MTV and Coke betting big on Coke Studio!

Coke Studio @ MTV a platform that showcases the musical diversity of India  is back with a new line of eight music producers who strive to reinvent the way music captures the soul of our nation. With the previous seasons of Coke Studio @MTV being a hit with audiences, the popular music show is back with its third season. The new season was launched by Sukhwinder Singh, lyricist Prasoon Joshi, Papon, Salim-Sulaiman, AR Rahman, Clinton Cerejo, Hishesh Soni, and Bollywood actors Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan and Siddharth Malhotra.

With a promise of bringing together popular music producers and artists from different parts of the country, this season has A.R. Rahman, Salim Sulaiman and Ram Sampath making their debut in the show. Other artists include Amit Trivedi, Clinton Cerejo, Hitesh Sonik, and Papon.

A R Rahman, present for the launch, expressed his thoughts on being part of the show this season. He said, “I am excited to be a part of Coke Studo@MTV, season 3 - a show that is part of many cultures ranging from Tibet to the Middle East. Coke Studio celebrates diversity coming together to music that appeals to an even broader segment of people. My composition for season 3 of Coke Studio celebrates cultures under the overreaching theme of happiness."

Prasoon Joshi, Chairman, CEO and CCO of McCann World Group (India and South Asia) said: "It's always special to work with A R Rahman. We connect and this time even more since it's for a brand which is very close to me.

"Coke Studio brings together very different genres of music just like brand Coca-Cola, which brings people together. Also as a songwriter I have tried to express what I feel about the world today in these songs - faith that there is basic goodness in all of us and that will never be lost."

Rahman unveiled his song ‘Zariya’, a coke studio anthem, which will be available on Coke Studio website. A song from this season, ‘Bismillah’ was also available on the website on the occasion Of Eid. The song has been composed by Salim-Sulaiman.

"Jagaao Mere Des Ko" composed by Rahman and written by Joshi, went live on 15th August, Independence Day thus setting a perfect note for the occasion. This time round the maestro blend contrasting styles in the song which has always been his USP. The music mogul’s brilliant composition was a blend of Carnatic rhythm, a heavy dose of guitar with powerful vocals from Suchi and Blaaze. The song has Prasoon Joshi’s inspiring and thought-provoking lyrics – a mix of Bengali and Hindi inspired by the original Bengali lyrics by Rabindranath Tagore and Rahman did total justice to the song by effortlessly crooning the high-pitched track with ease.

Coke Studio@MTV Season 3 is produced and broadcasted by Viacom 18 in association with Coca-Cola India Pvt. Ltd. Sony Music is the official music partner. This season began with a series of recordings at the famous state-of-the-art Reliance Media Works Studio and the rehearsals at Whistling Woods International in Mumbai.

In an exclusive interaction with Adgully, Wasim Basir, Director, Integrated Marketing Communications, Coca-Cola India & Aditya Swamy, EVP and Business Head, MTV India shared insights with regard to their plans for the latest season of Coke Studio, their new promotional strategies, assimilation of the show with brand Coca-Cola and more.

Coke Studio this season using innovative methods has created loads of buzz in the social media space and is doing well in the metros of Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai informs Basir.

Speaking about the special focus where India specific market with Coke Studio is concerned Basir said that it is the young TG who tend to get bored quickly and that engagement with them at every point in time is of utmost importance. Hence a continuous effort is on to present themselves in a very interesting and different way.

“So with Coke Studio first time we realized that with this property we wanted to reach out to people. So in order to reward them, we ran a promotion on our pack whereby consumers had to sms the code behind the label, which would win them a musical kit. In this way we are trying to encourage interaction and make it all the more interesting for them. We are proud to be the world’s no. 1 beverage. Our interest in music is relative to our consumers interest in music.  We had two options – one was to produce music in Bollywood and loads of brands have already done that, but we wanted to do something different so the second option was our association with Coke Studio and  sticking to Coke’s point of view which is ‘Bringing People Together’.  Hence, with Coke Studio we bring in musicians from different genres together, so this is what Coke Studio is and Coca Cola as a brand believes in,” he said.

Sharing his views on how Coke Studio has grown over the last 3 years Basir avers that the programme has been successful given the fact that the musicians realize how Coke Studio is reinventing the way music captures the soul of our nation. None of them have dearth of work or need recognition or fame but inspite of this their respect for Coke Studio leads to their  association with the show. A case in point being that of A.R. Rehman who may not see the need to appear on the show but Coke Studio will certainly value his presence on the show.

Explaining how the identity of Coke Studio can be assimilated with that of brand Coca-Cola Basir said, “Coke Studio is exactly what the brand Coca Cola is. Brand Coca-Cola promises to bring people together.  Our ‘Khushiyan Luta campaign’ and ‘Krazy Hoon campaign’ is all about being crazy and bringing people together. Our message of happiness continues with the same intensity irrespective of telling people to drink chilled Coco Cola on a hot summer day or asking them to enjoy music when they are relaxing.”

Coca-Cola promotes Coke Studio as a property and they have done some wonderful and innovative  promotion and packaging for the property this season .

Elaborating on the new strategies planned to promote Coke Studio, Season 3 Basir said, “Each year is a learning process and we intend to be different. This year we are making a special deal on digital with Facebook which we will be announcing soon. We have a special tie up with Itunes, Nokia Os and others. Apart from advertising on traditional media what is more interesting is the innovation on mobiles including the blu-wifi download. Blu-wifi is a technology which is available today across 1500 youth hangouts. They just need to switch on their Bluetooth and it begins to download stuff on their phone and moreover it can be shared.”

Swamy sharing his inputs on the promotional strategies avers that the approach of Coke Studio is not a mass approach where MTV wishes only to publicize about the launch of the 3rd season to the entire country but on the contrary it is basically targeted at people who are die hard music fans and  the channel believes in the content which will excite people.

“So, this year we are launching three songs before the episode actually starts. We launched Zariya, on occasion of Eid we launched Bismillah and on 15th August we launched a song on the occasion of Independence Day. These three songs will create loads of excitement online on different communities for example Twitter or Bloggers because these are the people who are consuming this content. It will create positivity because digital and word of mouth works for us. Apart from these we are distributing it through Sony Music, on MTV, Colors, simultaneously on Big FM, it’s going to be telecast on Doordarshan, Sun TV and other regional channels,” said Swamy.

“Coke Studio is a big property for us and our audiences love the show, want to be part of the concert and have loads of expectations from us. Our job is to make our consumers fall in love with Coco-Cola everyday and with Coke Studio we expect them to do just that,” says Basir.

In terms of Coke Studio’s distribution this season the show will air on MTV, Colors, simultaneously on Big FM, and will also be telecast on Doordarshan, Sun TV and other regional channels.

When asked if this year’s production value is higher than the last two years, Swamy shared, “Not really, it’s all about approaching differently, since technology is improving.  For 8 hours of the show we got 50 hours of content and we did 100 music rehearsals. It is a live recording and big production but that is how technologies go in.”

Coke Studio@MTV Season 3 will continue to celebrate the glory of incredible musicians who represent the best that the country has to offer. Totally comprising 8 episodes, each episode will be a manifestation of different form of music. The final episode, will present an opportunity for young musicians to take their music to a large audience and 6 young artists will produce one song each.

Coca-Cola has always been a brand associated with youth and exuberance, surrounded by a positive contemporary outlook on life and remains till date one of the most well known brands in the world. Thus their association with Coke Studio promises a fusion of classical eastern and contemporary western music, a treat for music enthusiasts who can look forward to this season of the show which is all set to go live from 17th August 2013 on MTV.