Live hoardings invite Kolkatta to Jhilik's wedding!

Maa is one of the oldest shows on Star Jalsha and has been running strong for the last 4 years. Telecast at 8pm every Monday to Saturday, it’s a consistent slot leader and has huge amount of loyalty among its viewers. The show delineates the story of Jhilik, a girl who has been orphaned at a very young age. Over time, Jhilik has become the most loved character on Bengali TV.

Viewers have showered their love and affection on her as would on their own daughters. It is this love and loyalty that helps the show deliver robust viewership with a TSV in the range of 20-22 mins. Hence, when the story reached a point where Jhilik is being married off, the channel decided to do something big and special. They wanted to celebrate Jhilik’s iconic status by taking the marriage celebrations beyond the show and from reel to real. It was only fair that the whole of Kolkata witnessed and was a part of the wedding of its most favorite daughter!

Star Jalsa erected the first live hoarding with an ongoing Shehnai performance. The live hoarding was on display at the heart of the city of Kolkata from 15th to 18th of November 2013. With 6 Shenhai artists performing in rotation atop a hoarding decorated in the fashion of a marriage hall, a wedding celebration theme was also made using drapes, 50 kgs of flowers and wedding motif designs. The live performance itself served as the buzz creator and became the talk of the town.

The buzz it created was palpable with a huge word of mouth spread. Sweets were distributed to mark the occasion, the crowd was excited about such a novel initiative and showed full support and enthusiasm. They sent lots of blessings for Jhilik and ensured they be part of the wedding, which was reflected in the instant hike in the show ratings.

Adgully caught up with Sumanta Bose, Sr. VP, Star India, to know about the thought of celebrating the high point of the story and more.

Elaborating on the thought behind he campaign, Bose said, “We did the ‘Live Hoarding’ campaign for 'Maa', which is one of our oldest shows running for over 4 years now. It’s been a consistent slot leader and has huge amount of loyalty among its viewers. With the show’s popularity, Jhilik, the show’s protagonist also achieved immense popularity and became a household name and adored as the daughter of the Bengali families. We wanted to celebrate the iconic status of the show Maa and Jhilik as the most loved character across Bengali households. For this we wanted to make the entire city part of the grand celebrations by creating a spectacle never before witnessed in the city. The live hoarding route perfectly complemented this idea in terms of the wedding context and the visual grandeur".

The execution of the idea was not without its own hassles. Finding the right location and the right kind of hoarding where the innovation could be implemented as conceived, posed to be a big challenge.

Time was of the essence as they planned to finish the construction and the entire setup within 16 hrs so as to keep the intrigue undiluted. “We also had to find talented Shehnai players who could perform continuously. It was a tough battle which we ultimately achieved with the help of the outdoor agency,” he added.

One would hold ni qualms in saying that he idea is novel and interesting for sure. How does it add value to the channel? Answering that Bose said, “The live hoarding presented great novelty and wow factor to Kolkata’s public. Lot of people turned up to capture images of the great spectacle. Lot of people we spoke to were genuinely impressed with something of such scale being thought and executed by a Bengali GEC. People captured videos and the idea received a lot of word of mouth promotion. Many posted positive comments on the channel website and the FB page. Overall, it generated a lot of positive bonding and enhanced affinity for the show and the character. There was a wide acknowledgement of the fact that Star Jalsha did something special befitting it brand philosophy ‘ ChaloPaltai’ (Let’s Change).”

Apart from OOH, the campaign also had an important digital leg to it in the form of execution on the channel website and their FB page. Adding to that Bose said, “On the channel website, we created an interactive webpage on which people could comment and give their best wishes to Jhilik. It received around 1000 user comments and several more walk ins. On the FB page, a week long campaign was running, where every day, posts  about the marriage rituals Jhilik was undergoing in the show were shared and discussed. Apart from the pictures of the ritual, a brief cultural account of how the ritual came to be and its significance in the marriage process was also discissed. The FB page became an extension of the show and Jhilik’s journey as a bride. Thre were also magnified the live hoarding through FB by putting up pictures and videos of the activity".

When asked as to whether would we be seeing the Bengali GEC doing similar activities for other shows as well, Bose said, “At StarJalsha, we have always tried to offer something unique to our viewers in terms of entertainment, engagement with the channel and attachment to the shows and characters. Going by our brand philosophy of ‘ChaloPaltai’ (meaning Lets Change), we have always tried to do things differently and things that have not been done before.”

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