The core of any brand building activity for a news media organization and in particular a television channel would be the mix of the right audience they could cater to and the right market segments they could venture into. Adding to the earlier taught, the exercise would be incomplete if the programming is not directed accordingly. Keeping these basic criteria in mind, CNN-IBN has managed to position itself commandingly a) in the market it is operating and b) in its audiences’ minds.
We have identified several areas through which any brand is built or is projected and co-related it with CNN-IBN.
a) Brand Attributes
Several key attributes that we have found out about the brand include a very youthful outlook, an aggressive and passionate brand of journalism being practiced by them and as a by-product of the youthful look, is the energetic feel of the product.
The dimension of youth comes to the fore with the average age of journalists the channel has recruited as its staff, the look of these journalists plus the type of stories they cover, the innovation and creative use of language and reporting – never heard of before, with one eye clearly at capturing the otherwise apathetic audiences towards news – the young population of the country. This segment identification by the channel has given them the liberty to experiment with anchoring techniques, camera shots that would be a no-no in a conventional channel and the constant tinkering with content, which may not get the audience’s approval in a serious news channel. CNN-IBN has clearly ensured that the way forward for them as a channel is to infuse some young blood into the scene.
The programming of the channel has also gone hand in hand with the audiences they target. A show like Minus Thirty has given the youth the right kind of forum to discuss relevant issues pertaining to their age group, which otherwise would be ignored. The recent roping-in of Cyrus Broacha, one of India’s most watched television personalities has gone perfectly with the young audience with his show “The Week That Wasn’t” figuring in the list of most watched news programmes in the month of November (8th in TAM Ratings). Even though the content of the Cyrus Broacha show may sound inane to most mature audiences, it has done enough to flock the some MTV loyalists to watch news with CNN-IBN.
The youngest reporter in the channel is the 22-year old Paras Tomar, who has more or less transformed his Page 3 raving skills into a decent entertainment anchor. The very fact that he is seen in unconventional costumes along with his uncanny and spontaneous rendition of ideas and thoughts has struck a rapport with the young men and women.
A key moment when the channel drove the youth element through was during the football World Cup 2006. The majority of the viewing public of the mega extravaganza in Germany were largely between the age of 16 to 25 and dedicating a special half-an-hour show for this segment did benefit the channel in many ways, including advertising. Considering that India and West Indies played out a Test Series in the Caribbean at the same time, CNN-IBN was able to prioritize the World Cup, which was the cash cow over the India-WI series. Rajdeep Sardesai, editor-in-chief of CNN-IBN in one of his columns on the event says “On CNN-IBN, we have 12 sponsors for our football show, while only four for the cricket series”, thus highlighting the necessities of dedicated coverage. Another plus point was the credibility of these reports since they were covered by their in-house sports reporter Rudraniel Sengupta and unlike the competition, CNN-IBN did not rely on agency reports or sourcing from other sports channels. Having experts like Bhaichung Bhutia and Novi Kapadia paid off for the channel as Football-360 became a regular post-dinner routine with the audiences.
Another important facet of CNN-IBN’s brand building came a month after its launch, with the India vs Pakistan series being served on its platter. Anything concerning the cricket series would basically sell and keeping this primary criteria in mind, Rajdeep Sardesai and his team did the unthinkable by bring in the two big cricketing stalwarts from the respective countries – Imran Khan and Kapil Dev. Adding to that, the channel also roped in Anil Kumble as the brand ambassador for the series and made him a cricket expert with the channel.
They launched their cricket series under the name “Love of Cricket”, which included Kris Srikkanth on its panel of experts to answer queries and engage in discussions. The cricket desk came up with an innovation called “Public ka Kaptaan”, which basically involves the masses into donning the cap of the Indian captain and coach, justifying the phrase of “every Indian is a cricket expert”. It turned into a competition, whereby the best strategy of the day wins a hamper, and as the series progressed towards its peak, so did the involvement. Jay Khambatta, in his capacity as the Regional Marketing Head, Mumbai confirms the success of the India-Pak series.
He says, “This was one of the main reasons why we are number 1 today. We decided to play down the patriotic element that most of the competition resorted to and for once you had a news channel that gave cricket a higher priority over nationalistic sentiments.”
The aggression aspect comes through with the brand of journalism the channel practices and aims to do so. There is a blend of accuracy and speed that somewhere was lacking in a mainstream English news channel in India. Either of elements was compromised for excellence in the other. But, combining both to good effect has been CNN-IBN’s priority.
This very motto has reflected in the passion these young journalists have for news-gathering and news-relaying. Rajdeep in an interview to Business Standard is quick to retort by saying “In order to survive in the congested Indian news market, you need to have the content of an English channel and the aggression of a Hindi channel.” The tag-line that the channel is a clear indicator of the tone of the content it may produce.
“Whatever it takes” is probably a spirit as they call, but also can be interpreted as doing everything possible to give the elusive truth to its viewers. Apart from its functioning, even the content seems to project this aggression, much controlled though. A programme like Devil’s Advocate has managed to intimidate the who’s-who of the Government and bared them open before the viewing public. A key example would be the Arjun Singh episode on the reservation issue, where the viewership of the channel reached its peak and that interview competed well enough with the soap operas of prime-time.
We have identified several areas through which any brand is built or is projected and co-related it with CNN-IBN.
a) Brand Attributes
Several key attributes that we have found out about the brand include a very youthful outlook, an aggressive and passionate brand of journalism being practiced by them and as a by-product of the youthful look, is the energetic feel of the product.
The dimension of youth comes to the fore with the average age of journalists the channel has recruited as its staff, the look of these journalists plus the type of stories they cover, the innovation and creative use of language and reporting – never heard of before, with one eye clearly at capturing the otherwise apathetic audiences towards news – the young population of the country. This segment identification by the channel has given them the liberty to experiment with anchoring techniques, camera shots that would be a no-no in a conventional channel and the constant tinkering with content, which may not get the audience’s approval in a serious news channel. CNN-IBN has clearly ensured that the way forward for them as a channel is to infuse some young blood into the scene.
The programming of the channel has also gone hand in hand with the audiences they target. A show like Minus Thirty has given the youth the right kind of forum to discuss relevant issues pertaining to their age group, which otherwise would be ignored. The recent roping-in of Cyrus Broacha, one of India’s most watched television personalities has gone perfectly with the young audience with his show “The Week That Wasn’t” figuring in the list of most watched news programmes in the month of November (8th in TAM Ratings). Even though the content of the Cyrus Broacha show may sound inane to most mature audiences, it has done enough to flock the some MTV loyalists to watch news with CNN-IBN.
The youngest reporter in the channel is the 22-year old Paras Tomar, who has more or less transformed his Page 3 raving skills into a decent entertainment anchor. The very fact that he is seen in unconventional costumes along with his uncanny and spontaneous rendition of ideas and thoughts has struck a rapport with the young men and women.
A key moment when the channel drove the youth element through was during the football World Cup 2006. The majority of the viewing public of the mega extravaganza in Germany were largely between the age of 16 to 25 and dedicating a special half-an-hour show for this segment did benefit the channel in many ways, including advertising. Considering that India and West Indies played out a Test Series in the Caribbean at the same time, CNN-IBN was able to prioritize the World Cup, which was the cash cow over the India-WI series. Rajdeep Sardesai, editor-in-chief of CNN-IBN in one of his columns on the event says “On CNN-IBN, we have 12 sponsors for our football show, while only four for the cricket series”, thus highlighting the necessities of dedicated coverage. Another plus point was the credibility of these reports since they were covered by their in-house sports reporter Rudraniel Sengupta and unlike the competition, CNN-IBN did not rely on agency reports or sourcing from other sports channels. Having experts like Bhaichung Bhutia and Novi Kapadia paid off for the channel as Football-360 became a regular post-dinner routine with the audiences.
Another important facet of CNN-IBN’s brand building came a month after its launch, with the India vs Pakistan series being served on its platter. Anything concerning the cricket series would basically sell and keeping this primary criteria in mind, Rajdeep Sardesai and his team did the unthinkable by bring in the two big cricketing stalwarts from the respective countries – Imran Khan and Kapil Dev. Adding to that, the channel also roped in Anil Kumble as the brand ambassador for the series and made him a cricket expert with the channel.
They launched their cricket series under the name “Love of Cricket”, which included Kris Srikkanth on its panel of experts to answer queries and engage in discussions. The cricket desk came up with an innovation called “Public ka Kaptaan”, which basically involves the masses into donning the cap of the Indian captain and coach, justifying the phrase of “every Indian is a cricket expert”. It turned into a competition, whereby the best strategy of the day wins a hamper, and as the series progressed towards its peak, so did the involvement. Jay Khambatta, in his capacity as the Regional Marketing Head, Mumbai confirms the success of the India-Pak series.
He says, “This was one of the main reasons why we are number 1 today. We decided to play down the patriotic element that most of the competition resorted to and for once you had a news channel that gave cricket a higher priority over nationalistic sentiments.”
The aggression aspect comes through with the brand of journalism the channel practices and aims to do so. There is a blend of accuracy and speed that somewhere was lacking in a mainstream English news channel in India. Either of elements was compromised for excellence in the other. But, combining both to good effect has been CNN-IBN’s priority.
This very motto has reflected in the passion these young journalists have for news-gathering and news-relaying. Rajdeep in an interview to Business Standard is quick to retort by saying “In order to survive in the congested Indian news market, you need to have the content of an English channel and the aggression of a Hindi channel.” The tag-line that the channel is a clear indicator of the tone of the content it may produce.
“Whatever it takes” is probably a spirit as they call, but also can be interpreted as doing everything possible to give the elusive truth to its viewers. Apart from its functioning, even the content seems to project this aggression, much controlled though. A programme like Devil’s Advocate has managed to intimidate the who’s-who of the Government and bared them open before the viewing public. A key example would be the Arjun Singh episode on the reservation issue, where the viewership of the channel reached its peak and that interview competed well enough with the soap operas of prime-time.