Indiantelevision.com Team

(18 October 2007 6:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Web18's recently launched Hindi infotainment portal Josh18.com is banking on the 'josh' factor for promotions.

Network18's in-house advertising agency The Cell has designed an ad campaign for the portal, targeted at Hindi speaking Indians and NRIs.

Says Network18 Group network creative director Zubin Driver, "The basic challenge for this campaign was to communicate with our target audience in a language they are comfortable with. And that is the Hindi speaking audiences who consume more or less Hindi media."

"At The Cell, we have already created campaigns for a similar profile of audience for CNBC Awaaz and IBN7, both of which have a similar TG profile. That I think, gave us an edge in cracking the consumer insight," he says.

The insight derived was that Hindi speaking Indians and NRIs feel that they are treated like second class citizens in a culture dominated by English people. They will they have no contemporary Hindi medium where they can express themselves.

"In India, there's a feeling that success is measured by people who largely speak English or are able to communicate in it. There is a large audience out there which feels they have been left out of the positive boom globalisation has brought it. Therefore, through this campaign, we are suggesting that Hindi-speaking Indians are also on the forefront of success and they have 'arrived' in a variety of ways due to the josh that they have. Hence we arrived a campaign title 'Josh hai to sab kuch hai!'" says Driver.

The Hindi-speaking market is huge and Josh18.com will strive to engage audiences which till now have been largely consuming Hindi newspapers and news channels.

Web18 says that the Josh18.com has several USPs as a Hindi infotainment portal. Targetted at youth and professionals between ages 18-40, it focusses on interactivity through a message board and contains the videos of all stories. Secondly, the width of content is across careers, markets, technology, political commentary to humour (satire).

The TVC for the campaign is already on air across Network18's channels. Driver says that a mix of print medium and the web will be used for promoting the portal.