Exclusive | MAX ensures everyone grooves to Jumping Jhapak: Neeraj Vyas
Stakes are running high, Bets are running high and so are our Emotions. It’s that time of the year when men are glued to TV sets and women are not fretting about their favourite character’s ordeals but their favourite cricketer’s ordeals on field. Yes, it is IPL time once again and SET MAX is leaving no stone unturned, ensuring that everyone participates and engages in the biggest sporting event of the year in India.
MAX has always delivered the very best in innovative marketing strategy and this year MAX has rolled out a complete plethora of marketing initiatives involving active participation from the viewers in 14 cities across the country. They will be promoting it in the most markets till the tenth of this month after which they are sure the games fever will take over and bring fans in front of the idiot box to watch the games.
MAX’s last year research revealed that there was a slight decrease in the engagement of the game and therefore they focus this year was on to call for action. This is why they have planned their entire campaign against the backdrop of entertainment combined with action and have roped in the famous choreographer Farah Khan to establish 3 unique signature dance moves created for the campaign, namely for a four, a six and a wicket with the aim to see the entire nation grooving to these 3 distinctive signature dance steps. The Pepsi IPL 2013 marketing campaign called ‘Sirf Dekhneka Nahi’ is all out to enthral its viewers with massive interactive and engaging activations in 14 cities across the country.
Massive housing society activations, with electrifying activities which engage the women as well as children and ensure a wholesome family entertainment have been planned. Flash mobs have been organised in the various part of the cities as well as the audiences are given a chance to showcase their dancing steps at video booths set up in the nearby malls of their cities giving them a chance to win exciting goodies. MAX plans to leave the nation in a trance dancing to the tune of the PEPSI IPL 2013.
It is however a known fact that there is a decline in the viewership of IPL and the recent controversies has not helped much but only lowering people’s interest for the game. However Vyas argues that everything matures with time. IPL had a novelty factor; it was high on value and packaging. It was definitely picked up in the initial years for there was a newness and hype associated with it. “Let’s get realistic and stop thrashing IPL for the series is spread over 54 days, 76 games are to be played with most of the games played in the afternoon and despite that we are managing an average of 3.5 which according to me is very good.”
The easiest way to target the family is through kids. Elaborating on this Neeraj Vyas Business Head and Executive Vice-President said, “Our aim is to re-engage with kids and they will ensure for us that the entire family gets hooked to the game and becomes a part of the IPL series. Keeping the kids in mind we have had the gibberish ‘Jumping Jhapak….Jhumpak Jhumpak’ included in the TVC campaign.” This does not mean that they do not have anything planned for women and men. To keep them glued to their seats they have two hot anchors Samir Kocchar and Gaurav Kapoor while for the latter there is the additional perk of cheer leaders combined with expert opinion on every match from renowned cricketers and for the wholesome affair to be complete they have got stand up comedians to make the entire family laugh their hearts out.
The IPL journey is definitely exciting for Vyas year after year, but he does not feel any pressure in terms of meeting up with people’s expectations. He revealed that the biggest challenge this year was to hit the right chord with the audience through their campaign. The campaign this year was extremely high on the entertainment quotient and the casting and packaging could have appeared frivolous and misunderstood by audience. It was a challenge to get the message across in a precise manner to their target audience.
Digital campaigns are forming the crux and MAX is gaining the maximum on this front. Vyas shared the statistics of their success on the digital front which is humungous. They have received two and a halif million hits on youtube for their TVC campaign, their youtube channel MAX India has ten thousand subscribers and will reach sixty thousand by the end of this IPL season. They have close to ten lakh, ninety five thousand fans on their facebook page and have seen a 40% growth in the last three weeks. They are even on twitter and are followed by around twenty two thousand fans. They have seen a mobile application download of seventy thousand in the last five days and caller tune downloads of thirty five thousand.
Well this IPL then sing Jumping Jhapak, dancing to the three signature steps and enjoying the game in front of the idiot box with your family.