Madison's outdoor campaign for Zoom pops eye-balls

The outdoor campaign was a critical factor in creating a fair amount of hype around Zoom - the premium, non-fiction, lifestyle and entertainment channel - from Times Television, launched on September 20.

Outdoor was exclusively used by Times for a teaser campaign in the cities of Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore during the first few weeks of September. The medium was part of the overall communication mix during the crucial launch phase around September 20. The campaign, in fact, is still on in the three cities.

Madison Outdoor Media Services or MOMS was given the mandate to execute the entire campaign, and according to Soumitro Bhattacharya, chief operating officer, MOMS, the use of outdoor will be extended to individual programme advertising as well.

According to industry sources, Zoom has plans to launch six shows around October 15. What's unclear is the strategy it will adopt, at least as far as outdoor goes, in communicating its initiatives.

Bhattacharya declines to reveal his cards at the moment but what he is willing to comment about is the strategy used so far in highlighting Zoom.

Targeted at the SEC A and B audience, the channel has a Hindi baseline - Isko Dekho.

The brief given to MOMS with regard to the campaign was to "create noise" for Zoom.

"For this, we banked on hoardings and bus-shelters in Mumbai; bus shelters, public utilities and kiosks in Delhi; and to a certain extent on hoardings again in Bangalore," says Bhattacharya.

Creatives were done by Lemon, with the teaser campaign focusing on the name Zoom juxtaposed with a female form. "The identity of the channel wasn't revealed at that stage and people looking at the campaign wondered, what it was all about," says Rajnish Bahl, consultant, MOMS, who is in charge of the Zoom campaign.

Thirty-one premium hoarding sites in Mumbai, where 60-70 per cent of the spends were routed, were identified. "The campaign had to be larger-than-life and huge. For this, sites that had a high visibility index were critical," says Bahl.

The same sites were used during the launch phase as well as during the unveiling the channel - dwelling on the channel's character and positioning. "The reason why we chose the same sites during the launch phase was on account of the connect they had built with the audience over time. Commuters plying between Nariman Point and Andheri (where the billboards in Mumbai were located) had come to expect the hoardings there," adds Bahl.

To gauge the impact of the campaign, the company conducted dipstick surveys post-teaser and launch phases especially in Mumbai, and is pretty upbeat on the response that it has fetched. "An outdoor campaign hinges on a couple of factors - the creative, turnaround time and strategy. All of this fell in place in the case of Zoom," says Bhattacharya.

With STAR India's "STAR World in Hindi", that is, STAR One, slated to be launched on November 1, it's only a matter of time before Zoom's rival unveils itself.

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