Tag: TV TRAIL

By Shailesh Kapoor

 

“What is the one thing about this role that interested you so much that you applied for it?”

 

Over a decade now, having met more than a hundred ‘candidates’ (I prefer the expression ‘potential team members’, but it is a mouthful) for various positions, first in the television industry and now at Ormax Media, I have found this to be the one question that does half the job.

 

Many candidates speak about the company’s credentials in their answers, in which case, being a true researcher now, I reiterate the “you” in the question. After all, why would a company’s credentials interest you, unless there was something in it for you?

 

Some young people use the “growth and learning” plank for an answer. Most times, I am disappointed with their understanding, let alone articulation, of these two words. Both growth and learning are deeply proactive as concepts. To say that you will learn a lot in the company makes it seems like the company is some kind of an incubator with the responsible of ‘hatching’ you. The truth is, the company doesn’t even know at the interview stage if you are a good egg or a bad egg. The interview is about that itself!

 

But the word that features the most in the answers, across younger and more seasoned candidates, is the P-word: Passion. “Because I have a passion for television…”, “Because media industry fascinates me…”, “Because I love research…”

 

Let’s focus on the ‘passion for television’ for now, though you can replace the word with ‘films’ or ‘media’, and still read on. I have taken great pains in some of the interviews to understand what candidates actually mean when they say it.

 

The first level of detail often given is: ‘I watch a lot of TV’. Television is a household thing. Everyone watches it, in varying degrees. So, “I watch a lot of TV” makes you no better suited for the job than a 33-year old mother-of-two in Indore!

 

When I probe further, many are at a loss explaining their ‘passion’ as a mental thought. All they can explain is behaviour. I watch TV, I read about TV, I discuss TV, etc. If behaviour was all-important, half of Mumbai will be passionate about local trains.

 

Here is a little passion-test I have developed over time, which goes beyond behaviour and evaluates the mindset. It will more applicable to ‘non-creative’ roles or to first-timers in the industry:

 

1. Watching vs. consuming television: Everyone watches TV, but the truly passionate ones ‘consume’ it, at an overall category level. They build their thoughts based on what they watch, discuss them, have a view on them. An easy way to judge this by asking the candidate what her favorite show on television is, and what makes her like it. A ‘watcher’ will talk like a housewife. A ‘consumer’ will talk from inside the watcher’s mind.

2. Watching breaks and promos: If you surf channels the moment a break starts, your passion for television is highly questionable. Being passionate about an industry includes being passionate about all aspects of it. The most fascinating things happen on TV channels in breaks. Those who are truly passionate have noticed them and can intelligently speak about them.

3. Deciphering trends: A seasoned guy with a passion for TV will speak the language of trends in an interview. He will instinctively and effortlessly compare the program or channel being discussed to past successes or failures, some of them dating back to more than two decades.

 

Passion is instinctive. You can’t prepare for it. And you don’t have to work hard to communicate it. If you are truly passionate, it reflects in your identity.

 

Back in 1997, when I was graduating out of IIT Delhi, an anecdote about one of our seniors was doing the rounds. He had taken up a course on Corrosion Engineering as an elective. It was a post-graduate course and very few B. Tech. students opted for it. He had probably taken it because the faculty was “cool” and it seemed like an easy course to pass. In the first lecture, the professor asked him why he took a course as eclectic as this. His reply, and I kid you not, is a part of the folklore: “Since my childhood, I was always interested in rust and corrosion.”

 

It was an intentionally irreverent answer. But when candidates try to pass the same ‘interest’ as genuine in interviews, it doesn’t fly.

 

Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media insights firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

 

By Shailesh Kapoor

 

2013 is drawing to a close soon. In what would have otherwise been a fairly regular year for content on Hindi GECs, “innovation” has come in the form of a genre that has taken the front seat like never before – Period Dramas.

 

Life OK’s Mahadev emerged as a success story in 2012 – and continues to be so – propelling other channels to give more attention to the mythological and historical genres. Zee TV’s Jodha-Akbar has met with phenomenal success. Sony’s Maharana Pratap is the top weekday show on the channel. Star Plus’ Mahabharat was the biggest weekday launch on Hindi GECs in three years.

 

With half a dozen launches, most of which have met with success, is it safe to call period dramas a “trend” that has emerged in the Hindi GEC category in 2013? May be not.

 

It is important to distinguish a trend from just a serendipitous occurrence. It is important to distinguish the symptom from the real cause. And that’s my attempt in the rest of this piece.

 

Think of it. Why would period dramas suddenly come of age in India? There has been absolutely nothing of note that has happened in our society or nation in the last decade to suggest that our love for historical and mythological content would show this dramatic surge. There is no subtext here. In fact, in many ways, a young and evolving India watching period content is counter-intuitive, if not inexplicable.

 

The reason for the emergence of this quasi trend is very direct – fatigue. I wrote about this a few weeks back, that viewer fatigue is fast building up in the category. The sameness of content, coupled with slow pace and dragging perceptions, have meant that the overall category satisfaction index of the genre is at an all-time low since 2009. Cynicism and disillusionment are prime emotions that many core viewers are associating with weekday fiction on GECs.

 

Of course there are exceptions like Diya Aur Baati Hum and Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah. But a handful of shows can’t compensate for the negative imagery created by more than 30 programmes collectively.

 

As a result, we are in a phase when anything unique will stand out and get its more-than-fair share of attention, as long as it passes the basic relevance cut. Jodha-Akbar does that the best, by focusing on a love story, making it come across like a contemporary story with only the setting being ‘period’.

 

The question to really ask is: Has there been any other launch in the last year or so that has passed the ‘unique yet relevant’ filter? You will find it tough to isolate even one program outside the period drama genre that fits the answer here.

 

Hence, the rise of the period dramas is more a ‘default’ phenomenon, symptomizing dissatisfaction, than emerging as a true, stand-alone need gap.

 

If GECs mistake this to be a trend, they may be tempted to find more concepts in this genre. Two things will invariably happen then. One, the genre will lose its uniqueness if 3-4 more such shows launch, and this will shake the foundation of why it’s working to begin with. Two, in the effort to follow a ‘trend’, channels may pick up concepts that are not entirely ‘relevant’ in the first place.

 

The need is to look elsewhere. Surely, in a country as diverse and culturally rich as ours, there can’t be a dearth of unique cum relevant stories that lend themselves well to weekday fiction content.

 

The real emerging trend is ‘fatigue’. Period dramas are the red herring everyone should be wary of. You have been cautioned!

 

Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media insights firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

 

By Shailesh Kapoor

 

If you were on social media, especially Twitter last weekend, you would have surely encountered glowing reviews about the Indian version of ’24’. The show, that went on-air last Friday, received predominant positive feedback from Twitter, as well as from the television and film industry, including competitors of the channel airing it. The feedback was on the same lines in the corporate community too.

 

For most of these stakeholders, ’24’ brings in the hope that our television will change for the better, and become relevant to them personally. When I tweeted the following last Saturday, I was hoping to be proven wrong: “Our ratings system will never capture #24India’s real impact. Anything that’s skewed towards upper strata tends to be under-reported in TAM.”

 

Alas, it was not to be. ’24’ opened to tepid “audience” response, scoring below the 2-TVR mark in its opening week. Evidently, the audience that enjoys Diya Aur Baati Hum and Jodha-Akbar every night decided to stay away.

 

But are they the only “audience”? As any brand manager of a semi-premium or premium brand would want to know: Are these really the audiences who buy my products? I just picked up today’s The Times Of India (Mumbai) for a quick check: 7 out of the 13 prominent ads in the paper are either luxury brands or brands clearly targeted at an evolving mindset that’s doing more things that watching the same serial every night for the last four years.

 

No wonder that 5 out of these 7 don’t use TV at all for their advertising. Because the measurement metric just doesn’t factor the reality of their target audience –socially mobile, affluent and evolving consumers who are increasingly going to craft the marketing future in India. Let’s call them “Evolving” for the purpose of this piece, only for brevity.

 

Are the Elite being measured by TAM? In 2007, TAM made an attempt to set up an ‘elite panel’, perhaps with a similar idea. Within months, the service had to be aborted because the differences between the main panel SEC A and the elite panel were not striking enough. But their definition of ‘Elite’ was based purely on affluence, not on attitudes and mindsets, which often concern brands more.

 

Since then, we have been in status quo mode. The following five “Evolving” segments are not being captured by the current ratings:

 

1. Senior industry professionals, e.g. CXOs and HODs

2. English-speaking audiences who often watch their “TV” on the Internet

3. Time-shifted viewers, who watch DVR recordings

4. HD feed viewers

5. Upmarket housing areas so posh that they are not research-accessible

 

Crude estimates will suggest that these five will add upto at least 50 million viewers. But if they represent 6% of India’s TV population, they represent at least 15-20% of India’s spending power. But there is no data, none at all, that captures their viewership. No wonder then that many advertisers have chosen to stay off television and taken the print way instead.

 

We routinely conduct studies for premium brands that sponsor TV programmes, to understand whether the association helped them achieve their marketing objectives. Often, the general brief is: “We have the ratings, but we always knew they will be low on TAM. We want to know whether it actually worked for us in our TG or not.” That “our TG” is not being captured by TAM is an obvious inference to be drawn here.

 

BARC has been speaking about coming up with a ratings system that’s future-ready. If they have to indeed achieve that, they will need to address this elusive “Evolving” audience. Otherwise, we will just have more sample size of the same type of audience being reported.

 

For me, ’24’ is the best Indian television has offered on the fiction front in a long time. Today, I feel like a voter who is ignored by the local politician because he does not belong to the caste that controls the vote bank. Or like a resident of the village in Akshay Kumar’s Joker, whose inhabitants realize their village just doesn’t exist on India’s map.

 

There are many like me who will like to be “measured”. And the implications of measuring “us” are not just commercial, but social too. Today, television is the lead medium in India in terms of its influence on young minds of the country. The programming we churn out will decide the nature of this influence. And something as technical as measurement comes in the way of this process, it will be nothing short of tragic.

 

Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media insights firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

 

By Shailesh Kapoor

 

Two weeks ago, Grand Masti, an adult comedy packed with double entendre jokes (the kind where there you get only the “second meaning”), opened to phenomenal box-office, registering Rs 400 million on its first weekend. This huge opening made Grand Masti the fourth highest Bollywood opener of 2013, ahead of several A-list starrers.

 

There was little doubt that Grand Masti will open well, but I was personally caught off-guard by the degree of its wellness. Evidently, a population of youth came out in big numbers to watch “sexy jokes”. It’s safe to say that many of them are not even regular moviegoers: The idea of watching verbal porn got them to the theatres as an exception.

 

Three days after Grand Masti released, Star Plus launched Mahabharat at 8.30pm. The show has opened to very good ratings, with the first week’s average of 3.1 TVR making it in the first instance of any fiction launch crossing the 3-TVR mark in its first week since (at least) 2011.

 

It’s well-known that TV viewing is largely a family affair in India, and the youth are involved, actively or passively, too. I’m, thus, intrigued by a 19-year something young boy from somewhere in Chandigarh or Indore, who watches Grand Masti on Friday with his bunch of college friends, laughing his heart out at every joke, and then joins his parents to watch Mahabharat on Monday. And probably enjoys that too!

 

Several media observers and social commentators will label this behaviour as hypocritical. It’s been argued for ages that there is a cultural hypocrisy in India, where we, the second most populous country in the world, can’t just get ourselves to talk about sex comfortably. In turn, it leads to a sexually suppressed population, especially the teenagers and the youth, an audience Grand Masti instantly caters to.

 

But there’s more to it than just the sexual suppression. The more we study the youth, the more we realize that there home v/s outside separation is a well thought-out one. It has been created by their generation as a legitimate method of functioning in a society where family values are still paramount. And it goes beyond just sexual expression.

 

For example, more than 80% Indian youth who smoke would hide it from their parents. The number is equally high for those who consume alcohol. And I suspect the number doesn’t change much even when you enter your late 20s and the 30s. Parents, after all, shall always remain parents.

 

From the appropriateness of language to dressing to habits, everything has a home-version and an outside-version (or friends-version). The former is designed to run the institution of family smoothly (and not grudgingly so, at all) and the latter to have some legitimate fun at the right age.

 

Now one would expect that as these youngsters grow up and became parents, this dichotomy would perish, as they will be more “open-minded” and “approachable” as parents. No, it won’t. Because it’s not about approachability anyway. It’s about the voluntary adoption of family values, when in a family context. It’s an inbuilt mechanism that triggers off at the right situation, like it does when they are with their family even today. And it will trigger off in its full glory when they get married themselves.

 

Most of the television success stories (fiction) over the last decade have been created around the importance of the institution of family in India. When Grand Masti is telecast on TV, it will be censored beyond recognition, and then rate poorly. But even if they allowed it to be telecast uncensored, it would have rated poorly anyway. Because the big television rule remains: When at home, do as the home-members do!

 

Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media insights firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

 

By Shailesh Kapoor

 

Going by the first eight months, 2013 has not been the most exciting year for Hindi GEC content. An overview of the year so far will look like this:

 

Most launches have been fairly ‘routine’ in nature, and no new show except Comedy Nights With Kapil has really stood out. At a genre level, the consolidation of ‘period dramas’, led by Jodhaa-Akbar and Maharana Pratap, has been an interesting development. The most hyped fiction launch of the year, Saraswatichandra, has not made a lasting impact on the GEC category.

 

Those are the only worth-mentioning parts on the content side. All the action has happened on the non-content front, with digitization and TRAI orders keeping all broadcasters, including GECs, busy.

 

But this festive season, September to November, this shall change. And how! Here’s what each Hindi GEC is set for:

 

Star Plus

Mahabharat, the ambitious Star Plus project, launches on September 16 in the weekdays 8.30pm slot. No fiction show opens higher than 2.5 TVR these days, so Mahabharat will have to build inch-by-inch over the first few weeks, if it has to emerge successful. Its fate would entirely hinge on how consumers take to Star Plus’ tone and treatment of the epic. An acceptance can widen the gap between Star Plus and competition, while a rejection can potentially allow Colors to overtake Star Plus.

 

Colors

Between Bigg Boss and 24, Colors will have its hands full this season. Bigg Boss will give the channel a boost, as it will replace two under-performing dailies. With the mood of the nation increasingly moving towards male-inclusive programming, a well-executed season holds potential to become an unqualified success.

 

All eyes will be on 24 this October. There are no meaningful benchmarks on how well a show of nature can do among the mainstream audience. But we can be rest assured that Colors will leave no marketing stone unturned to give 24 a fair chance with the viewers. The promos look slick and truly International. Even if it is a moderate success in the first season, 24 can open doors to GECs pushing the envelope by breaking away from homogenous, housewife-targeted content.

 

Zee TV

ZEEL’s focus seems more on launching new channels, and there isn’t much striking content lined up on Zee TV, beyond the routine fiction and seasonal non-fiction launches. Sunday morning show Buddha is unlikely to create any ripples, given the weak slot. Currently, Zee TV occupies a No. 3 spot with a sizeable gap on either side, but Sony may be eyeing that spot with the new KBC season.

 

Sony

KBC 7 launches tonight, with a new set and a 7cr grand prize. KBC has proven that it has long legs, and those who said Sony is flogging a dead horse by investing in the format have already eaten and digested their humble pie about three years ago. The new look and format should create some freshness that the previous season lacked. And with a host who gets younger with each season, KBC 7 should be on a solid wicket.

 

Sony’s other fiction launch Desh Ki Beti Nandini seems to explore the political drama space, with a female leader as its protagonist. It’s a genre waiting to be tapped, but a lot will depend on the casting and the narrative style. If the show manages to strike a fine balance between the conventional and the innovative, it should do well.

 

SAB & Life OK

Even as the other four channels lock horns with big-budget shows, SAB and Life OK will be consolidating their fiction line-ups to build on the recent momentum both have seen. At much lower content budgets, touching 140-150 GRPs is more than admirable. Life OK will experiment with high-end non-fiction, with Bachelorette India with Mallika Sherawat. Will she get married on TV? Your guess is as good as mine.

 

PS: This column will be on a two-week break. When I write again on Sep 27, a lot of this action would have unfolded already, and it would be fun to take stock of the proceedings!

 

Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media insights firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

 

By Shailesh Kapoor

 

In the middle of a heated news television debate, the spokesperson of a top political party asserts: “Can you just give me two minutes to make my point? Then I have to go to another channel.” I was amused the first time I heard this line about two years ago. But over time, it’s become par for the course. Not too long ago, I was switching news channels and found the same spokesperson, sitting on the same seat, on four different news channels within a span of an hour, engaging with the same debate with roughly the same panelists!

 

Till about a decade ago, news television was about reportage, accompanied by analysis, peppered with bytes that added value to it. NDTV Profit has been repeating old episodes of The World This Week as a part of the 25-year celebration of the group, and the difference between the approach to news then and now is striking, to say the least.

 

I’m not suggesting that debates-heavy news programming on primetime is bad. In fact, if done well, it can be significantly more engaging than the more passive classical reportage format. But for that, you need talking heads who can debate – authoritatively and intelligently. And the current lot falls short on both counts.

 

It’s evident to any regular news viewer that the spokespersons designated by the top political parties, the likes of Sanjay Jha, Nirmala Sitaraman and Rahul Narvekar, have no real authority at their disposal. They are foot soldiers, thrown in a hostile situation and left to dodge the missiles being hurled at them. To make themselves heard in the cacophony may well be their only KRA.

 

Talking heads from regional parties, such as Derek O’Brien from Trinamool, clearly display more authority, though it is another matter that half of the time, he is defending the indefensible.

 

On intelligence (and I don’t mean IQ here but political acumen), you can sense that parties have relaxed it as a criteria for the choice of spokespersons. From Abhishek Manu Singhvi to Sanjay Jha is quite a big shift, for example. It seems there are too many channels and you need an army to share the “workload.”

 

In any case, the real voices that matter choose not to come to primetime television shows. Rarely would you see a minister making an appearance in a one-on-one with one of the top anchors. Because they have made themselves so inaccessible, they are treated with near reverence when they indeed make that odd appearance.

 

Interestingly, the same revering anchors go ballistic with the lesser mortals, read spokespersons. It’s as if the anchors start their show licking their lips in anticipation of the “tough questions” they will hurl at their guests.  Nidhi Razdan’s latest interview with British MP Barry Gardiner proves that the infection to be mean has spread thick and fast. Blame Arnab, of course.

 

I believe political parties will do well to focus on quality rather than quantity, i.e., present themselves only on 2-3 channels on any given night, but send erudite and articulate talking heads, who can rise above petty out-shouting, to deliver the goods. It will serve the parties well in the long run.

 

Channels, on the other hand, will do well to limit a debate to 3-4 talking heads. There is no empirical evidence to suggest more talking heads means a more engaging debate or more ratings. A leaner panel will, in fact, encourage quality politicians to participate.

 

Lest I should be misunderstood, I am not advocating a “reduce noise” recipe. I (kind of) like the noise of primetime television. It is provocative and stimulating in its own right. But if the noisemakers are just headless chicken, the point is lost. We need noisemakers who are also newsmakers!

 

Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media insights firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

 

By Shailesh Kapoor

 

You can love him. You can hate him. But you could not have missed him on your television over the last week. Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) was omnipresent on the small screen in the lead upto the release of his new film Chennai Express. From reality shows to daily serials to news channel specials to the innumerable promotional spots on music channels, if you wanted an SRK-less life over the last week, the only real option you had was to turn off your TV sets.

 

Some may call it overkill, but the blitzkrieg has definitely helped the movie. The film is set to challenge the opening day record held by Salman Khan’s Ek Tha Tiger. And that may only be the start.

 

Television has fast emerged as not just the lead but also the dominant media for film promotions over the last decade. In a 2012 study conducted by us, television’s impact on the buzz of a film was more than twice that of posters and trailers in the theatres, which emerged as the second-most effective media to drive the buzz for a new release.

 

By now, most producers, especially the big studios, understand this impact. Hence, TV plans have got more aggressive while other media, especially outdoor, are being used more judiciously in recent times.

 

But a key component of the TV plan goes beyond paid promos and the music free-play on channels like MTV and 9XM. It is the GEC and the news part that’s more exciting today. The former delivers reach beyond the relatively “niche” music genre, while the latter delivers male audiences, the core theatre-going populace.

 

But then, every star is not an SRK or a Salman Khan who can make the most of the exposure his film gets on reality shows and news specials. I have been a strong opponent of channels giving free mileage to films through in-programme plugs, in what is an evidently one-sided relationship. But when an SRK comes to your reality show, you have, what an Executive Producer will call, a “rocking episode”. So the relationship is clearly win-win.

 

But most other stars just make an appearance, not knowing much to say or do that could add value to the film’s campaign or to the programme’s ratings. These appearances do nothing to the rocking-ness of the episodes. There are other extremes too. When Sunil Shetty made appearances to promote his (wrongly-spelt) film Enemmy, the only audience reaction was: “Isko abhi bhi filmein milti hain!”

 

Coming back to Chennai Express, SRK has been witty, charming and edgy in equal measure, in his promotional appearances for the film. Having seen him promote many films with equal vigour in the past, one can safely say that Rohit Shetty is one of the best things to have happened to SRK. He seemed relaxed and at-ease promoting an outright fun film. The genre evidently suits his persona well.

 

Come October, things may change and become even more interesting. Most readers will be aware that film producers get heavily discounted ad rates from channels, compared to what an FMCG brand pays, because trailers are seen as part-content. If the 10+2 ad cap indeed sees the light of the day, these discounted rates will be the first ones to go, as channels, short of saleable inventory, will have to shed low-priority advertisers, part-content or not.

 

We can then expect innovation that goes beyond reality show episodes, where channels and producers co-create content, like the Eid event to promote Once Upon Ay Time In Mumbai Dobaara, scheduled this weekend on Colors.

 

For SRK, meanwhile, life has come a full circle. The medium where he started his career has now embraced him whole-heartedly as he gets sets to deliver his next blockbuster.

 

For the sake of television entertainment, wish they made more like him!

 

Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media insights firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

 

By Shailesh Kapoor

 

In my almost 30 years of cricket following, this week has been a new low. India is playing a five-match ODI series in Zimbabwe. Out of sheer habit, I tried sampling one of the games. Within seconds, I was out of it. Dead grounds, players going through the motions and commentators from the B-league… There was nothing on offer at all.

 

I have written a few months back on ‘Too Much Cricket’ and how pointless cricket creates that perception. But here, the question is even larger. It makes one wonder: Who funds this cricket? And whether indeed any such cricket can ever make money?

 

In our IPL advertising equity research Ormax Trac20, we found that only about 20 brands managed to attract viewer attention over the course of the 45-day tournament, out of the 200+ brands that associated with IPL or its franchises in various ways. The 2011 World Cup was not very different, where about a dozen brands controlled 80% of the recall share.

 

So, even in the most high-profile, high-interest tournaments, only the big sponsors and innovators stand out. Why should any advertiser, besides at best the title sponsor (that too arguable), buy onto an India-Zimbabwe series, by paying rates that would be at significantly higher CPRPs than most other genres?

 

And if indeed no one should, why should such a series be held in the first place? If it were to promote cricket in Zimbabwe, an India A team would have been a good idea too.

 

This brings me to the larger question of media bias, where media choices of several brands are influenced by individual perceptions. I know of brands who would like to be on cricket, because certain senior executives, including the CEO at times, “feels” cricket is the right choice for them. And if they can’t afford the IPL or an India-Pak series, they settle for whatever comes their way.

 

In an interesting case a few years ago, I heard about a CMO who bought into cricket series and then planned an extensive travel itinerary for himself, so that he can give out the Man of the Match awards. This, while his new product launch, which was being advertised in the series, should have taken his time and attention at the marketing office.

 

I wonder if CMOs sometimes buy into such properties to make their CVs more attractive. “Spearheaded the launch of the new handset through the title sponsorship of an India-Sri Lanka series” sounds more attractive than “Delivered the most cost-efficient TV campaign in the mobile phones category in 2012-13”. Maybe not!

 

In another case, a sales executive at a channel (not a GEC) managed to sign a 30 lac sponsorship deal for a reality show by luring the MD of the brand to be the “Chief Guest” in the season finale, where he will give out the cheque to the winner, and speak about the brand. The MD spoke for about three minutes, and all of that had to be retained in the actual show.

 

Even as the big agencies continue to grapple with larger questions related to measuring advertising effectiveness that goes beyond just CPRP benchmarking, we have a universe of ad hoc advertisers providing us enough entertainment on the sidelines.

 

Come to think of it, if you watch the fifth India-Zimbabwe ODI tomorrow like you watch a B-grade film that’s so bad, it’s good, you may end up having a good time anyway!

Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media insights firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor