MAM
Sony, MTV in together ‘@ Fame Gurukul ‘
MUMBAI: Fame Gurukul @ MTV. Before lawyers out there start licking their chops, a clarification. The music channel has NOT stolen the idea of SET’s latest reality show Fame Gurukul. What it has done is stitch together a programming and promotion deal with Sony.
Buoyed by the success of its big ticket reality show Indian Idol, Sony is pushing its new offering in the genre in all ways possible. Gurukul is slotted on SET at 8:30 pm Monday to Friday.
Quizzed on the tie-up, MTV marketing director Vikram Raizada said, “MTV believes in providing platforms for people to exhibit their talents. MTV stands for music and Fame Gurukul is essentially tilted towards music. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to tie up.”
Fame Gurukul @ MTV launches 11 July on the channel. The show will beam on MTV at 9 pm for 15 minutes from Monday to Wednesday and for half-an-hour on Thursday and Friday.
Raizada points out that everything MTV does is basically based on youth passion. “With our music channel having its finger on their (youth’s) pulse, it makes sense for this marketing/content tie-up.”
Sony’s latest reality talent venture, Fame Gurukul is a show in which, after some auditions, 16 participants were chosen. These young people study in an academy for three months where each of the students will learn the nuances of singing and dancing.
Each student is given a random song that he/she has to practice for a week after which the candidates have to render the song at a show.
At this juncture, the jury checks out each candidate and decides which of the students have to leave the academy or the gurukul.
MTV does its own ‘Gurukul’ spin
Raizada explained that the MTV show is not a repeat of what is shown on Sony, but the music channel’s version of the Sony show with a spin to it.
The high point of the show would be an insight into what’s going on at Gurukul and the contenders who are eliminated will be shown on the MTV show with their reactions and expectations.
Raizada feels that that it’s a good programme because it helps people who have the gift for singing, but do not have the wherewithal to record their music.
“It is ultimately a marketing tie-up and we are looking at having a campaign by the end of the week that will help promote Fame Gurukul on Sony. We are here to build the property,” Raizada explained.
The campaign has been designed essentially to attract eye balls on Sony and MTV and will be used on-air as well as for outdoor promotions. At the end of each episode, Sony will promote the MTV show with a scroll that runs ‘there is ‘more’ to be seen on MTV’.
All characters who appear on Fame Gurukul, including presenters of the show, Mandira Bedi and Manav Gohil (chief of the academy), Ila Arun and jury members Javed Akhtar, KK and Shankar Mahadevan would appear also on Fame Gurukul @ MTV. VJ Sophie would add some zing to the show.
Fame Gurukul is the Indian name for a licensed adaptation of the Spanish reality show, Operacion Triunfo. This Spanish show has been sold to networks in countries including Russia, Italy, Britain, Greece, Mexico, Brazil and Portugal where networks are doing their local versions.
MAM
The Merit of Madness: How AI is Changing the Game in Advertising
By Ritz Malik, founder, Ritz Media World.
MUMBAI: When it comes to growth in a competitive landscape, a businessman always has to be a firm believer in Darwinism. You either need to bring a better product, or a better price, or both to the table to get customers and scale. Without this value proposition, you remain unnoticed, and staying unnoticed is not something that a brand wants to do.
You have to do all this and also make sure that you stay cashflow positive at the same time. Otherwise, you’re at a real risk of becoming a large hollow balloon that your competitors are just waiting for to explode or implode under its own weight.
As we’ve entered the era of AI, the notion of a product’s efficacy, cost efficiency, marketability, workflow management, and logistics reliability has become increasingly relevant and prevalently impactful. None of this is background noise anymore. It is the difference between bleeding money on traditional media and actually engineering a profitable campaign.
For example, META’s AI Algorithm has finally given us the ability to measure the ‘CREATIVE’ for a business’s promotions. The best part is that we can do so organically. Content that is actually relevant to the target audience gets more views through reach. This tells us exactly how the audience is reacting before we even scale the budget. This is how we have been gifted the ability to provide merit to the madness of the creative process.
So, our process is as follows:
A set of creatives is built for social media
Their performance is closely monitored for reach and engagement.
Based on the best organic performance, we choose the creative.
Make micro adjustments to add a sales proposition and CTA (but keep it subtle)
Publish the modified creative as an ad.
There’s a lot that goes on in between, but this is the basic method for getting it right. And this is just the AI that’s being used by platforms across the world.
AI utilisation is something that has greatly made the creative process a lot easier. As an agency that thrives on coming up with ideas that are out of this world, we have made the most of leveraging AI to bring ideas to life without spending a fortune.
So, this way, the ability to create high-impact brand stories is no longer under the tyrannical gatekeeping of large budget organisations. It is now that merit solely falls on the storyteller.
Now, AI-powered content production and the AI algorithm on Social Media platforms are asking the question: Is your content compelling?. If yes, the audience will watch your content, share it, and engage with it.
And when it comes to keeping budgets down, we can surely say that it holds the capability to execute million-dollar shoots at a fraction of the cost.
For example, we recently came across a creative challenge by a major Real Estate Developer from Gurugram. They had signed a celebrity couple for their brand ambassadorship a few months ago. They were now about to launch their new project, but for some reason, they could not get their shoot done.
What we came up with was to use the likeness of this celebrity couple and place them throughout the project’s feature video. With the help of AI generation, we were able to rebuild a completely new feature video with their brand ambassadors in 2 days, and no additional physical shots were required.
Imagine being able to save 50-60 lakhs in production costs, 15-20 days in production time, and comfortably be ahead of schedule to launch the project.
This has changed the game entirely. With AI, you can now just acquire the likeness rights of celebrities, and you can just build environments and scenarios with them. The balance between creative and artificial intelligence isn’t a battle for control; it is simply the ultimate tool for survival and scale in a landscape that rewards the fastest and the smartest.
