Interview: Smeeta Chakrabarti, CEO, NDTV Lifestyle, on revamping NDTV Good Times

“The brand personality is Indian International. It's young, ambitious, daring, cool and unconventional. The new packaging and logo reflect precisely the aforesaid in a far more dynamic and younger, cooler way”

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | November 21, 2013

NDTV Good Times, as a pioneer in the lifestyle entertainment space in India, has redefined the codes of the category as it seamlessly moves its focus and positioning from 'India's Leading Lifestyle Channel' to 'India's Youngest Lifestyle Channel'. The channel has renewed its focus by repositioning, rebranding and reprogramming. The new logo, icons, idents and a vibrant and dynamic colour palette reflect the channel's continuing evolution as India's premier lifestyle entertainment destination. In its new avatar, NDTV Good Times will be focusing on providing younger, cooler, edgier and more relevant content to a young and dynamic audience.

NDTV Good Times' all new tagline #LiveYoung, also makes it the first channel in India television to integrate social media as part of the brand DNA. In another first, the channel has introduced a new packaging designed by Steinbranding based on emoticons and smiley icons where all the programmes will have icons.

Smeeta Chakrabarti

Smeeta Chakrabarti, CEO, NDTV Lifestyle, speaks to BestMediaInfo.com on the repositioning strategy and the way forward. Excerpts:

What is the primary reason for the shift in positioning from India's Leading Lifestyle Channel to India's Youngest Lifestyle Channel?

With an increasingly maturing lifestyle space in India at an inflection point, and as pioneers/leaders in that space, we are redefining the lifestyle entertainment category codes by now catering to the youth and focusing on food, travel and fashion. Our content, look, feel and packaging will now clearly reflect this change. In the new avatar, the channel will take a fresher, edgier and more relevant approach to its programming targeted towards the young and the young at heart.

What is the new target audience you are looking at? And how do you plan to ensure that you are reaching out to that TG? What kind of marketing support have you planned to attract new viewers to the channel?

The target demography is 15-35 | M+F | Urban. The target psychographics is someone who is constantly exploring and excited by new ideas and experiences across food, travel, career, relationships, etc.

While we firmly believe that content is our greatest advertisement, we will be focussing on online and social media to get the hashtag #LiveYoung message across. We are where the youth and young-at-heart consumers are. As arguably the only brand in the country to deeply integrate and recognise social media as a part of its DNA, we plan to leverage our digital assets to promote the refresh. We will also make use of conventional media like radio and print. The idea is to provide an immersive and experiential Good Times experience to our consumers, across touch-points. Whether it's using our communities on social media to give people the holiday of their lifetime through our launch #LiveYoung contest, one of the world's leading food reality show, makeovers to change people and even their homes or just involving consumers in across the country, we're trying to make sure that we leverage and communicate our expertise as content creators on-air, online, on-ground, mobile, print, web and everything in between.

What's the concept behind using the #LiveYoung for the tagline of the channel for the first time?

Over the last 6 months, we've done a fairly deep dive in to the tastes, preferences and consumption patterns of our target audience in our key markets. With multiple rounds of focus groups, in-depth interviews, commissioned studies and working with industry experts to back this exercise, we felt that it was important for the brand to resonate and connect with the young and the young at heart in a language and manner they understand and relate to. #LiveYoung, as arguably the only socially integrated tagline in India, exhorts our viewers to live young. It's a call to action, it exemplifies what the brand stands for and what it asks of its viewers and consumers.

This effort also deeply integrates and recognises social media as a part of our brand DNA, and we plan to leverage our digital assets to connect, promote, listen and join in the conversation.

What is the new content format and how will it support the new positioning of the channel?

While we will retain our extremely popular sub-brands like HOMP, BBB and TGM, we are making sure that our overall content gets tweaked to make it more relevant and meaningful. With LiveYoung as our mantra, we are taking this message to heart and minds of young, young-at-heart and youthful Indians. Furthermore, we are reordering our programming schedule to be even more viewer friendly with clearly defined bands for fashion, food, travel and reality, and our packaging seamlessly reflects the same.

We are extremely clear about who our audience is, what they like, what they will like and where and how they consume content. We feel that with this refresh, we will forge a deeper and more relevant connect with our audience and cement our position as India's leading lifestyle entertainment destination.

Tell us about channel's new packaging. What in the new packaging will give the channel an edge?

The brand Personality is Indian International. It's Young, Ambitious, daring, cool and unconventional - the new packaging and logo reflect precisely the aforesaid in a far more dynamic and younger, cooler way. The eventual product is in line with latest development on the global design front with neat, clean mnemonics and logo animations.

Lifestyle channels with international content or international lifestyle channels in India have posed stiff competition to NDTV Good Times. Are you planning to increase the volume of international shows now?

Our focus is to deliver multiplatform quality content that is compelling and entertaining irrespective of its origin.

Considering better viewing experience, is a new HD channel also on the cards?

We are looking in to this and exploring our options.

Digitisation has changed the lifestyle space. Has that also been a catalyst for this repositioning and revamp?

Yes, digitisation has led to people viewing the category and the channel differently, and this did play a part in the refresh.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com