MAM
Bindass to shed UTV name, go ‘Rest Less’ from 16 April
MUMBAI: Youth channel UTV Bindass is in for a makeover as it drops ‘UTV‘ from its name, dons a new logo and changes the tag line to ‘Rest Less‘ from 16 April.
The channel, falling under the complete control of The Walt Disney Company India with UTV founder-promoter Ronnie Screwvala at the helm, will have 133 variations of the new ‘dynamic‘ logo.
“Bindass as a brand has grown over the years. Today it is not just a television channel and we are going to promote it that way,” Bindass business head Keith Alphonso tells Indiantelevision.com.
The channel will launch a new brand campaign created by Taproot India. “On 16 April, Bindass is set to undergo a mega transformation with a a new brand campaign, created by Agnello Dias (Taproot India). The new motto – Rest Less – perfectly symbolises the new identity rest less and do more. It is all about let’s do more, be it action, fun… Bindass is the brand that will get you there,” Alphonso adds.
The channel has decided to undergo the repositioning after a research that the company conducted with MarketGate Consulting. Alphonso stresses that the research has suggested that there is a clear need gap and Bindass aims to fulfill that.
MarketGate Consulting founder director Shripad Nadkarni says, “Our consumer research indicated that the youth has moved beyond passive optimism and are bustling with ideas and have a sense of urgency attached to their ambitions. We decided to reflect this spirit of purposive dynamism into the brand’s refreshed positioning as we believe the Indian youth is in the middle of one of the most exciting times.”
The channel will also kickstart its marketing campaign on 16 April.
Taproot India chairman and co-founder Agnello Dias says, “A key trait that marks youth behaviour today is a sense of constant motion; everyone is either going somewhere or doing something all the time. This non-stop motion, well channelised is the new objective ideal. Settling down is fast going down the priority list. The bubbling undercurrents of discovery, exploration, invention, challenge, action seem to top that list. The new brand campaign for Bindass captures precisely this, that the youth today are ‘Rest Less’ and actually rest even lesser. We had earlier worked on Bindass’ immensely successful ‘What I am’ campaign as well which really caught on with the youth and this time around with Rest Less we hope to continue connecting with them yet again.”
In a bid to move beyond TV, Bindass is also planning to launch separate divisions for events and products and services. Though the plans are in formative stages, Alphonso confirms that events division will focus on creating tent-pole on-ground IP properties. From conceptualising to execution, the events division will work on properties, which can be scalable on a year-on-year basis, he adds.
Meanwhile, the company has identified six categories of product and services. While it is planning a range of apparels and accessories, the services will include holiday services, Bindass style.
On the content front, the channel will launch two new reality shows soon. On 28 April, it will launch Live Out Loud, a 10 episodic series in which one person will be made to overcome fear by saying that one thing he or she wanted to say.
This will be followed by another show Fear-Less in July, wherein participants will be helped by their friends to overcome fear of height, water or other such things which result in not enjoying life to the fullest.
Bindass is also betting big on the digital front and from 16 April, the whole look and feel of the brand in the digital world will also get a makeover. It will make its presence felt on all the social media platforms including Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, while a special channel for Youtube will be created with exclusive content, Alphonso adds.
Bindass fights in a market which is too cluttered with youth and music channels including MTV, Channel [V], Mastiii, and 9XM.
Bindass was launched in September 2007. It adopted the brand values of youth – fun, frank, and fearless – and built it as a platform to catch its target audience using TV, movies, web, mobile, ground and campus activities. Later it changed the positioning to ‘What I am’.
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Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
