By SUJATHA SHREEDHARAN
Indiantelevision.com Team

(15 January 2007 4:00 pm)

MUMBAI: BBC World, BBC's international television news channel launches its first ever Indian focused brand advertising campaign on 16 January. The campaign tag line reads 'What affects the world, affects you.' India was also the news channels first market for region specific programming. Recently the channel also announced a special season which will look into the business of Indian weddings.

The three week long campaign builds on BBC World's global campaign launched two years ago -'Putting News First'. While the worldwide campaign was created and executed in-house, the Indian campaign which includes print, outdoor advertising and TVCs as part of its media mix was created and executed by Vyas Giannetti Creative. Speaking to Indiantelevision about its first ever region specific campaign BBC World India's head of marketing and communications Vaishali Sharma explained that with increasing focus on India it is the right time to launch such a campaign.

'Indian viewers not only appreciate being informed about global events, they want to understand how they impact their lives. Through this India specific campaign, we hope to demonstrate how world events as covered by BBC World can have an impact on us and how BBC World can bring the world to India and India to the world.'

Outlining the positioning of the news channel Sharma added, 'Our target group has always been SEC A and B in age group 18 to 20+ as our primary audience and will continue to be so. Having said that we realize that a lot of our audience turns to us for relevant international news with an Indian perspective. That is our USP'.BBC World continues to work within this niche market and seems content to confine itself to metros like Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta, Bangalore and Kerala.

And how is the BBC World's agenda different from other Indian channels? Sharma agrees that with the slew of English news channels the role of BBC World is that of a complementary channel. 'Our focus is world news. We do not deny the importance of local news channels in a region but we will continue to work as an add-on to the viewer's news preference.'

Sharma denies that the local advertising campaign is a reaction to the stiff competition faced by the channel from both local news channels and international news channels like CNN World. 'The worldwide campaign was created and launched in London two years ago and India was a natural progression given the historical connect we have with the country. We did go back to our original campaign and conducted various qualitative research and studies to see what would best suit our brand image in India. '

The brand campaign consists of three creatives that focus on international news events and how it could impact people in India. For example one of the creatives shows global fashion looking eastwards even as Indian textile market flourishes.

Commenting on the market strategy for BBC World going forward Sharma says that the global trend is all about news content which connects with the audience. At BBC World this is the focus we follow. Add to that our special programmes like the current series on terrorism or technology series like Click and we have a great variety to choose from.'

Not perturbed by the CAS regime and how it will affect BBC World, Sharma insists that the channel will watch the changing scenario on Indian television and news channels with great interest. BBC World launched as FTA turned pay on 15 June 2006.