Equus wins NDTV group’s Life!

Equus won the lifestyle brand business against two agencies -- Rediffusion and Brand Curry

agencyfaqs! reported last week about Life!, the first-ever lifestyle channel from the NDTV stable, and also about the group calling a pitch for the account. Equus Red Cell has been zeroed in as the agency to take forward the creative duties of Life!.

Confirming the news to agencyfaqs!, Swapan Seth, CEO, Equus Red Cell, says, “To put it precisely, our duty is to create a lifestyle brand in the deep end of the pool, away from the shallow area. And I think, the trick will lie in doing so by adopting a blue ocean content and marketing strategy.”

The pitch process, it is learnt, had three agencies in the fray for the business- Rediffusion, Equus Red Cell and Brand Curry. The size of the business could not be ascertained, but understanding that Life! is a new offering from the NDTV group, the spends would be of a considerable size.

Swapan Seth

The channel, which would be in English, is to be positioned as an aspirational product for viewers, and would mould programming to the Indian context. It faces competition from Discovery Travel and Living.

Life! is to be launched under NDTV Lifestyle, one of the six verticals that NDTV Networks Plc, a UK-based, wholly-owned subsidiary of NDTV, is to come up with. It all started when NDTV obtained an approval to venture into the entertainment and lifestyle genre by Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).

In the lifestyle genre we see quite an irregular trend in terms of the viewership – as per TAM data -- that this kind of programming has been able to garner. In 2000, channels that fall in the infotainment and lifestyle space had a TRP rating of 1.4, as compared to 2001’s 1.5. Years 2002, 2003 and 2004 saw a decline with TRPs of 1.3 in each of the years. However, in both, 2005 and 2006 see a stability and also a rise in TRPs to 1.5.

In week 23, from June 3 to June 9, NDTV India, the Hindi channel has the maximum share, as compared to the two channels in the bouquet, with a TRP rating of 0.41, followed by NDTV 24x7 with a TRP of 0.2 and finally NDTV Profit, with 0.12.

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