Fox Traveller launches its first music show

The channel created an innovative virtual piano inside malls to create buzz around the show.

Fox Traveller defines its new show Sound Trek by 'Where music meets travel'. "We have always supported that people travel with different purposes. We have explored food, lifestyle, fashion and wish lists; next is music," explains Debarpita Banerjee, vice-president, marketing, FOX International Channels.

Launched on August 29, the 18-episode series focuses on jamming of famous musicians and folk/street artistes. It features artistes inspired by a certain idea who travel to different parts of the country to find folk/street musicians, collaborate with them and create a track that reflects the flavour of that region. SoundTrek telecasts these jamming sessions and hence, telecasts original music.

Nokia has come on board as the presenting sponsor, Bose is the powered by sponsor and Maruti Swift is the co-presenting sponsor. This is the first time for Bose on the channel. Banerjee adds, "I believe that the categories aligned with music will be interested in partnerships."

To create buzz around the show, the channel came up with an augmented reality promotional activity carried out inside malls. It involved a virtual piano projected on the floor. When people walked on it, each step played a different note. This was made possible by infrared (IR) rays and sensors installed on the floor.

In an on-ground event carried out in partnership with blueFROG, SoundTrek Night featured artistes from Parikrama, Midival Punditz, Ankur Tewari and Hari & Sukhmani, who performed their re-created songs live, giving the youth a taste of what's in store on the show. After the maiden event in Mumbai, both blueFROG and FOX Traveller admitted possibilities of similar events in other cities.

The second phase of the marketing campaign was rolled out with radio and online campaigns.

On television, four-five weeks of intense advertising was carried out before the launch, followed by episodic promos later. Any tent-pole property on the channel survives based on 14-15 weeks of marketing campaign on the network channels including Fox Traveller, Fox Traveller HD, National Geographic Channel, National Geographic Channel HD, STAR World, STAR World HD, STAR Movie and STAR Movie HD, which promoted SoundTrek through on air promos, bugs and aston bands.

Print does not figure much in the marketing plan so far. Banerjee explains, "Most of our audience are online, and then our network TV channels help us in the rest. So, we really don't need print."

On the digital platform, the channel got the first watch video on the day of the telecast, wherein the people saw a SoundTrek promo before they saw anything else on YouTube. There will be top banner and promo placements on all top online networks like TOI and Google. The channel is also depending on its own social website presence. The Facebook page of Fox Traveller has about 1.6 million viewers, of which about 5 per cent are talking about the show.

Further leveraging the digital medium, the channel also launched a fun and unique music app, 'Slam & Jam your way to Goa', wherein Facebook users can sing on top of preloaded tunes. They can choose a track to sing on from a list of songs. Once they are done singing, the song is converted immediately for the user to share with friends. The song with the maximum likes will win couple tickets to India Bike Week, Goa in January.