Century Ply creates world's first virus-free television news channel studio

Content creation came to a grinding halt with the onset of the pandemic. However, leading Indian manufacturer, seller and exporter of plywoods and veneers, Century Ply took up the challenge as an opportunity. Through extensive research, Century Ply created a sustainable solution, for its customers by addressing one of the pivotal issues, the fear against the VIRUS. Century Ply developed a form of nanotechnology, grained on the surface of plywoods and laminates, that terminates the virus that meets it. Thus, born VIROKILL - India’s first anti-viral Laminate and Ply, which kills 99.99% virus*.

Talking about the glorious and timely invention of Virokill, Keshav Bhajanka, Executive Director – Century Plyboards, says, “The multi-media campaign Raho Befikar was to reach out to all the three key stakeholders – trade, influencers (architects/interior Designers) and the end consumers. We were delighted when Lodestar UM suggested that the cutting-edge technological innovation - Virokill could be further enhanced through innovative but apt contextualization to drive home the product efficacy.”

Broadcast journalists have been the front-line workers bringing home news and analysis from across the country and the world. However, they are the ones, who are, exposed to the threats of this deadly virus.  Century Ply through Virokill could make workplaces safer. The company joined hands with CNBC TV18, India’s leading business news channel, and developed India’s first virus-free news studio with Century Ply’s Virokill.

"This is a media first", says, Anindya Ray, Senior Vice President, Lodestar UM. "When we approached CNBC TV18 with this proposal, the contextualization manifested into this path-breaking yet simple idea. CNBC TV18 readily came on board, and the rest is history”, he further added.

To ensure that people knew that the studio was built with Virokill laminates & ply and is safe; Lodestar UM started developing content that allowed us to share with global audiences through the news studio. Both long & short format content was created, to tell the story and efficacy of Virokill.

Long format shows looked at the challenges of urban India in fighting the pandemic from infrastructure, real estate, home building perspective, and brought together town planners, interior designers along with Century Ply senior representative to think, ideate and discuss newer and safer ways of urbanization.

On the heels of successfully converting the CNBC TV18 news studio virus-free, we have now forged partnerships with India's other top media brands like Republic Network, Times NOW Network as well as also Radio Mirchi, Red FM, Radio One, Big FM and several others.

Across media partners, both long and short format snackable content was developed, through news wheels, interstitials, stings, etc, to ensure maximum audience reach across, key dayparts.

Innovation is key to a self-reliant India; where problems are churned into opportunities by Thinking Out of The Box & putting Thoughts into Action. That’s what we believe at Century Ply, and do things that could not be done before.