India TV to spend bulk of marketing budget to promote revamp

The channel will be spending about 65 per cent of its total annual marketing budget to promote the revamp. An extensive brand campaign has been created by Saints & Warriors to reinforce the new logo, packaging and refreshing content.

India TV, one of the leading Hindi news channels, recently refurbished its look and packaging. The channel claims it is also committed to turning to more serious content. In an attempt to communicate these changes to various stakeholders of the industry including viewers, the channel has launched a 360 degree brand campaign.

It is learnt that the channel will spend close to 65 per cent of the total annual marketing budget to promote the revamp. India TV will use the credibility and popularity of its editor-in-chief and promoter, Rajat Sharma, to reinforce the changes through the brand campaign.

The same is being done via the core message 'Aap, Main Aur India TV, Milkar Badle Bharat Ki Tasveer'. As explained by the channel, the exercise is in sync with the currently transforming nation that also coincides with India TV's recent changeover.

The channel has left no stone unturned to communicate the message. It has employed almost 500 outdoor sites across all major markets of the Hindi speaking belt, including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Shimla, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Chandigarh, Udaipur, Jaipur, Meerut, Agra, Lucknow, Kanpur, Dehradun, Varanasi, Allahabad, Pune, Aurangabad, Nashik, Amravati, Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior, Ranchi, Patna and Jammu.

The campaign has been designed by Saints & Warriors, while the media is handled by the in-house team of the channel. The campaign is split into three phases, to be spread over six weeks. The first leg (of three weeks) will cover outdoor. The print campaign will act as a follow up, largely using Hindi dailies and a few releases in English dailies.

The digital duties of the channel are handled by Ecosystem. Ritu Dhawan, managing director and CEO, India TV, explains, "In line with our commitment to deliver serious news, we have specifically limited the campaign to serious news consumers across digital media. The TG we are tapping are the active news consumers across all leading news websites across India in general and the Hindi belt in particular. The decision has been taken in this regard basis our understanding of the digital media to provide us with maximum eyeballs for the campaign."

The channel hopes to generate a minimum of 35 million impressions of the news-savvy digital audiences. It is learnt that the channel has tried to keep a leash on the expenditures. Dhawan states, "The first leg of the campaign is around Rs 5.5 crore. The same, along with what we have kept aside for the second leg, is around 65 per cent of the annual marketing budget."

The channel's new look has been designed by Renderon Broadcast Design, a US-based packaging firm that counts FOX News and NBC amongst its clients. India TV's new logo was designed by brand strategy firm DY works.

India TV news presentation moves to a highly sophisticated double story set. The colourful set has been designed and executed by BDI (Broadcast Design International), one of the global domain leaders. Mike Baker, former lighting director, BBC has put together the lighting arrangement in the new set. Also, the new look for India TV mikes have been designed by Germany's Schulze-Brakel.

Illustrations of various revolutionary movements such as India's fight against terrorism during 26/11, protests against rapes, anti corruption movements led by Anna Hazare are mnemonic to such collective radical movements that have become regular sights in contemporary India.