Sony sets Bollywood tapping to promote DPL

Sony sets Bollywood tapping to promote DPL

MUMBAI: If it‘s Bollywood singing across the silver screen this season, then there is some serious foot-tapping on the television sets too.

Sony Entertainment Television (Set) has, thus, decided to use some big Bollywood endorsers to market its latest property, Dance Premier League (DPL).

To be aired every Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, DPL will run for 12 weeks with a total telecast of 24 episodes.

To promote its newest show, the channel has tied up with three movies - Main Aurr Mrs Khanna, All the Best and Radio wherein leading stars from the movies will represent a particular team.

Salman Khan will represent ‘Uttar Ke Puttar‘ with LMN as the team sponsor. The ‘Eastern Tigers‘, meanwhile, will be represented by Bipasha Basu. Samsung Mobile has been roped in as the team sponsor.

Kareena Kapoor will support ‘Western Yodhas‘ with Closeup as the team sponsor. The ‘Southern Sizzlers‘, sponsored by White Ice, will be backed by Prabhu Deva.

Endorsed by Videocon, Himesh Reshammiya will stand for the ‘Central Surmas‘ while Sohail Khan will support the ‘Desi Pardesi‘ team. Gate Basmati Rice has walked on board as the team sponsor.

Playing on the theme, ‘Izzat Ka Sawaal Hai‘, the marketing of DPL will remain high across television, radio, print, outdoor and web.

For television, the promotion will be held across 15 channels. These will include Hindi news channels Star News and Aaj Tak, movie channels such as UTV Movies and kids channels like Hungama and Nickelodeon.

Says Set marketing head Danish Khan, "We have booked 5000 TV spots across television channels of various genres. We have also booked spots during the ICC Champions Trophy to gain maximum visibility."

As part of the radio promotion activity, the channel has tied up with 40 radio stations across India and has booked 3,500 radio spots for the same.

Outdoor media, meanwhile, will be utilised to promote the property in 23 cities.

"There are 1000 plus hoardings that have been put up across the country. Additionally, we have branded the boarding passes of Jet Airways and JetLite. In Mumbai, we are using around 200 hoardings. We have also branded Andheri railway station for creating awareness," adds Khan.

The channel will also unveil a microsite dedicated to DPL. On the site, each team will have its own page and every detail on the team will be displayed. The site will allow people to own DPL teams and play DPL games. Additionally, the channel will exploit social networking sites including Facebook and Orkut to spread brand awareness.