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Tag: Playwin

  • Regulate, not ban adult content

    Regulate, not ban adult content

    The regulatory environment is quite strict in India when it comes to adult content as India is largely a country driven by heritage and culture. The government has in the past taken strict action against channels for showing adult content.

    Transmission of a leading fashion & lifestyle channel was stopped for a few days and resumed only after the channel’s management gave an assurance to the then I&B minister that the code of conduct will be followed. Consumer bodies and local action group’s have often raised the issue of adult content been shown on national and niche channels. TV19, an adult channel proposed to the Government in 1995-96 is still pending.

    By western standards, Indian TV is remarkably chaste with no full frontal nudity and not much kissing. The country’s most risque channel is a lifestyle channel, which shows models gliding down the catwalk, while Indian actresses are required to do nothing more suggestive in Hindi movies than to gyrate in the oft repeated wet sari scene. And of course multiple kissing scenes between the lead pair in select movies. However, regulation is lenient with adult content between 11.30 pm and 4 am.

    However, the reality outside the public realm is much different and public acceptance is scarce. Wide interest in adult content exists in India primarily because sex is a taboo in the heartland of India. However, urban life witnesses extremely high traffic with the Internet coming of age. Cyber cafe’s are usually packed with people surfing and downloading adult videos. The same demand for porn is seen with private Internet connections.

    A rather high demand has been witnessed for adult VCD/DVD/VHS with a steep fall in the rates of VCD/DVD/VHS players. High demand also exists for subscription based adult streaming video’s and free-to-air channels that are downloaded and relayed at convenient times. Cable Operators are known to be showing adult content, usually XXX, post midnight till the wee hours of the morning, to a very ‘loyal’ viewership and often ‘on demand’.

    It is apparent that a huge market exists in India for adult content against an unfavourable regulation. Adult content is a part of daily urban life through movies, music videos, cable and other retail platforms. Adult content is freely available in the market in many forms (magazines, video parlours and even cinema halls in remote towns/villages etc). It is being shown on cable networks post midnight on their private channels and also on many TV channels.

    Internet is one of the biggest sources of access to adult content and people are freely downloading and viewing porn. The recent MMS expose’ of students and the ‘smoochsensation’ of leading film stars is just a mild reflection of both acceptance and indulgence. The adult content industry generates a lot of revenue, which is usually unaccounted, thus the government is losing out on its due share.

    When regulated, matured content has the potential of generating huge revenues and a part of this revenue can be utilized for social upliftment of women and issues concerning women welfare and AIDS. Unfortunately, it is just the TV channels that are being made scapegoats when we have a greater threat from the Internet, almost, knocking at every door and available freely.

    Today unrestricted access to streaming XXX video’s, callgirl services, sex-dating is available at the stroke of a key and anyone having access to the Internet can and is, probably, using these services from the comfort of their homes. Television is not even a fraction ‘porn savvy’ as other services and unfortunately is being demonized. Indian television is still a family entertainer and will continue to be, however, with a dash of change in keeping with the changing times.

    The fact is whether the Government regulates adult content or not, it will continue to be available on demand and has the potential of influencing ‘minds’. When we know and agree that adult content is available on demand then we might as well work together and use technology to regulate the flow.

    The need is to create a common opinion that when adult content is freely available on demand then it must be regulated. A regulated broadcast of adult content will help the Government in exercising proper control thus restricting access to minds that are not ready for adult content. We are living in ‘technologically superior’ times with technology defining and redefining itself by the day. We must make best use of technology in the form of ‘conditional access’ to regulate this segment.

    (The author, Ashish Kaul is Senior Vice President, Corporate Brand Development for Essel Group, a multi-venture corporate comprising of Zee Telefilms, Esselpropack, Playwin, Esselworld and Waterkingdom; Agrani Group among others and can be reached via kaula@esselgroup.com)

    Picture courtesy for Jism: www.indiadaily.com
    Ram Teri Ganga Maili: www.thehotspotonline.com

  • Playwin joins hands with ITZ Cash

    MUMBAI: It is touted as an initiative that will make online lottery gaming as more accessible and easy to play.

    Playwin has announced a tie-up with ITZ Cash – a multi-purpose prepaid card by Intrex India Ltd where consumers can now play Playwin games on their computers, mobile phones or even landline phone.

     

    In addition to that, Playwin has also launched its new website www.myplaywin.com, a fun site with links to all Playwin games where the customer can try his luck, get some information on Playwin and all the games, says an official release.

    Available in denominations of Rs 100, Rs 250, Rs 500, Rs 1000, Rs 3000 and Rs 7500, ITZ cash can be home delivered without any extra charges by dialing 1600 22 1600.

    While placing an order for the card, the customer does not have to reveal his identity or personal details. ITZcash is available at all pre-paid and post paid outlets of all mobile operators and on www.itzcash.com, informs the release.

    Winnings up to Rs 5,000 from Playwin are credited directly to the card and can be encashed anytime, as per the customer’s convenience.

    Commenting on the tie-up Intrex India CEO Naveen Surya said, “We are proud to be associated with Playwin, one of the well known brands in the country having a wide reach & a bigger base of loyal players.”

    According to Playwin CEO Sanjay Das said, “Exciting times lie ahead for our company & all our players. This week’s ThunderBall Jackpot (draw to be held on Tuesday, 11 May) is Rs 10.5 crores (105 million). We have now made it more convenient for our players to play our games, whenever they want and from wherever they are. In the near future, we expect a substantial number of people playing our games using ITZcash. In fact, over 5 per cent of total revenue should come from games being played using ITZcash”

  • Interview with Ambience Publicis national creative director Pushpinder Singh

    Triton Communications, Grey Worldwide, Leo Burnett, Ogilvy & Mather and now Ambience Publicis… man on the move this. Ambience Publicis’ new national creative director Pushpinder Singh has some big plans chalked out for the agency he is now spearheading.

    In a t?te-?-t?te with indiantelevision.com’s Hetal Adesara, Singh spoke about his mandate at Ambience, his plan of action and his vision for the agency.

    Excerpts:
     
     
    You have left a top notch agency (O&M) and joined a relatively small agency. What kind of professional growth have you achieved in the last six months?
    First things first… relative to O&M probably this place is not big, yet at the same time it is not as small as popular perception amkes it out. In fact if you put the entire Publicis Group in India, it is bigger than Leo Burnett. So while it is not as big as O&M, it is fairly substantial in size.

    One interesting thing, which will keep coming as we talk, is that at O&M, I was in charge of eight or nine brands, which used to give us an ‘x’ amount of billing. But here to bill that ‘x’ amount we would probably have to work on 20-25 brands because the brands are smaller. The amount of work required on a big brand is the same as that required on a small brand – one needs television, print, outdoor.

    Now to really answer your question, while at Ogilvy I won a lot of awards – at last count it was 22 in three years – and I was responsible for my set of brands. I also had complete freedom in creative authority on my businesses. I don’t think I was steering the creative fortunes of the entire agency. So here it’s not just ‘my group’ or ‘my set of brands’, what one is attempting is to lift the standards of the entire agency.

    There is a big difference between leading just a group within a huge agency and then leading the whole agency creatively. So nuts and bolts like the morale of the people, the sensitivity of the people who have already been working here for a long time. One has to take care of that and make sure that it is conducive to the new people you are hiring. We’ve hired about 10 new people and are on the look out for more.

    And like I mentioned earlier, we have brands which are smaller in size but the width of the brand is huge. So that means a very intensive effort. And to top that, we have been pitching very aggressively. So these have been hectic but heady times for us at Ambience.
     
     
    What have been the high points so far at the agency?
    I think what is very satisfying to see is that very quickly we have significantly raised the standard of our films. I would like to believe that the show reel of our ads in the five-six months is the number two show reel in the country.

    The other high point is that when I left Ogilvy, quite a few of my colleagues followed me here and that was one of the most emotional moments of my career to see that people trust you and that they are willing to work for you.

    Beyond that there have been a few occasions here and there… At the recently held Young Guns International advertising awards in Australia, Ambience Publicis bagged the Bronze, which was the best performance by any Indian agency.

    Beyond that, we have been winning our businesses. We bagged one assignment from Reliance.
     
     
    Can you give me the organisational structure at Ambience?
    Ashok Kurien is the chairman and managing director. Nakul Chopra is the president, Elsie Nanji – chief creative officer, who is responsible for both the agencies, that is, Publicis India and Ambience Publicis. I creatively head Ambience Publicis and report to Elsie. Sanjay Sipahi Malhani creatively heads Publicis India and is based in Delhi. Subhash Kamat is the COO of Ambience Publicis.

    Under me I have five groups, some of which are headed by creative directors and the others by associate creative directors.
     
     
    What was the mandate given to you by the agency?
    In fact one of the reasons I joined here was because the mandate given to me was so simple and clear cut. It was to lift the creative standards of the agency. Ambience has always produced high quality work as far as fashion or lifestyle products go.

    What I think this place really needed, and I think that’s where I fitted the bill, was to create meaningful work on the mass brands like Parachute, Elf etc.

    On a more personal level, I’ll say it very bluntly – The ambition is to be the number one creative agency in India.
     
     
    You had mentioned the same in an earlier interview also. Wouldn’t you rather let your work speak for itself rather than make such tall claims?
    When you talk about it clearly stating your ambitions, you put additional pressure on yourself to meet what you’ve said. (Laughs)

    On a more serious note, the reason why I am talking about it is because in my mind I see it as eminently possible. It doesn’t look very distant to me. What we need is to up our standards on our most visible brands as they are most representative of an agency’s outputs and I think that it will take a while. Winning awards is not difficult and we’ll win our share of awards. I’m sure; if not this year, then in the years to come.
     
     
    How much time are you giving yourself?
    If all goes well, I think we should definitely be in the reckoning in two years.
     
     
    At this point where do you think the agency stands in terms of creativity?
    I like to believe there is O&M, who has been the most creative agency by far for well over a decade now. And if you ask anyone which is the number two agency in India, you probably won’t get a clear cut answer. There are a clutch of agencies, which people say have a decent standard of work. I think right now we are somewhere there…
     
     
    In the last interview with our website you had mentioned that the many creative styles at O&M were there because Piyush Pandey used to leave all of you alone. Now in the capacity of national creative director, do you leave your creative team alone?
    Absolutely. We are in the business where no one person can ever have all the right answers. There’s this old saying – ‘You should know better than to know best.’ So I think the only way to do this is to hire people who are better than you and then just leave them alone. If they need help in selling, showcasing or executing their work then we’re always there to guide them. And I don’t think creativity is something that you can teach anyone.

    The converse is also true. If someone is not really performing, then you you’re your sleeves up and do the work yourself.
     
     
    We’re almost nearing the year end. How would you say 2004 has been for the advertising industry? And what according to you have been the landmarks in Indian advertising this year?
    I don’t have any numbers at my disposal but I would like to believe that the growth in the industry has been healthy.

    Every year you have one or two big visible campaigns, which also have very high creative standards, but that hasn’t happened this year from any agency.
     
     
    What do you think was different in your pitch that made you bag the Reliance India Mobile pre-paid services?
    I like to think that we were high on enthusiasm. That somewhere showed in our interaction with them. There is a lot of work that went into that, not only creatively but a lot of planning work.
     
     
    After you joined, what are the new campaigns that you have personally worked on? And which one is your favourite?
    The ads that I have worked on after I joined Ambience are Elf, Vicks cough syrup, Playwin, Snehi, Parachute Sampoorna, Silk N Shine, Lakme Peach Milk, Himani Fast Relief to name a few.

    I think out of these there have been three very good campaigns from our end this year. First is that of Marico Silk N Shine, then is the Parachute Sampoorna and the third one is Elf. I think these three are our better film campaigns this year.
     

     

  • “The non lottery playing segment has been the toughest to convert” : Sanjay Das Pan India Infravest Network CEO

    “The non lottery playing segment has been the toughest to convert” : Sanjay Das Pan India Infravest Network CEO

    The paper lottery market in India stands at an overwhelming Rs 35,000 to Rs 50,000 crore. The fledgling online lottery business, on the other hand, currently commands merely a fraction of this booming trade.

     

    Playwin, the company from Subhash Chandra’s Essel Group, created the online gambling space in India by forming an infrastructure that has terminals connected to a virtual private network, with signals being transmitted to and from the central servers — and the entire structure processed with the help of satellite broadcasting. Playwin was also a tempting FMCG concept and a great opportunity for a brand building exercise for parent Essel.

     

    Floated in November 2001, Playwin started with the online lottery franchises for the governments of Sikkim, Karnataka and Maharashtra. In April this year, however, the company suspended its agreement with the Maharashtra government, but soon after, pocketed contracts for the Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram lotteries.

     

    Pan India Infravest Network CEO Sanjay Das spoke to indiantelevision.com’s Aparna Joshi about the Playwin journey thus far and the strategy for the future.

     

    Excerpts:

    What is the strategy the company will adopt now that at least eight new players are poised to enter the market?

    The strength of Playwin is in the depth of its penetration. We need to talk to more people to keep the excitement going. We will be launching more games, more variety in the next one to two months to keep the players engrossed. However, converting the non players has been our most daunting task.

     

    Playwin netted Rs 660 crore last fiscal and hopes to double the figure this year. The projected revenues for this year are between Rs 1,000 and Rs 1,200 crore.

    Media campaigns earlier this year tried to concentrate on the executive and the upper crust, in an effort to get the segment to play? Has the gambit paid off?

    Our target remains the entire population. We did try to focus on SEC A and B, but these have not responded favourably. For our bread and butter, we have to rely on SECs C, D and E. The target audience is the existing paper lottery players. The untapped segment of non lottery players offers tempting potential but is a tough nut to crack. Paper lottery has its critics in the form of lack of transparency but the distribution and reach of paper lottery makes it a formidable rival.

    How have the new entrants, Dhan Dhana Dhan and Fortune, affected Playwin?

    Our strategy is now on how to tackle the competition, many of which have resorted to placing their terminals very close to or even on the premises of Playwin outlets. We have an exclusivity contract with our retailers which helps us to stem this problem, but the rivals have also gone in for better margins for distributors to lure them away. But we believe that if the basic product is good and the games offer enough attraction, we are bound to win in the final reckoning. The main thing is to open new terminals almost every day.

    But the company was not able to meet the target in the setting up of new terminals in the last fiscal.

    True. While we targeted 8,000 terminals last year, we were able to put up 4,000. Part of the problem was our termination of contract with Maharashtra, although that did not seriously affect our budgets. This year, we intend to be more focused on setting up new terminals, at the rate of 150 to 200 per month. By the end of this fiscal, we hope to add four to five thousand terminals across the country.

    “Each new campaign, centering on a new acquisition typically has an ad budget of Rs two to 2.5 crore“

    What went wrong with Maharashtra?

    We had operational difficulties. There were certain terms and conditions which we interpreted differently from what the government did, creating problems on the ground for us which did not allow us to fulfil the agreement. Maharashtra was indeed a valuable property for us, particularly as we are headquartered here. Right now, our lawyers are negotiating, and if anything favourable does result, it could still take some months to be sorted out.

    How much does the company spend on marketing and promotions for each franchise? How are the collections the company makes split?

    About 50 to 60 per cent of the collections go to the prize money, 10 to 20 per cent are the respective state government’s share while the rest is allocated to trade margins and other expenditure.

    Awareness building exercises entail a huge expense budget — ads are regularly placed in 68 publications in 10 languages in the 13 states where lottery is played. The first stress was to build the Playwin brand, the focus is now on building the individual brands. Max Lotto was launched on 2 August this year. Each new campaign, centering on a new acquisition typically has an ad budget of Rs two to 2.5 crore.

    Is Playwin trying to give any value additions to the consumer, now that new players are offering the same product?

    Our main offering is clean and transparent games. Others who have entered the fray now are merely trying to copy the formula set down by us. Thus far, we have created 1,500 lakhpatis, 34 crorepatis and an overall crore of winners in the 16 months that we have been around. Isn’t that a lot of value?

     

    Besides, in states like Karnataka and Sikkim, the midday meal schemes of the government and projects for building rural schools and hospitals are the value addition that we have helped create.

     

    Which states is Playwin eyeing now?

    We have just bagged the Mizoram account, which will be launched in the first week of September. There will be a daily as well as a weekly draw. We are now looking at Rajasthan, Kerala and Haryana as well. We had also responded to the tenders floated by Bhutan for its lottery, but no decision has been taken on that front.

    How do you see the online lottery market changing in the coming months?

    There will be a shakeout, definitely. In absolute value, we are still higher than any other. By the time the market stablises, there will be two to three players left. Those who deliver value will be the ones who will continue to be in the market. The me-toos will have to bow out.

     

    There have been complaints that consumers who have won prizes of a higher denomination have not received their dues on time….

    The average time taken for payment is 70 to 80 days. For prize money over Rs 5,000, the amount needs the sanction of the state government concerned, which is why there is a certain delay at times. But so far, we have been able to settle all the claims within a maximum of 90 days. Sometimes, though there have been problems when prize money won in the Mega Win Maha Lotto (Maharashtra) is still pending with the government.

     

    Is Playwin trying to reach the non-metros is a bigger way in the coming days?

    The approximate proportion of terminals in metros and non-metros is 50:50. While the playing population for paper lottery could be humungous in the non-metros, for online lottery, the metro is still the base. Then there are states like Karnataka which are more tech savvy and hence more open to online lottery. On the other hand, there are states like Maharashtra and West Bengal which are more paper lottery oriented.

    Is there a trend of paper lottery consumers moving to online?

    There is, but only slight. It is difficult to emulate the massive distribution that paper lottery commands. Abroad it may be a different scenario, but paper lottery in Indian will always keep a 60 to 70 per cent share of the entire lottery business.

    What was the rationale behind the change of nomenclature at the company?

    Playwin has slowly become the brand name for our lottery. While lottery will remain the mainstay of the business, we are now aiming to expand as an infrastructure company. It could mean providing various services, including bill payments — electricity, gas etc. It could even offer a service competing with ATMs. That was the rationale of converting Playwin Infravest into Pan India Infravest Network Ltd, which will be the parent company. Right now, we are conducting the technical feasibility on the kind of services we would be able to offer in the future.

  • Playwin to add Mizo lottery to kitty

    MUMBAI: After Karnataka, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh under its belt, Playwin, the lottery from the Essel stable, is adding Mizoram online lottery to its kitty.
    Pan India Infravest’s CEO Sanjay Das says Mizoram Lotto to be out by September Floated under the name of Dakshin Media, the Mizoram lottery will be launched by mid-September, according to Pan India Infravest Network CEO Sanjay Das. The company, rechristened from the earlier Playwin Infravest, has recently launched the online lottery for the Arunachal Pradesh government under the brand name Max Lotto.


    The Mizo lottery will have a weekly and a daily game and the formats will be similar to those used and popularised thus far, says Das, while declining to give out further details of the under-wraps games.
    The company is now beefing up its distribution and marketing strategy to gear up to the challenge posed by the latest entrant, Forbes’ Dhan Dhana Dhan, as well as the proposed online lottery ventures by Videocon, Modis, Apollo and Fortune-Essar.
    While the company aims to add another 4,000 to 5,000 new ticket dispensing terminals across the country by the end of this fiscal, it did suffer a setback in April this year, when it pulled out of the barely three-month-old Maharashtra online lottery, branded Megawin Maha Lotto, after ‘a disagreement over the interpretation of the terms and conditions’.
    Pan India, which posted revenues of Rs 660 crore (Rs 6,600 million) in the fiscal just ended, hopes to touch Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,200 crore (Rs 10 billion to Rs 12 billion ) by March 2004.
    The company is now eyeing other states Rajasthan, Kerala and Haryana for a tie up for their online lottery business, even as Tamil Nadu continues its ban on lottery imposed earlier this year.

  • Playwin’s Keno gets off to quiet start

    Playwin’s Keno gets off to quiet start

    MUMBAI: Playwin Infravest’s newest online game on the block, Keno, kicked off without much fanfare and promotions yesterday.
     
     
    From the Karnataka online state lottery stable, Keno has been hailed as a more refined form of Tambola. “The more risk you take, the more you stand to win,” says Playwin CEO Sanjay Das. 20 of the available 80 numbers are picked out as winners in the daily draw, enabling participants to win that much more.

    Apart from the lack of overt promotion (Keno’s siblings Lucky 3, Thunderball and Mahawin’s Lotto have already had extensive outdoor promotions), Keno will have to contend with a broadcast partner in Zee Music, a channel that has been awaiting a revamp for a long while.

    The daily Keno draw will be held between 9 and 9.30 pm on Zee Music and Das believes the channel is a prudent choice as parent channel Zee TV is currently telecasting seven draws a week, including Karnataka’s Lucky 3. “Unlike serials, where viewers need continuity, Zee Music is a channel into which viewers keep flitting in and out and is ideal for Keno’s daily draw telecast,” says Das.

    The clearance for the promotions has just come through, says Das, and a huge press and television campaign is about to be unleashed. Since the target group for Keno remains the middle class, railway stations are to form a major platform to promote the lottery.

    Playwin is however pushing for a different image for Keno. “It is not a hardcore lottery game. It is more interactive, where the participant can play at 35 different levels,” says Das, “It is more of a fun kind of game.”

  • Playwin sets aside Rs 200 m. for ad blitz

    MUMBAI: It’s paying out big money. And not just in prizes.

    Playwin, the online lottery wing of Subhash Chandra’s empire, has set aside a mammoth budget of nearly Rs 200 million for promoting the newly launched Maharashtra lottery for the first two months. Full page advertisements in daily newspapers and an extensive outdoor presence mark Playwin’s promotions. A recurring presence on all of Zee’s channels is an added bonus for the online venture.

    Playwin head Sanjay Das says the Bonus Ball scheme launched in Maharashtra in December 2002 and Maha Lotto, that followed it last week, have met their initial targets in terms of ticket sales. The profile of the targeted customer has changed, says Das, as Maha Lotto requires participants to part with Rs 100 for a ticket. While the returns promised are equally huge, Das says the company, which earlier targeted the younger set and the middle and lower middle classes, is now also looking at targeting the office goers and higher end executives, luring them with creative ads across media. “It is an FMCG product, and we have to sell it like one,” says Das.

    All three of agencies employed by Playwin for the purpose – Ambience, Saatchi & Saatchi and O&M, as well as Madison – the agency of record, have been roped in to create the buzz required around the online lottery to lure in more of first time customers.

    Das says the company has also instituted an inhouse research team that has been meticulously monitoring the effectiveness of the ads across geographical locations, as well among different age and class groups, feedback from which is being used to create the next set of ads.

    While Playwin’s ambitious plans of spreading its wings across other states may have got a setback with the Tamil Nadu government issuing a blanket ban on the sale of all lotteries on Thursday, Das says the company is still eyeing the markets of Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab, among others. “We will keep launching in different states, in keeping with the regulatory environment in those states.”

  • Playwin to start Maharashtra lottery on 2 Dec

    Playwin to start Maharashtra lottery on 2 Dec

    MUMBAI: The much delayed Maharashtra chapter of the Playwin saga is about to unfold finally on 2 December.

    Slated to begin earlier this quarter, after the Sikkim and Karnataka online lotteries were rolled out, the Maharashtra lottery has been branded as Megawin and Bonus Ball. According to Playwin officials, outdoor advertising has already been set in place while print and electronic advertising will be rolled out by 25 or 26 November. 

    While Saatchi&Saatchi have handled the Sikkim lottery account for Playwin, it is Ambience which will handle the Maharashtra online lottery for the company. With Maharashtra in the bag, Playwin has finished the set up for the three states for which it acquired licenses in its first phase of operations. 

    The focus, say officials, is now to organise ground events for the Maharashtra chapter of online lottery in the last half of the month. While ticket sales have ranged around Rs 150 to Rs 160 million per week thus far, officials estimate the sales to zoom upto Rs 200 to Rs 250 million once the Maharashtra lottery is in place. 

    Playwin Infravest Pvt Ltd, which has more than 3,000 lottery terminals spread over 14 states, aims to at least triple the number of terminals by next April.

  • Playwin’s Maharashtra launch to take two more months

    Playwin’s Maharashtra launch to take two more months

    MUMBAI: While Playwin Infravest’s Karnataka venture took off as per schedule, the online lottery’s Maharashtra entry may take a while more.

    Playwin’s vice president marketing Sanjay Yashroy says that the Maharashtra lottery should make its appearance in another two months time. The company had earlier said that the Maharashtra lottery would be launched latest by September. According to media reports, Playwin has already appointed Ambience D’Arcy to handle the advertising for the Maharashtra lottery.

    The Rs 3000 million online lottery venture from the Essel group has stepped up its outdoor advertising in Mumbai with hoardings proclaiming the possibilities of winning on the Lucky 3, which offers more winning combinations of the lottery numbers. The Lucky 3 draw, televised live on Zee, is in fact, the only show from among other shows which include lottery results – Khelo Number Khelo and Karvan Kismat Ka, which has made it to the top 100 shows in terms of ratings as per TAM.

    Yashroy says that the company is not planning any fresh promotional or marketing activities currently as it is in the consolidation phase, and will initiate them once the date for the launch of the Maharashtra lottery is finalised.

  • Zee pumps up the volume around Playwin, Jeena Will the advertiser bite?

    Zee pumps up the volume around Playwin, Jeena Will the advertiser bite?

    Go for the jugular. Thats a tactic used in the animal kingdom when a hunter is close to a prey it has been stalking for some time. Thats a tactic used in the corporate jungle when one rival finds itself with its back to the wall.

    Two days back, Zee Telefilms pounced on rival Star India through an advertising campaign, which is running in the pink press – in an extremely aggressive play. The ad campaign targeted at advertisers and media planners is making a pitch for Zee TVs shows Jeena Issi Ka Naam Hai (JIKNH) and Khelo Number Khelo. It builds a case for the two shows as big ticket items which the media fraternity should should ride, forgetting about the KBCs and the “Saas Bahu” sagas.

    And this despite the fact that Khelo and Jeena have continued to have swinging ratings (both have flitted in and out of the top 100 rated shows in the last five weeks). Zee TV says in the ads that saas bahu soaps cannot sustain viewer interest for long now. Quoting in house statistics, it claims that approximately 7.6 million C & S households that own a Playwin Super Lotto ticket are a captive audience for Khelo, its game show produced by Miditech, that announces the online results midway through the show. With jackpots of over Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million) and Rs 8.61 (Rs 86.1 million) crore being won in the last one month, the channel claims interest in the lottery as well as in the show has shot up.

    Jeena too, the ads claim, commands a 45 per cent viewership (the episode featuring Laloo Prasad Yadav), with rival channels commanding corresponding figures of 27, 21 and eight per cent. Friday night viewing, claims the network is not for digesting celluloid domestic squabbles but for celeb talk that tugs at heartstrings.

    It is still unclear whether advertisers will bite the bait, though. Media planners, while admitting that Playwin has caught the fancy of the populace, are reluctant to say whether the success will translate into better ratings for the show.

    Initiative Media vice president Partha Ghosh says that viewers need not necessarily log on to a show, as the results would be available offline later. “You cannot necessarily convert the success of a product in the marketplace into a successful show”, he opines. Whereas if you miss an episode of a soap like Kyunkii, you miss a vital link in the series, you do not miss much if you skip an episode of Khelo or Jeena, he adds. The ads, a product of Zee’s creative agency Rediffusion DY & R, hit out straight at “saas bahu” serials that have cornered a vital share of viewers’ imagination. Hinting that the ratings do not reflect the true picture, the ads say advertisers are still led to believe that people would much rather watch a creaky sob story than find out if they have won the kind of money that will have them laughing all the way to the bank.

    StarCom’s Pradipto Nandy disagrees. “The campaign (to wean away advertisers from soaps to game shows) will not work as a long term strategy,” he says. Besides, he points out, viewers need not stick to the channel for the entire duration of the show if they are merely interested in following the results of the online lottery, he points out.