UTV Movies woos cable operators, audience in UP and MP

The Hindi movie channel from the Disney-UTV umbrella has launched anout of home campaign in the Hindi-speaking markets of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

In an attempt to reach out to the people of the Hindi speaking markets of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Madhya Pradesh (MP), UTV Movies, the Hindi movies channel offering of Disney-UTV, has launched anout of home activation in the region.

The activation, executed by R W Promotions, began on January 21 and will continue for more than four months. It involves two canter vans decked with a collage of posters of several super hit Hindi films that are also properties of UTV Movies.

Two such vans have been deployed to interact with and engage people simultaneously in different towns and cities of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The vans will cover 8,000 km in a journey spread over more than 100 days in the two states. In UP, the van started its journey from Mauranipur, and is scheduled to cover 76 towns. In MP, the van started its journey from Sendhwa and will traverse through 35 towns in the state.

UTV Movies, launched in early 2008, has collaborated with local cable channels which inform the people beforehand about the arrival of the vans by running supers and promos of the channel.

Each time a van arrives at a particular city or a town, the cable operator of the area inaugurates the van and flags off the activities. The van then moves around in the town with the promoter making announcements to attract and gather crowds. The vans also screen one movie every evening.

Also, volunteers wearing UTV branded T-shirts organise various activities such as Bollywood-related contests, quizzes, wheel of fortune and other games. The winners take home UTV merchandize such as T-shirts, caps, key chains, wall clocks and eco-friendly bags/vegetable bags.

Contest are organised around films and UTV merchandise given out. Similar gifts are also given to local cable operators as the brand aims to develop a strong relationship with them.

S Venkatesh, director, R W Promotions says, "The brief required us to create a buzz around the brand in the smaller town markets of UP and MP. The brand wanted to give an extra push in these markets as the next round of ratings of TAM will come up from the LC1 markets (that have a population of less than a lakh people), so UTV movies wanted to be the front runner in these regions and create as much awareness as possible."