SAB TV breathes fresh air

The MSM channel has revived its look and feel to give an "enriched experience" to all age groups. Steinbranding of Argentina was mandated to design the revamped look.

SAB TV, the family entertainment channel from the Multi Screen Media stable, has announced a revamped look to give an enriched experience to an all-inclusive age group.

The new look is an attempt to give a fresh feel and look to the channel, enhancing the overall experience and retaining its main essence. SAB had mandated Argentina's Steinbranding to redesign the look and has been working with the company since the past one year towards that end.

Talking about the reason for adopting the new look, Anooj Kapoor, business head, SAB TV, says, "We wanted to redo our home, change the packaging, clothing of the channel to make it look more interesting and attractive. Having said that, the content of the channel, nature and pitching of the content is same. The red and yellow colours are same, just that we have added a few more colours and motifs to enhance the present look. For us, the family of warm colours signifies the light hearted and family channel."

Recently, in order to strengthen the brand and create more touch points for the consumers, the channel launched category-wise initiatives including Sab Ki Sawari (a paid service that will take fans on a tour to the sets of the shows and allow them to interact with the actors), Sab ki Paathshala (a school programme that aims to engage with the younger audiences by providing them with interactive learning experiences) and Sab Khelo sab jeeto (a game show that can be played with the family, and enables the fans and consumers to participate and win gifts and merchandise).

The channel has also launched about nine apps that boast of animated talking characters like Sab Ka Gadha, Sab Ka Goip, Sab ka Gulgule, Sab ka Mama and Sab ki Jeannie. These characters have been animated from real life characters and are functional on iOS, Android and Windows platforms.

According to the channel, the apps were launched a couple of months ago and even without heavy promotion, have received more than two lakh downloads.

Sab Ke Comics enables the channel to engage with fans beyond TV and bring them back to watching their favourite shows and characters on SAB TV by cross sampling various shows in a comic book format. The comics are currently available on limited circulation but the channel will start charging for the subscription soon.

SAB, according to Kapoor, is the first Hindi general entertainment channel to have launched a brand campaign. It had launched a campaign titled Asli Mazaa Sab ke Saath Aata Hai in 2007. Later, there have been different campaigns with the same integral idea, with campaign lines like - 'Aur Bhi Asli Mazaa Sab Ke Saath Aata Hai', 'Zindagi ka Matlab toh Apno Se Naata Hai, Asli Mazaa SAB Ke Saath Aata Hai', 'Ab Baache Baache ko bhi Samajh mein Aata Hai, Ki Asli Mazaa SAB ke Saath Aata Hai' and the most recent one 'Sab Ka Waqt Aata Hai, Toh bhaiyo aur behno sab mil- julke raho. Kyunki asli mazaa sabke saath aata hai.'

The revamp of the channel is also being promoted extensively across media. While television is the main focus, outdoor, digital and print will also be engaged. The new look is being promoted with the tagline, 'Sab sawar raha hai 21 June se' for the past four days on MSM's network channels and around 30-40 channels outside MSM's bouquet.

The print campaign is being run in 40 odd publications across the country, and a few local newspapers in Uttar Pradesh. On the outdoor medium, about 700-800 sites in 40 Hindi speaking markets with 1 mn+ population have been employed. There will also be digital wall paints in 20 cities of 0.1 million- 1million population.

SAB TV, which was launched by Shri Adhikari Brothers in 2000, was taken over by MSM in 2005 but the name of the channel remained unchanged, still carrying a tinge of the creator-company.

However, the positioning of the channel changed from a 'comedy-centric' channel to 'youth entertainment channel' which failed to work well with the audience. The channel's positioning was later changed to family comedy entertainment in 2007, after Kapoor got on the helm of the channel.

SAB TV has come a long way since then. When it was acquired from Shri Adhikari Brothers, the channel recorded about 20 odd GRPs, and now scores in the range of 140-150 GRPs, giving a fair competition to established channels. Kapoor notes that SAB has grown by 700 per cent since then in terms of GRPs, and around 900 per cent in terms of revenue in the past six years.