Adgully Exclusive | Ratan's Swayamvar more vocal, digital and young!

Talking about going ga-ga over the digital medium, Nikhil Madhok, Senior Director Marketing & Communications, Imagine TV, tells Adgully, "The first two seasons we tried to establish the Swayamwar brand and what we learnt from the first two seasons is that this show had a slight more youth centric viewership. So when we came out with the Season three we were thinking about how will we market it to the youth. Hence we realised that the digital platform is a great way to reach out to our core TG that being the youth. I think it's primarily because they are constantly glued on to the mobile and the web. Secondly it helps us to interact with them in a slightly more fun and engaging manner. Therefore the digital platform became an integral part of our communication strategy."

For the 3rd season of Swayamvar Imagine has undertaken some unique digital initiatives that includes a mobile game by UTV India Games. Imagine TV has yet again partnered with Zapak and also launched Web Game that is also hosted on Facebook and Imagine TV's website.

"We have created a Swayamwar game and at each level the player has to woo Ratan through the various tasks they are asked to perform. The game is posted on Zapak.com, our gaming partner site. Our main aim was to create a medium through which the youth could directly interact with Ratan," Madhok adds.

The channel also launched a unique initiative where audience call Ratan & give her advice each of the prospective grooms.

He says, "The response has been very good for our game, on Zapak in the first five day we have got over a lakh people who played the game and on Airtel the game is the number one in terms of being the most downloaded game. We have had already over 20,000 people who have called in and sent across their advices and suggestions to Ratan."

Along with that, to know more about Ratan, her prospective grooms and the show the channel is providing 'Ratan's Audio Dairy' for Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance users. To get connected with Ratan on TV Vodafone is also availing a live audience for its subscribers on 14th June. Moreover the subscribers of channel99 also receive a WAP link which has interesting pictures from Swayamvar along with captivating captions.

Madhok adds, "We have also created a blog where Ratan daily updates posts about her experience during the course of the show. We are also conducting a live chat where our audiences can call in and talk to Ratan directly."

So how is the show's promotion being leveraged across the social media?

Madhok says, "Besides our channel's Facebook fan page, we also have a special and customised fan page for Ratan Ka Rishta, where we have our online game posted. We also have enabled an online link through which our viewers can send in a word of advice for Ratan." | By Prabha Hegde [prabha(at)adgully.com]