CNN IBN Brand Extension
Brand extensions are a result of constant innovation, experimentation and good business stratagem. After CNN-IBN came into existence on December 17 last year, the first thing they did was to hit the web. The web as a medium was never exploited before by any of the news media as a potential supplement to their main medium.
IBNlive.com was launched by CNN-IBN with a primary objective to hit the untapped web-news market, which is primarily targeted towards working professionals, non-Resident Indians and netizens alike. For the records, IBNlive.com crossed over 1 million hits in April 2006, highlighting the success factor. Apart from being an extension of the news channel, IBNlive.com provides the visitor with enough content matter to visit it all over again.
The interactive features of writing your own feedback to any article or story on display plus free streaming of live television on your computer have gone really well with the visitors. Apart from these features, IBNlive.com has many firsts to its credit. IBNlive.com became the website of a news channel to start a Blogging service for its journalists, which essentially is used to share experiences with the readers and with a clear intent of going beyond the 30sec story which was reported earlier.
Some of these blogs attract close to a 500-600 comments and turn into a platform of interaction between the reader and the journalist. Secondly, IBNlive.com is the only news media website in India, which offers a Podcasting service. The feature was added recently to enhance its presence in the foreign countries, where podcasting has become a very common phenomenon.
Another brand building technique adopted by CNN-IBN to extend itself in the market is through takeovers and tie-ups. After emerging as a successful player in the English news market, IBN decided to venture into the more rigorously competitive Hindi segment. This was in line with the expansion strategy laid down by the network.
It was sometime mid-June 2006, that CNN-IBN decided to turn a virtually non-player in Channel 7, a product of the Dainik Jagran news service into a challenger brand in the Hindi market. IBN bought a majority stake in Channel 7 and in July 2006, the channel was relaunched as IBN7. The basic intent of buying out this channel was to reach out to the untapped and largely terrestrial rural network.
After its relaunch, this channel has turned out as a major competitorto already well-established Hindi channels like Aaj Tak, Star News and NDTV India. In its brief stint as an IBN product, it has already leaped off the existing non-players like India TV and Sahara Samay regional to be ranked 5th in the TAM Ratings (October 2006) for Hindi channels, emerging from the bottom. Even though the content is highly customized to suit market demands, and with a large shade of sensationalism and bastardization of news, the channel has turned into a relative success venture for IBN.
Adding to this, the takeover also is in line with the basic principle of Hindi channels being the large revenue generators for any network, because of the high involvement from advertisers. However, it will be left to see if IBN7 can create a major dent in the share of the major players. Another area of concern today, is sustaining themselves in this extremely competitive news market.
IBN involved themselves in another takeover exercise, where they bought out a defunct cricket website – Cricketnext.com. The website when it started off was seen as a major competitor in the web space to the ever dominating Cricinfo, but soon fell apart due to lack of funds and paltry editorial content. IBN acquired the website sometime in September-October of 2006 strategically before the ICC Champions Trophy to be played in India a month later.
The timing gave them the opportunity to revamp the whole look of the website and change the editorial content in similar lines to what they did with IBNlive.com. Realizing the market potential for any cricketing content in the country, the website has returned back as not just a player, but is increasingly turning into a competitor to Cricinfo and Cricbuzz. The very first exercise that IBN resorted to post the takeover was an interview with Saurav Ganguly, the erstwhile brand ambassador of Cricketnext.com. Sanjay Jha, the editor of Cricketnext.com feels that this was the best thing to happen to the website and has given them the confidence and the financials to match the standards set by Cricinfo.
It may seem too close to call just yet about the future of the website, but if managed well and appreciated by the reader, this website could certainly turn into a success story. A conscious decision by IBN not to interfere with the name of the website has only given the right direction for Cricketnext.com to retain its brand identity and go full with publicity and advertising.
Brand extensions are a result of constant innovation, experimentation and good business stratagem. After CNN-IBN came into existence on December 17 last year, the first thing they did was to hit the web. The web as a medium was never exploited before by any of the news media as a potential supplement to their main medium.
IBNlive.com was launched by CNN-IBN with a primary objective to hit the untapped web-news market, which is primarily targeted towards working professionals, non-Resident Indians and netizens alike. For the records, IBNlive.com crossed over 1 million hits in April 2006, highlighting the success factor. Apart from being an extension of the news channel, IBNlive.com provides the visitor with enough content matter to visit it all over again.
The interactive features of writing your own feedback to any article or story on display plus free streaming of live television on your computer have gone really well with the visitors. Apart from these features, IBNlive.com has many firsts to its credit. IBNlive.com became the website of a news channel to start a Blogging service for its journalists, which essentially is used to share experiences with the readers and with a clear intent of going beyond the 30sec story which was reported earlier.
Some of these blogs attract close to a 500-600 comments and turn into a platform of interaction between the reader and the journalist. Secondly, IBNlive.com is the only news media website in India, which offers a Podcasting service. The feature was added recently to enhance its presence in the foreign countries, where podcasting has become a very common phenomenon.
Another brand building technique adopted by CNN-IBN to extend itself in the market is through takeovers and tie-ups. After emerging as a successful player in the English news market, IBN decided to venture into the more rigorously competitive Hindi segment. This was in line with the expansion strategy laid down by the network.
It was sometime mid-June 2006, that CNN-IBN decided to turn a virtually non-player in Channel 7, a product of the Dainik Jagran news service into a challenger brand in the Hindi market. IBN bought a majority stake in Channel 7 and in July 2006, the channel was relaunched as IBN7. The basic intent of buying out this channel was to reach out to the untapped and largely terrestrial rural network.
After its relaunch, this channel has turned out as a major competitorto already well-established Hindi channels like Aaj Tak, Star News and NDTV India. In its brief stint as an IBN product, it has already leaped off the existing non-players like India TV and Sahara Samay regional to be ranked 5th in the TAM Ratings (October 2006) for Hindi channels, emerging from the bottom. Even though the content is highly customized to suit market demands, and with a large shade of sensationalism and bastardization of news, the channel has turned into a relative success venture for IBN.
Adding to this, the takeover also is in line with the basic principle of Hindi channels being the large revenue generators for any network, because of the high involvement from advertisers. However, it will be left to see if IBN7 can create a major dent in the share of the major players. Another area of concern today, is sustaining themselves in this extremely competitive news market.
IBN involved themselves in another takeover exercise, where they bought out a defunct cricket website – Cricketnext.com. The website when it started off was seen as a major competitor in the web space to the ever dominating Cricinfo, but soon fell apart due to lack of funds and paltry editorial content. IBN acquired the website sometime in September-October of 2006 strategically before the ICC Champions Trophy to be played in India a month later.
The timing gave them the opportunity to revamp the whole look of the website and change the editorial content in similar lines to what they did with IBNlive.com. Realizing the market potential for any cricketing content in the country, the website has returned back as not just a player, but is increasingly turning into a competitor to Cricinfo and Cricbuzz. The very first exercise that IBN resorted to post the takeover was an interview with Saurav Ganguly, the erstwhile brand ambassador of Cricketnext.com. Sanjay Jha, the editor of Cricketnext.com feels that this was the best thing to happen to the website and has given them the confidence and the financials to match the standards set by Cricinfo.
It may seem too close to call just yet about the future of the website, but if managed well and appreciated by the reader, this website could certainly turn into a success story. A conscious decision by IBN not to interfere with the name of the website has only given the right direction for Cricketnext.com to retain its brand identity and go full with publicity and advertising.