Mumbai, January, 2011: The studio of 94.3 Radio One, the only radio station that offers its listeners ‘Maximum Music, Maximum Choice’, was bustling with excitement as the versatile and talented, “Mr. Perfect” Aamir Khan along with his wife Kiran Rao made one of the very rare appearance on radio. The duo was invited as special guests on MJ Hrishi.K’s morning show to promote their forthcoming film ‘Dhobi Ghaat’, which marks Kiran’s debut in the film industry as a Director.

MJ Hrishi.K enhanced the chemistry between the two during the interview, giving listeners an insight into what really makes the couple so adorable. A visibly delighted and impressed Aamir said how pleased he was with MJ Hrishi K who handled the interview with dignity, respect and at so much fun at same time. As a special treat MJ Hrishi.K played for them the ‘Dhobi Ghaat’ signature theme tune that no station has played before.

The couple got chatty with MJ Hrishi.K and shared insight into the shooting of the film; especially their 3 months stay in the cozy rented one room tenement with 7 to 8 big windows on Mohmad Ali Road. They also shared interesting trivia on shooting late at nights in candle light to avoid people gazing inside the house; how they got a chance to interact with dhobis and learnt about their hard lives; and Salman Khan being the inspiration for Aamir’s role in the film.

They also spoke their hearts out only for the listeners of Radio One about each other, the background score of the film composed by international artist, Gustavo Santaolalla and their person preferences in music. Where Kiran loves her Ipod, Aamir loves his radio; he is an ardent listener of radio. While Kiran reaffirmed her taste for world music, Aamir stood by his love for Bollywood music; especially music composed by Nadeem Shravan for films like ‘Dil’ and ‘Hum Hai Rahi Pyar Ke’. They also expressed their paternal love for Prateek Babbar who on Radio One had claimed that he considered Aamir as a father figure. They spoke about the actor’s professionalism, dedication and raw talent which really helped shape the movie.

Aamir was spotted wearing Kiran’s earrings during his interview at the studio. Responding to MJ Hrishi.K’s probing questions he said that it was the same earning he had taken from Kiran while shooting for Lagaan. Springing at this opportunity Kiran laughed about how since then she has been trying to get him to either give the earring back from him or get them replaced.

For the first time ever the listeners of Radio One heard Kiran Rao share her experience of trying her hands at being a Radio Jockey while she was a student of Mass Communication in Delhi. She also broke the myth that Aamir was a perfectionist in everything he did by sharing with the listeners on how messy he is in his real life but perfectionist in work life. Taking a dig at Kiran, Aamir joked about the casting couch… as his wife was casting him in the film. This indeed had the listeners and MJ Hrishi.K in splits!

New Delhi, Oct 15 (IANS) After playing a milkman, Bollywood actor Aamir Khan will be seen donning the garb of a barber and a shopkeeper in new TV commercials.

Aamir, who is the brand ambassador of TataSky, plays a barber and a shopkeeper in two different television commercials of the DTH service.

In both the ads, the customer walks in asking for a particular haircut or a white shirt, while he is forced to take something completely different. The situation shown in the films draws a parallel between the DTH companies and the barber and the shopkeeper and has been communicated through the use of humour and satire.

Conceptualised by Ogilvy and Mather, the core theme of the ads revolves around TruChoice Packages being offered by Tata Sky.

Television viewers — whether cable or DTH — don’t have the true choice of selecting only those channels that they wish to watch. In the process, they end up paying for a host of channels they don’t watch or like. These packages give the subscriber the option of watching only those channels he/she likes to watch.

Earlier, the actor had actually turned into a barber while promoting his film “Ghajini”, where Aamir was seen giving his typical Ghajini-style haircut to his fans.

Source: Thaindian

After cutting prices, the third largest DTH player bets on interactive services to protect revenue.

Direct-to-home (DTH) major Tata Sky made headlines last week – first, for Aamir Khan playing the role of a milkman in its new commercial, and second, for kicking off a price war.

The company said that its “first-of-its-kind, no conditions apply” offer will redefine the DTH landscape in the country. It surely would, as Tata Sky has slashed the price of its set-top box by almost 40 per cent to Rs 999. Competitors provide set-top boxes at Rs 1,400 to Rs 1,800.

But the move has surprised many as Tata Sky has always taken the position that it is not interested in shoring up subscriber numbers at the cost of profitability. Company executives have also never missed the opportunity of claiming that it has the highest average revenue per user (ARPU) in the industry where Dish TV is the clear market leader in terms of subscriber numbers.

Tata Sky is, however, convinced it has taken the right path and its pricing strategy isn’t something that it has adopted for the first time. “We were the first to break the Rs 100 price barrier in packaging; first to introduce HD service at an unimaginable price point and now, the first to provide a world-class quality DTH service at an affordable price point. Our service will now be affordable for consumers across all strata of the society,” says Vikram Mehra, chief marketing officer, Tata Sky. The company claims a subscriber base of 5.5 million, making it the third largest DTH player after Dish and Sun.

Mehra also says reducing the price of hardware does not mean the company, a joint venture between Tata Sons and News Corporation, will reduce the price of channel packs as well. The company has left the minimum subscription charges unchanged at Rs 160 per month.

He is banking on a huge increase in subscription to the DTH provider’s value-added services. Unlike other DTH operators who offer interactive services free, Tata Sky charges a fee.

Observers also say the move implies a shift in Tata Sky’s positioning of a premium brand and the low-entry price is an attempt to cater to the bottom-of-the-pyramid subscribers. Mehra would only say that being premium is not synonymous with being expensive.

There is no reason to assume, Mehra says, that new subscribers (after the reduction in set-top box prices) will not pay for interactive services. Interactive services like ACTIVE English and ACTIVE Cooking, for which the operator charges Rs 30 per application, have more subscribers in Tier II and Tier III cities than in urban areas. “With our differentiated content, we will continue to earn a sizeable revenue than competition,” he says.

Ashesh Jani, Media Leader at Deloitte, says Tata Sky’s move was inevitable as DTH companies have to play the volume game to expand the market. “The only way operators can make money later is by increasing their consumer base. In the short-term, they might feel hard-pressed, but that is a strategy which works to bring in more users,” he says. He gives the example of mobile telephony which has been seeing a price war, resulting in offers like per-second billing.

For the moment, competitors are taking a contrarian stand. Salil Kapoor, CEO of Dish TV, says the industry should be more careful while offering such aggressive price points. “We are already operating on a self-subsidised model. Also, the price that has been announced doesn’t include any content bundle. We at Dish TV charge Rs 1,390 for two months. If Rs 450 is deducted from this for content, we will also land up in the same price range,” Kapoor adds.

Umesh Rao, senior VP of Reliance Big TV, takes an even more aggressive stand. “Reliance Big TV has always enjoyed a premium pricing over its competitors on the basis of product superiority and the largest bouquet of channels. We will continue to maintain our premium tag while being price competitive.” A Reliance Big TV connection is available at Rs 1,390.

There are over 25 million households subscribing to DTH services, which is around 30 per cent of the cable and satellite homes. It is expected to touch 33 million by the year-end. Dish TV is the market leader with a 30-35 per cent market share.

Source: Business Standard

Bollywood actor Aamir Khan has had many avatars in his acting career, and now the star will be seen as a milkman in a new commercial.

Aamir, who is the brand ambassador of TataSky, will be essaying the role of a milkman for its new ad.

The ad film is about a situation where a customer of the milkman offers to pay only for the days he was in town. The milkman’s point of view is conveyed in a humorous manner when he tells the customer the cow was not aware of his vacation and hence gave milk every single day.

The milkman forcibly takes money from his customer even for the days he was on a holiday. The depicted situation draws a parallel between other DTH companies and the milkman.

Conceptualised by advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, the core theme of the ad revolves around once-a-year subscription holiday service being offered by TataSky. With this feature, subscribers can discontinue their service while on vacation for a period of 15 days once every year.

Source: NDTV Movies

MUMBAI/ BANGALORE: The plot hasn’t changed much for the direct-to-home (DTH) operators in 2010. A gang of six private players are fighting over subscriber growth and attempting to expand the digital universe in a country where the television landscape is mostly analogue cable.

The warfare is spreading over to the advertising world as each DTH player wants to play the volume game amid low ARPUs (average revenue per user). The usage of celebrities, whether it is Shah Rukh Khan or Aamir Khan or Hrithik Roshan or the Kareena Kapoor-Saif Ali Khan duo, in television commercials is to entice subscribers to take the DTH route.

The DTH operators are going to splurge Rs 6 billion towards marketing across TV, print and other mediums this fiscal as they aim to add 11 million subscribers due to a spate of sporting events. In terms of ad spend, Tata Sky would be leading the pack with Airtel Digital TV and Dish TV in near-distance company.

“Tata Sky’s ad spend will be around Rs 1.2 billion, followed by Airtel Digital TV. Dish TV will have a marketing expense of Rs 1 billion while Reliance Big TV will spend over Rs 800 million,” says an industry-tracker.

Videocon is preparing for a bigger ad exposure for its d2h brand in the second half of the year. “We were present in the IPL and are lining up a bigger ad splash in the coming months. Our ad spend for promoting our DTH service will be Rs 800 million this fiscal,” says Videocon Group director Saurabh Dhoot.

DTH operators were equally aggressive in the previous fiscal as they had to intensely compete among themselves and cable TV networks to acquire customers. “There would be a marginal 5 per cent increase in ad spend this fiscal. This is because there was high ad spending in the last fiscal,” says a senior official of a leading DTH company.

DTH companies are the top ad spenders on television in the ‘services category’ with a combined 32 per cent share, according to Tam AdEx data for the first half of the calendar year based on volumes.

The ad volume spend by the DTH sector in the first half of 2010 is up 10 per cent over the year-ago period. In the six-month period to June-end 2009, the DTH segment had a 29 per cent share in the overall ‘services’ category.

Tam AdEx data shows that ‘properties/real estates’ had a 15 per cent share in the ‘services’ category, while ‘Internet service-general’ follows at third place with an 11 per cent share.

Sun Direct has edged out Tata Sky to become the leading advertiser among the DTH brands with an eight per cent share in ad volumes, according to Tam AdEx data for the first half of 2010. While Tata Sky stands second in the list with a six per cent share (same as previous year), Dish TV, Airtel Digital TV and Reliance Big TV follow with shares of five, four and three per cent of the overall service sector ad volumes on TV.

“The ad volume growth on TV will not reflect Sun Direct’s position as the lead ad spender. Sun uses its own channels and a sizeable part of its advertising is in the south. Tata Sky will continue to lead in ad spends,” says a media analyst.

The rise in ad volumes is driven by three factors – entry of a sixth player (Videocon d2h), increase in the number of new product launches, and a busy sporting events year.

Says Bharti Airtel CMO – DTH Sugato Banerji, “With the IPL and the Fifa World Cup standing back-to-back, the sector eagerly spent on TV for advertising their brands. Now with the festive season and the Commonwealth games coming up, buying commercials on TV from this category is only going to increase.”

Dish TV will be increasing its ad spend in the southern states as it hopes to improve its subscriber base in the region. Says Dish TV chief operating officer Salil Kapoor, “We plan to reallocate funds towards south with a larger share of media spends to attract more subscribers from this region.”

Bharti Airtel, also looking at attracting more subscribers from the region, has just launched a south-specific “lifetime free language pack” campaign across the Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam channels.

“In the Southern market, language polarity is very high and since we have a weaker marker share in this region, we aim to expand our brand awareness through this campaign,” says Banerji.

Big TV will concentrate on BTL and town-wise promotions while continuing to heavily use TV and print. Says Big TV CEO Sanjay Behl, “DTH is still an underdeveloped and low penetration category. We need to raise our ad voice.”

Source: Indiantelevision.com

Tata Sky has been the pioneer in popularizing Interactive services on television in India. While Tata Sky has covered a gamut of areas when it comes to Interactive Services, the area of special focus has been Educational Services through introduction of applications such as Actve Wizkids, Actve Stories, Actve Learning & Actve English. Tata Sky with its Educational Service has reached 10,00,000 homes.

In this particular ad campaign, Aamir Khan is seen talking about how teaching has gone beyond classroom’s and people can now learn sitting at home with the help of the Educational Services available on Tata Sky’s interactive platform.

Source: India Infoline Ltd.

NEW DELHI: As the Indian DTH turf heats up, marketers in the fray are leaning on top Bollywood stars to help their cause. The 20-million subscribers strong Indian DTH market has six major players—Dish TV, Tata Sky, Sun Direct, Reliance Big TV, Airtel Digital and Videocon D2H. And four of them have a bollywood star endorsing them.

So, while Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan endorse Dish TV and Tata Sky, respectively, Airtel Digital has Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor singing its praises. Videocon D2H is the latest to have jumped on the bandwagon, roping in Abhishek Bachchan to endorse its offering.

Anil Khera, CEO, D2H explains the rationale behind signing up Abhishek Bachchan; “We are a part of the entertainment industry, so it makes perfect sense for us to rope in Bollywood stars because they belong to this domain.” Clearly, Bollywood stars have become a norm in the DTH space. Says Ajai Puri, director and CEO, Bharti Telemedia; “Brand ambassadors are an integral part of our communication strategy. They gives us instant clutter-breaking capability and help build brand recognition faster.”

Airtel Digital TV used eleven celebrities to launch in October 2008. In September last year, the company launched a six week ad campaign with Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor. “Thanks to that campaign, we had the highest sales achieved by any operator during October 2008, doubling our September sales in the process,” avers Puri. Brand Airtel has a clutch of film stars- Shah Rukh Khan, R Madhavan, Vidya Balan et al- which are used in different promotions as and when required.

In November last year, Dish TV, the market leader envisaged on a brand revamp campaign ‘Ghar aayi Zindagi’ with its brand ambassador Shah Rukh Khan and is going to spend Rs 100-crore on advertising in the coming financial year. Says Salil Kapoor, CEO, Dish TV; “We have been able to move from a functional to an emotional positioning thanks to this campaign. Hiring Shah Rukh Khan has enabled us to save on advertising spends as he helps us get the message across more effectively in fewer exposures.”

At Rs 3,000, the average cost of getting each new subscriber for DTH operators is fairly high, while the ARPU for the industry stands at about Rs 200-Rs 250, which effectively means a long investment recovery period. Add to that the fact that DTH players subsidise equipment and content to gain a sizeable subscriber base and some like Sanjay Behl, CEO, Big TV, feel that celebrities do not justify their costs.

“In the DTH sphere, it is dangerous if you do not watch costs with a hawk eye.” Nonetheless, the operator is close on the heels of launching a promotional campaign with Hrithik Roshan, the ambassador of Reliance Communications, of which Big TV is a part. Industry sources say that the company will be spending Rs 150-crore on advertising this year.

Source: The Economic Times

Dish TV’s new campaign presents Shahrukh in a new avatar to take on Tata Sky’s Aamir

You could call it the clash of the titans. Tata Sky’s innovative use of its brand ambassador Aamir Khan as a ventriloquist, aging taxi driver, family man and puppet (remember the actor’s man-woman act in the first of his commercials for the DTH operator last year) has indeed made rivals sit up and take notice of it.

That is why competitor Dish TV has also decided to do away with the mundane and present its brand ambassador Shahrukh Khan in a different avatar. He appears as a 75-year-old man in Dish’s new campaign Ghar Aayi Zindagi.

The slugfest is understandable. Despite mounting losses (the company had a net loss of Rs 476 crore in the last financial year), Dish hopes to cross the seven-million-mark in terms of subscribers by the end of this financial year. Its current subscriber base is 6.3 million.

Tata Sky, on the other hand, has a subscriber base of 4.5 million and has been growing fast.

According to industry estimates, there are 17-18 million DTH subscribers in the country. Not a large figure considering that India has over 75 million cable and satellite homes.

In a market that is choc-a-bloc with seven players, Dish realises that ads that can cut through the clutter will help it stand out in the crowd. If that means having to do something unusual with its brand ambassador, so be it. “Like FMCG brands, where consumers gravitate towards one for personal gratification, we aim to position Dish TV through Shahrukh as a brand that buyers can trust,” says Salil Kapoor, chief operating officer, Dish TV.

This is the first time in six years that Dish TV has embarked on a brand rejig with an eight-week-long campaign that includes two new commercials with Khan supported by a clutch of print and radio advertisements. This need for change, explains Kapoor, was necessary in order to build an emotional connect with consumers – something that was missing in its earlier campaigns.

Says Sudhan Deo, investment director at media agency MediaEdge:CIA, “In a category such as direct-to-home, it is easy to fall into the trap of product advertising. This is a problem that confronted telecom operators as well a while ago. They managed to get out of it with some intelligent advertising. DTH operators are slowly but steadily realising this.”

Both Tata Sky and Dish seem to be taking a cue from this insight. Never mind if the acting skills of their brand ambassador are put to the test time and again, they are up to to it, in fact, even enjoying it. Says Vikram Mehra, chief marketing officer, Tata Sky, “It’s a pleasure working with Aamir. He is involved in the nitty-gritty of every ad. It’s fun because he lives the brand.”

So far, Tata Sky has released four campaigns with Aamir since taking him on as their brand ambassador in 2008. Clearly, the DTH operator is hardly dissappointed with the show the versatile actor has put up.

Now it’s Shahrukh’s turn to wow audiences with his histrionics. Says Kapoor, “It wasn’t easy giving up a message as strong as ‘Wish Karo, Dish Karo’, but we were clear we wanted to establish Dish TV as a brand that a family can rely on.” These communication changes will be backed by Dish’s investments in back-end infrastructure. “That is an on-going process,” says Kapoor.

There is no doubt that the DTH industry is growing. According to a FICCI-KPMG report, digital pay TV households including digital cable, DTH, IPTV etc is slated to grow at a compounded annual growth rate CAGR) of 35.4 per cent by 2013.

That’s an opportunity Dish, Tata Sky and the five others don’t want to miss out.

Source: Business Standard