MUMBAI: Colors CEO Raj Nayak opened the PromaxBDA India 2016 Conference highlighting the ever growing importance of promos for shows on channels.
Starting on a lighter note, Nayak said, “I have noticed a few changes compared to last year and biggest change that I have seen in the industry is that the time is fleeting. It feels like it was just like just yesterday when I spoke at the last PromaxBDA.
Giving insights into how the industry had changed over the years, Nayak said, “Today you have to create promos that tell a story within 20 to 60 seconds. With every passing day the competition is getting more aggressive, more and more channels are launching, more and more shows are being launched. Therefore, there are so many promos to run in lesser time, which makes the job even more challenging.”
Nayak said that earlier even promos were creatively brilliant. The amount of exposure they got on TV made sure that they stuck in the consumers mind, but today that luxury no longer existed. “In fact the biggest problem that we face in Colors is we don’t have enough promo time on our own channel and we go and spend millions of dollars buying promo time outside the network for that’s the kind of money we spent to promote our shows,” while stressing the importance of promos.
Nayak shared that at one point of time in the television industry, though the promo department was an important department for the channel, in terms of hierarchy, it always came after the programming department. He said, “It was always seen as the support function but that concept has changed now. Programming and promo departments could be defined as the heart and soul of a television channel. One doesn’t know which one to call the heart and which one to call the soul. At Colors we believe that both of them are equally important in today’s time.”
Nayak said that in the past unless it was big ticket shows like Fear Factor, India’s Got Talent, Kaun Banega Crorepati and Indian Idol, channels never spent money on producing or shooting promos separately for their other shows. He observed that that thinking had changed now. “I think now even for fiction shows channels shoot promos, sometimes before the channel has even started casting for them. At Colors, we shot the promos for our show Ashoka Chakravartin Samrat six month before launching it. Also, for Naagin, we shoot the promo with dummy actors before finalizing the cast,” Nayak shared.
This was the fourth consecutive year that Nayak had donned the role of chairperson for PromaxBDA India 2016. The PromaxBDA India 2016 conference programme ran over two days. The first day or ‘Boot Camp’ schedule comprised of workshops’ on promos, branding, marketing including news marketing and animation.
The second day of the conference or ‘Master Class’ schedule comprised of speakers sharing their knowledge and a panel discussion. The day culminated with an awards function.
Lee Hunt LLC founder Lee Hunt who made two keynote addresses. Lee’s opening keynote was ‘Dynamic Branding’, while his second keynote scheduled for the post lunch session as a closing keynote was titled ‘Death of the Channel Brand’. Other sessions included ‘The next generation of Viewer Connection’ by 602 Communications president Graeme Newell and ‘Creativity is An Option: Fake It Till You Make It’ by SBS Belgium creative director Steve Brouwers.
Lunch was followed a panel discussion – ‘Panel Session: State of Our Art’ moderated by creative director and co-founder of Dynamite Design Sheetal Sudhir. The panellists were The 120 Media Collective & Sooperfly founder and CEO Roopak Saluja and Studio Eeksaurus founder and creative director Suresh Eriyat.
Like every year, PromaxBDA India 2016 has encouraged marketing professionals to send in their best work for the opportunity of being recognized at the PromaxBDA Awards in the midst of the best in the business. PromaxBDA represents more than 10,000 companies and promotion and marketing professionals at every major media organization.
