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Mohapatra says: "We have been growing steadily over the last
couple of years and last year we recorded a substantial growth over
the previous year."
"We are currently working on some groundbreaking initiatives
with some of our IT clients that specifically target the younger
audiences," Mohapatra reveals.
"This year, Aditya Birla, Kirloskar and a few others have
advertised on BBC World internationally. Uttaranchal Tourism have
advertised exclusively with us in Europe, Asia Pacific and USA and
has been extremely happy with the outcome," Mohapatra asserts.
"Besides, India being the emerging epicentre of global business,
the interest in India from global players has gone up significantly
and we see that in our business. With these emerging trends, I see
us being at the helm of developing strategies along with clients
rather than just act as an agent for them," she adds.
The channel also claims to be the leader in international news
service in this country, especially because of its long presence
here. "The Indian market has been a focus for BBC World since
its launch in 1995," Mohapatra said in an exclusive interaction
with indiantelevision.com.
Mohapatra says: "Our core advertisers have remained and grown
with us and we have added on new advertisers from emerging sectors
like real estate, IPOs and IT as well as Indian MNCs. We have also
seen a sharply defined demand last year, from companies that want
to reach out to discerning audiences and are looking at focussing
on the right group of people.".
She avers that the Global Indian Survey conducted by BBC World
also reiterates the fact that there are more and more Indians today
who have a keen interest in global affairs and international news.
The key advertising categories on the channel are IT and telecom,
premium white goods, banking and finance, travel tourism, and motoring,
according to her.
"We believe in working as 'thought partners' with our clients
and have a dedicated client solutions team who work with our key
clients to understand their objectives before developing a solution
on how they can best work together on attaining their objectives
within a said budget. BBC World offers a low clutter environment
that enhances greater recall for the client's creative helping it
stand apart from the competition," Mohapatra claims.
Referring to BBC's audience, she points out: "Our key audience,
apart from opinion formers and decision makers, also include progressive
people who are very keen to know what's happening in the world -
all of whom have an enviable spending power that works well for
our advertisers."
One advertiser increasing its spending on BBC each year is the
tourism ministry. Mohaptra revealed that the Ministry of Tourism
and the 'Incredible India' campaign have continued to increase their
ad spends on BBC World, ever since they began advertising with the
channel four years ago.
"This year, we are proud to have worked with the ministry
to produce three unique commercials which highlighted the different
sectors and raised the profile of India as a country with world-class
health care services and state-of-the-art conference facilities.
Indian tourism is, in fact, using the Ayurveda film created by us,
for the Incredible India Campaign on the domestic channels,"
she avers, while giving an example of new forms of client solutions
systems BBC has put in place.
Adds Mohapatra, "There is a lot of interest in India today
and a whole host of global companies want to reach the Indian consumer.
International energy clients, tourist boards, airlines, hotels,
banks, telecom and other investors looking to come into India are
advertising to an Indian audience."
And though international news is and shall remain the channel's
focus, it is going to increase its Indian content considerably in
the near future. The channel is currently planning a series on Indian
weddings due to be filmed in March and scheduled to broadcast on
BBC World globally in the summer 2007.
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