the same path. “We are not just a movie channel but we compete with the GEC space. We offer the advertisers the same reach as other channels. I think we are a fantastic reach platform (for the brands).”
On being asked how she is planning to maintain the growth in the NTO world, Sharma said that it is practical to move on with the new tariff order. “I think it is an opportunity for us to really market ourselves strongly to the consumers and I think we should continue doing that and create a strong demand (for our content),” she concluded.
