With nearly 25 years of experience, she has worked as part
of the leadership team at Star, Turner and HBO. Her efforts
were validated when she was recognized as ‘Next 30’ most
powerful women to look out in 2010; and was also adjudged
as one of India’s hottest young executives of the media industry
in 2009 by Business Today and adjudged amongst the top
50 influential women in media, marketing and advertising by
a leading industry magazine - IMPACT in 2012 and 2014. She
has also received Women Leadership award by World Women
Leadership Congress in 2014. She was judged amongst
India’s top 100 important people in the industry by Digital
Studio a leading magazine in Broadcasting and Production.
Markathon: Do you think “aggressive marketing
campaigns “ can hamper the long term positioning
of a company or a product?
I think there is not a yes or a no to that, it also depends
upon how we are defining aggressive marketing in a
given scenario and it also depends upon what the objective
of the marketing campaign is. Sometimes you
are launching a new product or a new proposition, at
that time aggressive marketing is important because
you need to get that message across through a large
base of consumers and then you need to come up
with a marketing strategy that caters to that aspect
of the consumer behaviour. Although sometimes
there is a launch of a product variant of a product
that exists in the market or there is launch of a new
season of a T.V series that is already existing, then
aggressive marketing is both a waste of money and
effort. So you really need to identify the objective of
your campaign and create communication accordingly,
thus I think the answer to your question would
vary situation to situation.
Markathon: In case, for an existing brand, the brand
recognition is already quite high, then in that case,
do you think aggressive marketing would be a good
move?
I don’t think we can ever be judgemental about a
marketing campaign till we know about its core objectives,
as in the present case, may be it is expected out of the brand to be constantly present in the consumer’s
mind because it is a very competitive market
and constant brand recall or brand presence it
required to convert sales. If this is the market scenario
then consistent efforts of communication are
required. But if it’s not the case than there is definitely
a threat of overkill, because every campaign has a
tipping point and beyond that point it is a waste of
money and energy.
That is why, it is very important that you are very dynamic
in your approach. You should have clear objectives
in your mind and although you have set of
goals and targets to achieve, you need to be flexible
about them. Like in my experience, I have witnessed
that at times, although the marketing budget was
set for 2-3 weeks but the required GRPs (gross rating
points) was not achieved in that, then you need to
extend the campaign or in some cases if it is achieved
before time than you should be bold enough to understand
that although you have a budget, it would
make more sense to ease out right now. So you need
to keep evaluating your campaigns regularly, especially if the mediums are as dynamic as digital media
or television.
Markathon: How do Television channels segment
and target their audience?
So how a channels segments and targets depends upon the genre.
For eg. Hindi entertainment channels
are usually very focused about their target audience.
It is usually between the age group of 25-55
and it usually SEC BCD. So now they would be very
focused about this target audience, now if SEC A men
or SEC A women watch their channel than its good ,
but still they will create content which appeases their
target market. If they are missing on SEC A OR Apus,
they don’t mind. While an English channel usually focusses
on male 22-45, majorly SEC A or SEC A plus.
Now their content would be completely different and
the kind of movies or shows they would run on that
channel would be usually in sync with their overall
targeting. So it completely depends
upon the genre we are talking about.
Like entertainment channels have cut
out a different audience, sports have
it differently, news channels have it
differently and then they work out
their content accordingly.
Advertisers slot their advertisements
in a similar fashion, if their target audience
is women of majorly SEC BCD,
then they will probably slot it in a
Hindi entertainment channel during
a show that matches their exact specifications.
Markathon: Do channels have a systematic mechanism
to evaluate if they are able to reach their target
audience or not? May be the product was targeted
at someone and it was consumed by someone else.
Absolutely there is, so all these years there was this
one bible that the industry used to use and it was
called, TAMS- Television Audience Measurement system
. But as of, early this year, it has been changed to
BARC- Broadcasting Audience Research Council. So
that’s the third party which does the analysis of your
channel or show. Like you would have heard of TRPs
, it comes from them. So it is not just about ratings,
they do an in-depth analysis of what the audience
is watching, when are they watching, and where are
they watching it. Then there are departments which
analyse that data accordingly, in coordination with
other factors like geography etc. and come up with
the overall strategies. This data is also used to evaluate
promos as well. Initial promos of a show are a
very integral part of the communication designed for
the consumers. So if a show is about to be launched
then usually in depth research is done on the kind
of audience the promos have reached. So if the target was young women, they evaluate how much of
the population reached matches with the target audience.
Then it entirely depends upon on the broadcaster
if they want to take the research analysis on
face value or not. As at times too much of analysis
leads to paralysis.
Markathon: There is a change in the content of movies
and soap operas made a decade ago and now? Do
you think the current scenario is more people centric
than product centric and major emphasis is on building
connect?
Absolutely and that is how it should be, because the
audience and the consumer is so much more intelligent
these days and they are exposed to so much.
They go through so much Indian as well as international
content. So there is a change in their consumption
pattern, like even if you see in movies, the movies
which used to work in 1980s or 1990s, they will
not work today. On the same lines you couldn’t have
thought of a movie like Queen to be such a huge success,
10 years ago. So there is an evolution of taste
amongst the consumers. The consumers want content
which they can understand easily and they can
relate to. So it is about the simplicity and relatability
of the content. It’s not just about the functional aspects
but the emotional connect that you build for
your product. As emotional connect is the best connect
you can build with your consumer. For e.g. If you
need to advertise a bottle of water and you say that this
a blue bottle and the water in it is pure, it just
costs 10 bucks and it is Bailey, come buy it. Then there
is a huge chance it won’t work, but instead if you build
a story around it, on how the water is coming from
the mountains just to your home and it brings purity
and positivity in your home, it might connect with the
customer well, and he might think that it is a good option
for a bottled mineral water. Taking it further, there is a great advertisement by
Tanishq, in which a dark women is getting remarried
and it is showcased that her daughter makes a fuss to
be with her during some crucial ceremonies. It shows
how his husband to be is sensitive towards it and
handles the situation, now these kind of advertisements
do make connect and it conveys a beautiful
message. Now it is both beneficial and responsible
on the part of the advertisers, brands and agencies
to come up with content like this. Another such ad,
is an HDFC ad where they showcase a woman talking
about having a house and how is
she planning for it. Buying a house has always been
a man’s job according to the Indian society but it is
advertisements and products like these that not only
create a strong place in the mind of the target audience
but also encourages them to break the norm.
Markathon: What would be the revenue split for a
television channel between advertisement and distribution?
Currently the ratio is 60:40, in favour of advertisers
by large. I am talking about the industry average, for
certain broadcasters the skew might be different. But
the ratio used to be 80:20 and 70:30 in the favour of
the advertisers earlier, so it is shifting now. Globally,
if I speak it is 70:30, in favour of the broadcaster or
the distributor. So we are way off that bench mark
and we need to work on that balance. The distributors
favour this majorly because such a high share of
advertisement in the revenue model adds to a lot of
ambiguity as money coming from advertising could
go really up or really down. It is not fixed. So you
need a better split to manage your risk, at least what
is needed is a 50:50.
Markathon: What will be the one advice you would
like to give to our readers?
That would be passion and passion. Follow what you
are passionate about. I have been a big propagator of
that, I am a big believer of that and I am a live example
of that. If you are really passionate about something,
there is very rare chance you won’t succeed at
it. So if you really are doing what you believe in and
what you love, everything would follow. Fame, fortune
and money is a by-product and if that becomes
your goal then you
are starting in the wrong direction. It might work for
you but there is a huge chance you won’t be happy
in that scenario. So in case you want to be happy and
successful, follow your passion. Passion has been my
mantra and that would be one advice that I would
like to give to any budding executive.
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