MUMBAI: “Where words fail, music speaks,” once said a Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. And for music channel 9X Media, it seems to have spoken pretty loudly.
On the eve of ‘World Music Day’ which falls on 21 June every year, the music channel, like in the past two years, decided to celebrate it with style even for the third consecutive time.
The music broadcaster which launched a music video Music Dil Mein to welcome and celebrate the D-Day, seems to have struck the right chord with the viewers.
The video, a celebration of music by 13 superstar singers of India, which was uploaded on YouTube went viral in a very short span generating around 587,586 views.
Produced by GSEAMS Production, this 3 minute 30 second video featured Sid Mahadevan, Shalmali Kholgade, Anushka Manchanda, Benny Dayal, Harshdeep Kaur, Amit Trivedi, Pappon, Rochak Kohli, Neeti Mohan, Hamsika Iyer, Shruti Pathak, Shweta Pandit and Palak Muchhal.
According to 9X Media senior VP – digital Vibha Gosher no gimmick and limited spends was used to make the video a success.
“What we ride upon is the ear for music. It was four months ago that we decided to celebrate ‘World Music Day’ by creating a music video. When we heard the final product we knew that this was a clear winner. This would not need any gimmicks or any big marketing strategies because the song itself was so good,” expresses Gosher.
It took around two and half months to create the video. According to Gosher, artists were happy to come on-board and celebrate ‘World Music Day’ with 9X Media.
“Artists were very happy to be a part of the video. Initially, we had about eight-nine artists, but then people kept coming on-board. We at 9X Media, celebrate music in everything that we do. Yes, particularly this day, we go out and tell the world that we are celebrating music,” adds Gosher.
Besides one main video on YouTube, 17 other versions were also uploaded by users that have fetched around 50,000 views collectively. Not only are the 9X channels airing the music video, but it is also available across all major digital song platforms like saavan.com and gana.com.
The video is also available to users as caller ring back tone (CRBT) and ringtones with major telecom providers. The song Music Dil Mein was played at midnight on 20 June across 170 lounges in the country. Estimates place the footfalls in these lounges at around 45,000 that night.
“Our work was to establish the reach. We knew that once any user hears the song he is going to love it. Our job was only to make this song available to the user in some format on some platform or the other. We needed the song to be available if the person was searching for it. That was the spread we established for the song,” asserts Gosher.
Digital played an important medium for the network apart from television. The video was promoted across all digital platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube.
The network has an in-house strong social media team. Interestingly, in the span of two and half days, its official twitter page saw 900 tweets going out across communities. The network just re-engaged in the tweets.
According to Gosher, it was a joint effort that led to the success of the video. “The product is kickass and its success is a joint effort of all the singers as well. The video was their tribute to music too. They were celebrating music with us,” opines Gosher.
Written and composed by Rochak Kohli (Pani Da Rang fame), the music video was programmed, mixed and mastered by Ravi Singhal.
In 2012, the channel installed a ‘9XM Wall of Music’ at a couple of locations in Mumbai and Delhi to celebrate the day. Based on the augmented reality technology, the ‘Wall of Music’ enabled multiple song downloads from the latest Bollywood movies. In 2013, it launched a unique song titled Tung Tucking Ting, which emphasised the Network’s connect with music.
“We will continue celebrating music with musicians. They are collaborating with us for a whole lot of new initiatives across all our channel properties,” concludes Gosher.
