For over a month now, Fever FM has been promoting its show Ramayan with teasers, voice hunt contests and snippets. While the actual episodes of Ramayan are only into their second week and the RAM data for all of Week 1 and 2 of the episode (i.e. Week 41 and 42, 2010) is awaited, RnM spoke with S Keerthivasan, Business Head – Radio and Events, HT Media Ltd., to find out the marketing plans and their performance so far. Excerpts:

What kind of rights, for how long, and for how much, has Fever bought for Ramayan? Right now, it airs at 7 am Mon-Fri, and is slated to air for six months. Does the story end after that?

The on-air show is currently planned for 6 months. However, I am sure we will come up some other surprise for our listeners soon.

What is Fever's investment in this series? Why such a big investment on a non-music property. Are you trying to make a relatively early morning slot saleable?

The investment of Fever has been more in terms of time, effort and creative resources. Yes, the financial investment has also been significant, but we are more interested in creating value for our listeners and giving them an experience that no other radio brand is delivering as of today. Ramayan is one of our biggest innovations to date. This is a completely in-house production, produced by the creative talent we have cultivated at Fever 104 FM. Led by our National Programming Head Gaurav Sharma, creative resources from across all our stations have voiced various characters, and we have brought in powerful celebrities for the key roles  For instance, Naseeruddin Shah has emoted the character of Raavan, Om Puri plays Kaal,  Anupam Kher is Dasharath,  Jayati Bhatia plays Kaikeyi and Ratna Pathak Shah plays Manthara.

Our music proposition remains. However, what we are doing is planning the content around the music in such a fashion that we give our listeners a meaningful radio experience  The airings of the Fever Radio Ramayan have been planned such that audiences across all day-parts get to experience this epic on Radio.

How does the Ramayan fit in with Fever's funky youth target audiences  What does your listenership data say about Ramayan? What kind of audiences are tuning in?

The beauty of an epic such as the Ramayan is that it has something for everybody. And we have further added the tremendous talent of theatre and Bollywood stalwarts to make it absolutely compelling radio.

The truth of today's society is that we do not have enough time to invest in our culture and heritage, and we have used that insight to plan our content. We have deliberately kept our content short and yet power-packed. It is easy to consume, and still helps us keep in touch with our heritage.

We have added a lot of touch points around the Ramayan for the youth of today via Facebook, Twitter, podcasts etc. And we have received tremendous response from a cross-section of our audience. Since the youth are leading very fast lives and are always on the go, this will be the best medium to help them connect to their roots, and they are acknowledging as much.

So far, over 3000 people have joined our Facebook Ramayan page, and our studio lines are jammed with the number of calls we are getting from people across all age groups.

We want to recreate on radio the magic of our mythology. There are over 200 Indian artistes who have lent their voice for characters in Ramayan, and the show will set �appointment listening' for the first time.

How is Fever marketing Ramayan? What is the marketing plan, your core TG, the footprint, the media you will use, the ATL and BTL activities?

The marketing plan of Fever Radio Ramayan is very robust, and is a combination of both ATL and BTL for a core TG of 20-34 SEC AB  With a path-breaking clutter-breaking illustration style that Lowe created for us, we have gone all out to promote this property. From an extensive promotion on cable, to station branding in Mumbai, online promotion and full page ads in Hindustan Times, we've got all bases covered. We also ran a very interesting on-ground activation around temples during the period of Navratris where we tied up with the temple authorities to play some of our episodes on their PA systems and also distributed small puja kits.

What was your marketing budget for the launch of Ramayan?

Our marketing on Ramayan is worth over Rs.5 crores  In Mumbai we had a strong outdoor campaign, while in Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore, we concentrated mostly on BTL activites like activation, branding at Pujos, Navratris, alliances, contests.

And what part of the 5 crore budget was spent on the Hindustan Times?

Around 25 percent. We have another six months to go, and we will continue to support Ramayan very strongly.

What ad sales marketing are you doing for Ramayan? What is your B2B marketing plan for it?

We have registered a strong presence in the B2B space through trade targeted publications to a very interesting online viral game �Slay Raavan.' We also sent innovative merchandise such as a beautifully packaged pen-drive with a pre-stored audio presentation which plays out whenever the pen drive is plugged in, as well as a mock-copy of the Ramayan, to our trade partners.

 
What alliances / barters did you utilize for Ramayan?

We have utilized our existing alliances smartly such as the tie-ups that we had during the Navratris and Pujos in Kolkata where we created tune-in messages for the Fever Radio Ramayan. It was an opportune moment to catch people of all age groups in a religious context, and promote our product to them.

How are you planning to maximize the property's other revenue... sources, and which ones are these?

The beauty of an in-house product such as this is that one is able to exploit it at many levels – from radio ad sales, telecom downloads to digital content sales. As we speak we have several conversations going on each of these fronts, and we should be able to make some announcements on this soon.

How specifically, has the listenership of Fever FM been impacted by your heavy promotions of Ramayan? Please share RAM or IRS data to support the reply.

I am happy to say that the response from the audience has been overwhelming. From messages on Facebook which are exhorting us to play the Ramayan more times in the day, and for longer durations, to people who are calling us from Haridwar, asking us to broadcast there, the response has been tremendous 

The data for the first four weeks (wk 37 to 40 – 2010) on an ROS  basis 7 am to midnight amongst the TG of our Marketing campaign, i.e. the 20-34 SEC AB, has been extremely encouraging  In Delhi, our 4-week average (till the latest data available) we are ahead of Radio Mirchi by leaps and bounds. With a share% of 25.3 amongst the 20 to 34 age band, we are a resounding No.1, with Mirchi lagging at a 19.6%.

In Mumbai as well, where we had a greater journey to make, we have had a meteoric rise, and today are consolidating our position at No.2 (just 0.6 percentage points behind the market leader – Mirchi).

What have your learnings been from the time you started airing Ramayan on Fever?

For us, it has been eye-opening experience. From the naysayers at the beginning, to the guys who were completely convinced that this is truly a thought leadership stance, we have seen it all. The fact that every Bollywood stalwart we approached  was enthralled by the production, has given us a lot of confidence. The listener enthusiasm and involvement in the product has taught us that if we create value for our listeners, they will support us right back.