Tippany from Sony MIX to attract today's youth

Sony MIX India’s leading Hindi Music Channel is all set to launch their latest initiative. ‘MIX Tippany’ with a short programming format is expected to inform and entertain viewers. The music will weave anecdotes with real life situations and primarily target today’s youth. Their varied moods can connect them with the songs, help them find a music fix on how to tackle  relationships and also learn about music related gadgets and apps.
 
MIX promises to have it all  for the youth of India.
 
The programme will be presented by the duo RJ Mantra and Umang Jain who promise to delight all music lovers. It will be scheduled hourly and can be considered a refreshing musical snack with a style that is engaging and captivating at the same time.
 
Alleyah Asgghar is Vice President & Programming Head, Sony MIX.  With over 17 years of media experience spread between advertising, radio and television, she is a confirmed music aficionado. When setting up a Bollywood music channel was a challenge in the times when differentiation was so difficult to establish, the mood story was drawn as a strategy to do just that. She now endeavors to engage the youth in unique ways connected to music in all the many forms.
 
Neeraj Vyas is Executive Vice President & Business Head at Sony MAX & Sony MIX.  With a glorious association of over 15 years in MSM, in year 2010, Neeraj was appointed the Executive Vice President of the network’s music channel, Sony MIX. Currently Neeraj is the EVP & Business Head of Sony MAX and Sony MIX. In his current portfolio, Neeraj spearheads channel business strategy with the vision to sustaining and building on MAX and MIX’s brand appeal and reach, thus propelling them further on a positive growth curve.
 
Commenting on the new offering from Sony MIX Neeraj said, “We are delighted to bring this musical nugget to our viewers via our unique programming. Tippany is going to be everything it promises to be – entertaining, enlightening, fun knowledgeable at the same time in a very contemporary fashion. We are confident that this initiative will also be well received by our audiences.”
 
Adgully caught up with Alleyah Asgghar and Neeraj Vyas to learn more about their new offering Tippany on Sony MIX. They discussed about the proposition, the marketing, the short format, the different shade of the programme  and how they intend to target the youth with ‘Tippany’.
 
 
Alleyah Asgghar Vice President & programming Head at Sony Mix explained how MIX started off as a being a music minded channel and are continuing to do so. Their target audience is the youth of today. She said, “Now we feel it is time to engage with the young, capturing situations from their real life and creating an interesting connect with those situations. Situations like one’s first date or first crush. It’s all of those things and many more that will just engage the viewer in interesting tit bits and facts of life and connect it to a song which is pertinent to that situation.”
 
With regard to Tippany being a show with a different shade she said that as per their qualitative research they have undertaken the viewer clearly demarcates them as a music minded channel. They have also created time bands for different categories of viewers. For e.g. love songs in the afternoons and uptempo and high energy songs in the middle of the morning to retro in the night to very easy listening early in the morning. “People understood that a ‘surili subah’ existed which is something very heartening for us because we feel that we have created ourselves a little apart from the rest of them. We have done it by creating a music kind of footprint where it said ‘Agar kuch bhi musical hoga it will surely be on MIX.
Another differentiating factor is that they already have Bollywood on air in a show called ‘Picture Abhi Baaki Hai. It depicts making of the songs and singers talking about how the music was made. For e.g. the way the Mashallah track was made by Sajid –Wajid team.
 
Neeraj Vyas spoke about the marketing of the show Tippany. He said that they did not do any marketing for it. “It is a series of things we are doing. We will not do anything which is outside the genre and nothing which is unnecessarily intrusive. Whatever we do in terms of short format programming we do it musically, So Tippany is one of the things in that direction. Solos is another thing we are doing. We have shot with Shaan, Amanat Ali and with Jaaved. Basically we get the singer to sing one or two popular lines of the song and then he speaks about how the song was made. ”
 
He said it lasts for 90 seconds to two minutes. According to him it may be trivial but very interesting for the viewers. It builds a connect with the audience. “It’s a trivia but a trivia told musically in a very different way from the original singer himself,” he says. They have plans of doing Solos with another eight to ten singers in the near future.
 
Alleyah explained that it was not just the song but the story related to the song. For e.g what was it that Shaan experienced when he sang the Don song. “All that is unheard of and unique on air is what Tippany is all about,” she said.
 
Alleyah further elaborating about the format of the show went on to say that audiences could relive their lives through the two hosts on air RJ Mantra and Umang Jain. They will talk about the multiple situations that could occur in one’s life. “They are not serious incidents. They are just light hearted things that happen to the younger generation and how such things could be either easily be blown away by music or get connected with the music,” she said.
 
Once again touching the topic of the qualitative research MIX conducted Alleyah said that one fact which became very clear to them and that their show was well recognized, their music and mood mapping was well recognized and MIX is a channel for all age groups.  Where packaging of the channel is concerned she said that they were not looking at relaunching the packaging since it had  already been done in January this year but she admits that there is scope for improvement and adds, “Yes there is always improvisation that keeps happening.”
 
Sony has an identity of its own hence MIX does not see the need for  a mascot to represent the channel. But where Tippany is concerned RJ mantra and Umang Jain will host the show. Speaking further on the show Alleyah said that it is not a show that is a dedicated slot of programming time. “It will be peppered through the songs throughout the day. They will appear for about 90 seconds . After saying their lines they will go away and it will either lead into a song or anything else that is unique on air. The way music channels are consumed the concept of appointment viewing does not really exist. It is a snacking medium. We understand the whole genre experiences it as a snack and there is no point in changing the rules there. So we are going to pepper the day with Tipannies ,”  she exclaimed.
 
Neeraj shared his views and said “Basically what we are trying to say is that there is a song for every mood. Tippany only helps you to achieve that. Each song will cater to your different moods.” He also spoke about their programme ‘Centimetre’ where people randomly comment on the music of the film and rate it on a scale of 1-10. “All of this collectively  is nothing but our short formats which will hopefully give more variety to the channel and add more stickiness,” he said.
 
When asked if MIX has any plans of introducing regional category songs on the channel Alleyah said that there isn’t a language focus that they are picking up just now since they are very distributed and very focused on the Hindi songs and any other language than the mainstream will just not be a good idea and hence they have nothing on the anvil yet.
Neeraj is of the opinion that since the Punjabi language is closest to Hindi they do air the former from time to time. “It’s going to be sprinkled only once in a while because it sells and the youth like it,” he says.
 
With regard to the advertisers on board, Neeraj proudly states, “We have virtually all the top advertisers. Name them and we have them. Whether it is Lever, P&G, Pepsi, Coke everybody.”
 
About the short format creating a special traction among the audiences Neeraj said that it is a little premature to comment on that. He went on to say that the problem with the genre is time spent. They are unable to market what they do because the returns and trading are dismally low. The only way they can make up for this is if it eventually adds up to the time spent which will increase the ratings which can give the channel more revenues. Vis a Vis competition he said, “There is an opportunity for us to make more money but we are not going to do that. Categorically the whole genre has come crashing down since channels have not sold optimally, they have not demanded the rates they should have got and we do not want to make such mistakes.”
 
They have not given a thought to holding contests on MIX as yet.  With production come the expenses and not being able to monetize that is the issue he said.
But on the other hand considering it being a tough year and that every genre is facing problems he says the scene at MIX is very positive. “We’ve had a more than decent first quarter. It’s not been all that bad.”
 
To bring the channel into the radar Neeraj said that they would clearly have to get MIX into the scheme of things and there are a lot of creative ways to do it. They need to use the network more smartly and focus deeply on their distribution. He also went on to inform that markets like Punjab & Jharkhand would be activated this year.
 
In terms of the biggest challenge they are facing presently is to increase their time spent. They need to get more respect as a genre. 20-23 minutes is not sufficient according to him. Another challenge they face is that basically everyone is playing the same content and nearly 60% -70% of content is the same.
So Tippany and Centimetre  and the way they package their channel will set them apart from the others . They will  have atleast a 15 minute window before they take a break and in this way viewers get to see 4 clear songs.
 
Neeraj is counting on digitization to make life easier for them since he is sure that a channel like MIX is sure to get more acceptance post digitization.
 
“We are the only music channel available on all DTH platforms,” said Neeraj. He further added , “TAM gives you ratings, they don’t break it up into DTH and Digital. If they did I can assure you in DTH homes we are easily the most seen music channel.  Research indicates that we have done really well. Sony image sets us apart and image wise we are good. We’ve done so many things differently.”
 
In terms of progress the channel is making, Alleyah said that MIX has to be very youth focused and since they have established an identity as a music minded channel, it can only grow from here. “If you are going to judge everything from a sequential series of ratings week on week , we’ve done reasonably well in the last one year. We can only get better,” she concludes.
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