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Perspectives
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CRACKING
THE ASIAN MARKET
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We
made the Monkey King a kind of ‘non-hero’. The direct
mailer that was sent out to promote the movie was
a banana, the radio spot was in Hindi and featured
a madari and his monkey — we even took the madari
and his monkey on a roadshow to promote the movie.
Hallmark Channel’s advertising also sets out to capture
men. Not the macho, stereotypical, Formula One-watching,
whisky-sipping man, but father and husband types who
have a good relationship with their families — the
sort of fellows we would have labeled ’90s men a few
years ago. And, make no mistake, we are using the
tag in a complimentary fashion.
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If
I had one piece of advice for anyone contemplating cracking
the Indian market, Asia’s most compelling cable TV market,
with an English language movie and general entertainment
product, I’d say, “Sit down — and have a really good
think about how much what you want to do it. It’s going
to be very, very hard work.” You can’t argue with the
numbers. Around 26 million homes have pay TV, and given
the proliferation of channels in the last three years
there is obviously ferocious competition, not only for
eyeballs, but also for the Rs 21 billion worth of cable
TV advertising spend.
That slice of the advertising pie available to English
language channels is pared even thinner when you consider
that our potential universe is around 12 million homes
clustered in the five cities that are generally receptive
to English language entertainment.
Arguably, once viewers have been alerted to the presence
of English-language channels, they are generally receptive
to them. This demographic is more likely than most to
have been educated, or to have travelled overseas, or
to have relatives outside India. So we can assume they
have some knowledge of western programme styles and
genres.
Nevertheless, it is vital to customise the channel’s
on-air look and feel. Creating interstitial materials,
advertising breaks and promotions that are unique to
India is essential to convince the viewers that you
are speaking to them, and that they’re not part of a
homogenous target market that stretches from Los Angeles
to London with India as an afterthought.
Assuming that your audience is in place, the challenge
is then to create a compelling ‘must buy’ on the part
of the agencies and their clients, persuading them that
English language entertainment will push the right buttons
with the right audience. Certainly our solution at Hallmark
Channel has been to play it smart, address what we are
(and what we are not) and build our offering around
a select but very attractive demographic.
Our target group is families, with a specific skew towards
women, the domestic decision makers. Hallmark Channel’s
advertising also sets out to capture men. Not the macho,
stereotypical, Formula One-watching, whisky-sipping
man, but father and husband types who have a good relationship
with their families — the sort of fellows we would have
labeled ’90s men a few years ago. And, make no mistake,
we are using the tag in a complimentary fashion.
These demographics are an advertiser’s dream — educated,
English-speaking, with a high disposable income, and
able to absorb and enjoy new entertainment concepts.
Hallmark Channel predicates its ad sales strategy on
fast moving consumer goods or FMCGs — white goods and
foodstuffs. It is an Indian market focus; we are not
carrying advertising for products that can only be bought
in Singapore and other markets where we are seen in
the Asia Pacific. Pepsi Foods Ltd. and Godrej & Boyce
were among our first programme sponsors, and latterly
we have also been working with Electrolux, Heinz and
the Fa range of cosmetics.
Companies that run regional branding campaigns, like
software manufacturers and telecommunications providers,
create consciousness-raising spots that build brand
awareness, but they don’t specifically shift product
from the shelves in large volumes. The reasoning is
simple — our target viewers respond to market-specific
advertising in the same way they respond to customised
interstitial material. They may not be able to buy the
slick new mobile phone in their market that is highlighted
in a global advertising campaign, but they will certainly
be able to purchase a new household appliance that is
manufactured in this country.
To return to programming — while there is an awareness
of foreign product, it would be wrong for an English
language entertainment channel to assume that their
movies and mini-series are completely familiar to Indian
audiences.
So it is essential to package your programme offerings
— the less-than-familiar — with the familiar. That means
running promotional activities, both on-screen and on-ground
that resonate with the audience. Since an extensive
rebrand last November, the Hallmark Channel has been
fine-tuning its schedules to meet the needs of Indian
viewers. One important component of this is the fact
that we have a satellite feed that is exclusively for
the Indian market. A single signal, or a pair of them
that are divided into north and south Asian feeds, is
unlikely to persuade Indian viewers that you’re making
a special effort to reach them because you are also
reaching several million others at the same time.
It is all part of creating the belief that you’re giving
Indian viewers something special that they can’t get
anywhere else. In Hallmark Channel’s case, we offer
high-ranking movie stars — Maggie Smith, Angelina Jolie,
John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini and Bob Hoskins who
appear in epics like Don Quixote and On The Beach or
mini-series that have been made with the same care as
Hollywood’s finest products. Hallmark Channel shows
these exclusively; they are not seen on any other TV
channel or in the cinema, which also creates a certain
exclusive cachet among viewers.
A mainstay of many English language entertainment channels
is the made for TV movies. They are a familiar concept
in the United States and other parts of the world and
we’ve been exposing Indian viewers to the concept. But
with productions like The Wives of Windsor, we position
the movie in the minds of viewers with local taglines
and promotions. It almost goes without saying that any
English language channel needs to hire an advertising
agency with imagination and courage if it wishes to
make an impact in India.
But the educational process is a two-way thing — you
have to listen to what the public and to what your cable
TV affiliates are telling you, plus the media buyers
too.
The Kids’ Block is an area of Hallmark Channel whose
shape is directly linked to viewers’ input. What emerged
from the focus groups we held was that parents were
concerned that their children’s viewing lacked any education
value, and they were concerned at the content and messages
that their children were seeing. Their concerns echoed
those of parents elsewhere in Asia. In Singapore, the
number one reason for failing to renew subscriptions
to the cable TV provider was their belief that children’s
programming lacked educational merit.
What we took away from this was that if parents trusted
us to provide programming for their children then we
had to maintain that trust. This year there have been
significant changes within the Kids’ Block as we focused
more on providing what Hallmark Channel categorises
as ‘edutainment’ — programmes like Clifford, The Wubbulous
World of Dr. Seuss and Sesame Street. It is a lesson
that applies to all English language channel providers
— you might regard yourself as an exotic addition to
the normal programming diet, but if you fail to provide
a lot of wholesome ingredients then you will be junked
as quickly as any other fad. Above all you have to make
your channel and its programming relevant to India and
Indians in all of your promotional efforts. So introduce
your offerings with the trappings that are familiar
to local audiences, so that they don’t feel it is completely
alien to their tastes. It is different once the movie
or series starts screening — we believe that good stories
and captivating characters have universal appeal. But
you have to make sure that your audience is going to
sit down with you when the show starts.
Our Q1 premiere, The Monkey King, is a case in point.
In essence, it is a Chinese fable much like the Mahabharata.
It has everything that makes for a good story; a goddess
who falls in love with a human, an earthly mortal who
has to save the world with the help of the Monkey King,
lots of action, and special effects from the makers
of Mission Impossible 2. Think of an Indian Indiana
Jones adventure that also featured Thomas Gibson of
Dharma and Greg and an appearance by Kabir Bedi.
The story wasn’t well known in India though the settings
in the story were very familiar. We turned the idea
on its head and made the Monkey King a kind of ‘non-hero’.
The direct mailer that was sent out to promote the movie
was a banana, the radio spot was in Hindi and featured
a madari and his monkey — we even took the madari and
his monkey on a roadshow to promote the movie.
I would not suggest that English language entertainment
channels have set the pay TV industry ablaze. We’re
likely to remain a minority genre — albeit a significant
one in terms of delivering key demographics — for some
time to come.
India has been, and will continue to be, a hard market
to achieve pay TV paydirt, and things will become even
more competitive when direct-to-home satellite TV becomes
widespread. Yet, by identifying your audience and teaching
them to identify with you, you can create a firm niche
for yourself in one of the world’s most challenging
TV markets. |
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