ITV

Category: MAX

  • Max goes that extraaa mile; to launch ‘SingTone’

    Max goes that extraaa mile; to launch ‘SingTone’

    MUMBAI: Max surely ‘Deewaana Bana De’! Sony Entertainment Television (SET) India’s movies and special events channel has always gone the whole hog to give its viewers a complete movie watching experience be it with Extraaa Innings, Extraaa Shots or the movies with just one break. Now the latest from Max’ kitty is SingTone, which will be launched on 4 December.
     

    An innovation, which could be music to the ears of ring tone addicts, SingTone is an interactive SMS service that will enable its viewers to download ring tones of Hindi movie songs.

    SET India CFO and Max business head NP Singh says, “SingTone is yet another innovation from Max and is aimed at delivering on the channel’s promise of ‘Deewaana Bana De’. The facility to download a tune of a song while you watch it is close to absolute interactivity and I am confident that SingTone will prove popular and help us reinforce our position as a channel that truly believes in consistently surprising and delighting its viewers.”
     

    This service has been developed by Max in association with Mobile2win, who in turn developed it with Sound Buzz, which is the biggest ring tone provider in the market. A unique thing about this service is that, SingTone will enable viewers to download old Hindi movie songs, which are not usually available.

    Now coming to the name – SingTone. Commenting on the rationale behind selecting the brand name SingTone for the download service, Max vice president marketing and communications Tushar Shah says, “Traditionally, Hindi movies have placed a lot of importance on catchy, hummable music, which are played and sung by millions of Indians even after the movie has gone. Therefore Max’s new value addition of providing movie songs download onto mobile phones taps the musical side of the Indian consumer. The name SingTone, therefore, is a musical attitude for the Indian television viewer.”
     

    Select songs of the movies that will be aired on Max in the morning, afternoon and prime time band, will be available on SingTone. Viewers can download these tunes by sending “RT Song code” as an SMS to 2525. The SingTone menu will also be available to mobile users wherein they can send an SMS ‘RT’ to 2525.

    The experience of watching a movie on television is the same, whether it is one channel or another, and to give the viewers a unique experience at the same time create a bond with them while they are watching the movie is why, Max initiated SingTone. Also not to forget the ‘Deewaana Bana De’ proposition of the channel.

    The service will be available with all major service providers across the country and the price of the SingTone will differ from one service provider to the other as each operator will decide their own cost.

    Sampling of the SingTones along with the instructions will also be available on http://max.setindia.com, where two sections with the Top 5 SingTones and the Max Top 5 SingTones will be available.

    Unlike all their previous initiatives, which have been backed by an extensive outdoor campaign; this time Max is not looking at the outdoor medium. Instead, the SingTone ads will be aired across the One Alliance platform on channels like Sony, Discovery and AXN.

    With all the innovations and initiatives that Max has undertaken, it sure knows how to sing its tune and strike a chord with the viewers!

  • Max goes max with Champions Trophy

    Max goes max with Champions Trophy

    MUMBAI: Just how strong a pull cricket is in India can be gauged by this piece of news. The Champions Trophy in England is still over two months away but already Max has sold out the sponsorship slots.
     

    “Maruti and Samsung are the presenting sponsors, while there are six other (associate) sponsors. Over the last three to four weeks, we have fully booked the tournament and have been able to raise the benchmarks in terms of rates,” Sony Entertainment TV India’s ad sales and revenue management head Rohit Gupta said, adding that the company had been out in the market selling spots for the last three months.

    Gupta further added that Sony used the cricket World Cup, instead of the last Champions Trophy in 2002, as a benchmark. “The World Cup is what we look at and our ad rates are higher than that,” he said, claiming that when Set Max airs cricket, it is bigger than the others.

    “When India and Pakistan played on Max it gave a rating of 23-24. We package Extra Innings to attract new viewers. Most channels do not market cricket (though ESPN Star Sports may have different view on it). We do marketing activities like gully cricket with Mandira Bedi. That is the value advertisers see, ” Gupta pointed out.

    Another factor that helped SET India in selling out sponsorships for Champions trophy was that Max had, in the past also, managed to attract ratings for non-India cricket. The bar had been raised to over four in the ratings. Before the World Cup it was 1.5. During the World Cup in South Africa last year in February and March across 54 matches it was 6.5.

    The Holland Tourney in August for which Max recently acquired the rights will be sold separately. The attraction is in having the three top
    teams in the world, India, Australia and Pakistan, play. “This has never happened before. The rates here will be even more than the Champions Trophy. It will as big as the India-Pakistan series in terms of viewership. It is not some small tournament that will lead to the Champions Trophy,” Gupta said.

    As far as AXN and HBO are concerned, Gupta said that the ad rates for the channels had gone up by 15 per cent and had been going up over the past four quarters.

    “AXN is really rocking well with shows like Fear Factor and Guinness World Records. Youngsters are increasingly taking to the reality genre. AXN’s (ratings) deliveries are higher than MTV and Channel (V),” Gupta said.

    Gupta is also gung ho about the proposed India-Pakistan Challenge on AXN. “We are currently closing deals with sponsors and would be having loads of promotional activity around this. We will shortly reveal the kind of sports involved as well as the cities we will visit”. Gupta further admitted that Animal Planet and Nickelodeon were not significant contributors to the ad revenue kitty.