Exclusive | In pursuit of excellence and innovation: Mirchi's Prashant Pandey

Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM won the coveted Gold Midas at Midas Awards, World’s Best Financial Advertising for its Annual Report 2011 – 12, titled Reimagining Radio. Reimagining Radio is not just an annual report containing the financials of 2012 but is another example of Mirchi’s continuous pursuit of innovation. The Annual Report in fact was a direct mailer to its shareholders communicating the next big strategy of Radio Mirchi - digital. It shows the way Mirchi is redefining consumer engagement with its listeners from FM radio to the mobile and internet platforms.

On this occasion Adgully caught up with Prashant Panday, Executive Director and CEO, Entertainment Network (India) Limited firstly to congratulate him and also to know more about the winning strategies.

Speaking about the reason for winning this  award, Pandey said, “The only thing that made us win this award is a continuous pursuit of excellence and innovation. We have forever tried to make even “boring” annual reports look a little more interesting; a little more readable. With radio being core to our company, we thought of fitting a radio set right onto the cover of the report! In the past also, our annual reports have become design statements.”

With this achievement in their kitty, when asked what would be the strategies going forward, Pandey said, “The only strategy we follow is to win the love, affection and following of our listeners!”  “The innovative programming and marketing teams of Mirchi are focused on this single objective. Everything else including awards are secondary. That will continue into the future as well,” he adds.

Reimagining Radio captures the essence of the shift from traditional to a new age media company. While listenership of FM radio has shifted almost entirely to mobile phones and digital radio sets, the public perception of radio remains the old-fashioned “box” receiver. The annual report cover juxtaposes the modern with the traditional. The design combines both, the new online platforms where Mirchi engages with its digitally savvy consumers and the cover has an actual working radio fitted inside which catches terrestrial FM frequency.

According to Pandey, the three business mantras that would help re-energizing the position of radio are: Reducing channel separation to 400 Khz – and doubling the number of channels in the bigger cities from 9 to 18, Phase 3  expansion into smaller towns and lastly working at advertiser solutions, which has already made radio indispensable.

In the past couple of months Radio Mirchi has been awarded multiple accolades at the prominent industry awards. These include Popular Radio Channel of the Year at Global Awards for Brand Excellence, Merit at Designomics Awards for Digital Innovation Using Technology for an  on air contest called Mirchi Music Housie and a Bronze at Big Bang Awards (Ad club B’lore) for Excellence in Communication & Media for the Purani Jeans Direct Mailer. | By Aanchal Kohli [aanchal@adgully.com]