While Bangladesh TV industry is going through the trauma of loosing appeal due to lack of quality content and overcluttered advertising tendency, GTV emerged as an usher of new inspiration for the industry through their recent brand relaunch. For a tender brand, taking such an initiative is more than a challenge; yet the execution and the result of the campaign is astounding.

In this feature we have tried to chalk out the journey of GTV’s exemplary brand revamp which sets a new benchmark for other traditional media.

Whether traditional media like Television (TV) and Radio are gradually losing their appeal to audience or are digital media and virtual space aggressively overtaking, is a never-ending debate with multiple pros and cons for both advocates and adversaries of traditional and new media. Nontheless, in Bangladesh, Television media is a booming industry with an annual growth rate of 15% (Market AdEx estimation). TV Channels still play the role of major source of entertainment for mass people. Even for the business people and advertisers, TV is still the most cost effective media for mass reach in Bangladesh with a cost per pair of eyeball of Tk. 0.08. (Market AdEx estimation).

Yet, the national TV channels are losing their appeal to audience due to lack of quality content, poor resolution and outlook, and most importantly excessive incorporation of advertisements. The situation is such that the urban youth and adults are mostly interested in foreign channels and often compare the standard of local channels with international ones. As the urban people play the role of first adapter and trend setter: their preference may be not today but eventually, will lead to an unfavorable impact on the semi urban and rural people.

During this conundrum, Gazi TV popularly known as GTV, on June 12, 2012, started a new milestone of providing the long tormented and clutched audiences with quality content and pure entertainment. In a short period of three years, Gazi TV has made a loyal audience pool due to their perseverance with quality of content and outlook. Gazi TV took a futuristic step to celebrate its entry into 4th year with a major Strategic Brand Revamp: adapting new look (logo and creatives) with new audience friendly tagline, “Get only what you want (Jaa Dekhte Chaan, Paaben)”, prioritizing each of the audience according to their distinctive individual preference. The brand revamp has been spontaneously accepted and appreciated by the audiences and other stakeholders. Such a big strategic leap was the result of a 360 approach of Gazi TV, taking the best possible support and cooperation from brand consultants, research farms and creative agencies.

TV INDUSTRY OF BANGLADESH

The cable and satellite television industry of Bangladesh started its journey in 1992 ending a 28 year dominance of state owned Bangladesh Television. The phenomenon started with CNN bring experimentally relayed only for a few hours. Subsequently multiple other international and regional channels especially BBC and STAR network emerged in the country from 1993. In the context of a dominance of foreign satellite channels in the country, ATN Bangla came into being on July 15, 1997. The first Bangla private satellite channel, ATN Bangla aimed at telecasting programs in Bangla for viewers in more than a hundred countries across the world. Channel-i, established in 1999, is the first-ever digital Bangla television channel in Bangladesh. Ekushey Television (ETV), the first private terrestrial channel in Bangladesh, began transmission on 2000. Since then, television has indeed become the most popular medium in Bangladesh. Currently there are 23 active satellite channels and 4 inactive channels while multiple other local channels have been given license to operate.

THE CONTEXT FOR GAZI TV

Gazi Television, officially known as GTV, is a Bengali language digital cable television channel. The channel started broadcasting in Bangladesh on 12 June 2012 from its studio at Segun Bagicha in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The channel offers a wide variety of program including news, movies, dramas, talk shows and sports like cricket and many more. In 2014, for the first time, this channel came to limelight when it declared that FIFA World Cup 2014 will be broadcasted live and also bought television broadcasting right from BCB for 6 years. It was evident during the world cup transmission that Gazi TV has started a new era of crisp and clear transmission for any local channel for the first time in the country.

THE MARKET SITUATION

In spite of being a potential industry of 9 billion BDT (in terms of AdEx), the television industry of Bangladesh is plagued by unclear branding and lack of USP and clear proposition for all of the channels. TRP data keeps varying due to reliance on sporadic content and also the market advertising prices are driven by advertisers rather than quality of contents in different channels. There is also over-reliance on advertisements and general audiences complain about the fact that they get to see only few minutes of programs within the umpteen numbers of advertisements that are shown. 50/50 rule prevails in the revenue stream as the top 3-5 players in the market grab more than 50% of the advertisement revenue.

FORMULATING THE GAME PLAN

The innovative makeover of GTV is a chained process starting from a broad vision to an effective action plan. The harbinger of change in the game of GTV is the new vision “To become the TV industry leader in Bangladesh as the first multi-TV network.” On par with the vision, “to become the most wanted TV channel for specific target audience and advertisers” is the mission that will be attained by fulfilling the goal of becoming a profitable business venture and one of the Top 5 channels by end of Year 1 and Number 1 by Year 2. The goal-achieving strategy for the management is to ensure channel profitability by audience centric planning and innovative content which is supported by right people behind the right process & partnership. A thorough game plan was formulated to materialize the vision within the targeted time frame. The game plan will be unveiled as we go through the study.

STARTING FROM THE SCRATCH

The basic game plan was devised on four major pillars: People, Process & Partnership, Planning & Innovation, and Profitability. As per the four strategic pillars, right people with creative and innovative minds were hired in a batch size that optimizes the HR cost. The fresh blood and the existing pool of right people were backed with proper resources, timely technology and required affiliations. Strategies were formulated with and by the new leaves in the G tree, with an expected future result of profitability by increasing the rate for major clients, sponsorship of major programs, cost control initiatives and off peak revenue plan. The renovated strategies include company strategy, brand strategy, content strategy and distribution strategy. The successful relaunching is nothing but an effective and efficient mix of the four strategies. 

THOSE WHO WANT TO SEE: UNDERSTANDING THE TARGET GROUP

According to American businessman Elon Musk, “Brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product.” So, communicating the brand essence with proper impression to the customers is the most crucial part of any brand communication. This communication depends on two things: delivered message and customer’s perception.

Based on the game plan of revamping the brand, GTV embarked on a journey of developing brand strategy with Brandrev, brand and marketing wing of Kranti Associates Ltd. that worked throughout the entire process with GTV management. The first step was to know about their target group (age cluster, preference, habit, prime time and content demand) and the industry. To know about the industry an intensive desk research was conducted and to know about the TG in depth, qualitative research was carried out. The qualitative research was executed by Kaizen CRS Ltd.

The overall objectives of the stakeholder/expert interviews were to mine existing knowledge on cable and satellite television industry from current and previous experiences within the industry, advertisers and opinion leaders; and also to understand the behavioral pattern of target audiences in terms of their viewership pattern, channel preference, program preference and expectations from a cable and satellite television channel of Bangladesh.

In-depth interview (IDI) was the method to acquire the desired feedbacks from the industry expert. Yet, for the target audience (social class A and B, in cases C) the preferred method was Focus Group Discussion (FGD) model where similar group of audience (not more than 6-8) are taken through an unbiased approach to present their views. The target groups of the FGD were the Urban/ Semi-Urban Trendsetters within the age ranging from 18 to 34, currently attending college/ university or just entered the formal workforce and newly married people. These people are the most likely group to influence the shaping of next generation cable and satellite television industry in the country as they are the largest group of population (almost 33%) and are exposed and used to modern advents around the world. The TA also included semi-urban/ rural pragmatic or progressive males and females in the age group of 18-34 and socially less active urban female audience in the age group of 25-35.

BRAND “g”: FOR GOOD & FOR THE BRAND

In the TV industry of Bangladesh, branding is a scope that is significantly underestimated. GTV took the opportunity and through brand revamp aimed at branding itself as a general entertainment channel that respects every individual’s taste & preference despite the cultural and societal tension of a Bangladeshi collective society  and delivers contents that are customized for individual, organized for all. The branding aim also gives a message that a change is not for the sake of change; it’s a change for good.

As explained by George Bernard Shaw: “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” The brand strategy pointed out that GTV should have the “Creator” brand archetype to realize the vision of being the industry leader and the first ever multi-TV network. As GTV is trying to be an epitome by setting new trends, GTV invented its own Brand Architecture, Brand “g”.  Brand g has ten (10) key components as follows: Brand Heritage, Root Strength, Competitive Environment, Target, Insights, Benefit, Value & Personality, Consistent Availability, Discriminator, and Brand Essence. All the components are aligned with the brand essence to give the right brand message to the TG. 

The 6Ps of marketing were designated into Proposition, Product & packaging, Promotion, Price and Place to support the execution a robust brand strategy. The core proposition of relaunch was to evoke the single most important “emotion” among audience that the customers (audiences and advertisers) can relate to the channel as their own channel. The value offered by the brand GTV was converted into TG oriented content, promoted to the TG within a reasonable price at the proper places.

CREATIVE LEAP

With the combination of brand strategy and insights developed from the research and strategy development work, the master insight was that a channel has the ability to create the “me-time” for people where s/he satisfies the need of the personal space and own choice of entertainment. To give a strong message of the renewed image and differentiation from other local channels GTV brought exclusive changes in the outlook and also in the content through innovation. Accordingly Grey Advertising Bangladesh Ltd. started working on the creative executions for the relaunch.

The logo was changed into more advanced design compared to the previous simple one to give it a futuristic look. And it was strategically decided that there should be a consistency of outlook in all the programs aired.

The big idea was “Get only what you want”, to associate the TG with the renewed image.  This tagline was aptly schemed to give the audience a feel of “GTV is My Channel”.  From this tagline, the nostalgic ad campaign was developed, “Do You See What I See? (Ami Ja Dekhi Tumi Ta Dekho?).” This is basically a game that everyone – young or old, male or female – has played. The game has always transcended and connected generations.   

The campaign connected to the brand promise – “Get only what you want” and the brand essence: “Customized for individual and organized for all”

TAKING IT TO THE FIELD

As different target groups have different preference and based on their personal preference, the GTV air schedule is divided into targeted
prime times. The targeted airtime of right content followed by GTV is for mass audience is 8 pm to 10 pm, for urban youth 11 pm to 1 am and for the kids 6:30 am to 8 am & 4 pm to 6 pm.

In these prime times, most important contents segmented for each group are aired. Incredibly relevant contents make audience feel as if each second of their content mattered and for the advertisers it’s their desired content to spend their budget. The new programs like fiction drama Five Female Friends (FFF), celebrity talk-show Apuee’s Glowing Chair, travel show Holiday Planner, horror drama Daily Fright Night were introduced. GTV has the copy right to air the most popular cartoon, Kung Fu Panda: the Legend of Awesomeness for the kids at their prime time.

A TG oriented content innovation is the Daily Fright Night which is basically a horror telefilm of six episodes; individual episodes are aired at mid night from Friday to Wednesday and the whole telefilm is aired on Thursday. The audience has the option to watch the episodes everyday or at the end of the week at their prime time.

The international grade travel show Holiday Planner, which is hosted by a local model travelling the world and enjoying world-class facilities.  The combination of the beauty of the host and the appeal of the locations give the program a double concentration edge. This program has been quite popular among all the TGs.

The creative contents needed to reach the mass people requiring promotion activity; though the idea of promoting the contents hardly works in Bangladesh TV industry. GTV went out of the circle and started to promote their new contents in the prime times in the breaks of other programs. The contents were also promoted in other TV channels and through different programs.

THE IMPACT

The relaunch campaign was widely acclaimed by the audience and other stakeholders. The ads of nostalgia “Ami Ja Dekhi Tumi Ta Dekho?” went viral generating talkability and associating the TG with the brand. According to Google Analytics, after the relaunch GTV has become the most searched channel in Google Search Engine and most talked about TV channel in social media (facebook).

Previously there was no destination viewership in the TV industry. GTV, as of now, is the destination channel for the Bangladesh sports viewers beating all the other national and international channels.

Since the relaunch on June 12, 2015, GTV already has seen positive impact in terms of numbers over the past three months. Comparing viewership data of 2014-15 to 2013-14, GTV which was not even in the top 10 position is among the top three most viewed channel (as per TRP Data). GTV is a self-sustained channel now as advertising revenues has already improved and the channel is not a subsidized venture for Gazi Group anymore.

One of the biggest results of the relaunch is already underway with Break-Free Eid Celebration during Ei-Ul-Azha 2015. The burning question of all the media and industry now is, “How will GTV execute the Break Free Eid Celebration? Is it financially viable for the channel?” Aman Ashraf Faiz, Managing director of GTV explained, “Viewers want to enjoy quality pro
grams during Eid festival with their family and definitely don’t want to see ads. So we are giving them what they want. The initiative is based on the promise we made to the consumer with the brand message of giving them what they want to see. And yes, this media innovation is no doubt financially viable.”

THE NEXT STEP

The next step for GTV is to develop consumer centric campaigns and content plans. Similar to the Break-Free Eid Celebration, multiple surprises in terms of entertainment are already underway with bigger plans for corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns. All these programs are being planned keeping clear connect with the brand essence of “Customized for individual, Organized for All” and delivering the brand message of “Jaa Dekhte Chaan Paaben”. GTV also aspires to reach its vision of becoming a multi-TV network in the coming times.

SUMMING IT UP

Even after considering the positive side of the campaign and the astounding outcome, the approach towards vision seems aggressive. For such a new brand with an age of only 3 years, whether reinventing the brand is a timely initiative or not, is yet to be decided. As the saying goes, “morning shows the day”, audience expectation from GTV will continue to rise as GTV incorporates new dimensions of entertainments in the near future. Never the less, the inception of the epoch of new trend in the Bangladeshi TV industry by GTV deserves applaud and sets a milestone for other TV channels to follow. The initiatives of GTV bear evidence that it’s high time our TV industry also advanced to the next level.

by

Iftekharul Dastagir