AdNear raises Rs 350 mn from Sequoia and Canaan Partners
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MUMBAI: Disney?s youth entertainment channel bindass will premiere Video Wars on 19 November. The show will be aired at 7 pm from Monday to Thursday.
Video Wars, powered by Airtel, will introduce a new format that calls for the contestants to maintain a video dairy of their best candid moments. The new show will have five contestants a week putting up videos of their daily life. Every day, the programme will show slices of life from the five contestants as documented by them on camera. At the end of the week, viewers get to choose the top four videos, eliminating one participant.
The popularity of the contestant on the social media space and through the missed calls mechanism will determine the fate of each contestant on a weekly basis. The more number of ?likes?, chances are that the contestant gets to stay longer. Whoever manages to stay the longest will win the ultimate battle of fame. A new contestant will be added every Monday to join the four remaining from the previous week.
Disney UTV executive director youth channels media networks Nikhil Gandhi said, "We thought we should come out with a show that provides a daily connect to the consumer apart from the weekend dose of shows. We wanted the engagement to happen on a daily basis through which this whole concept of Video Wars was born. It would have been easier to do a fiction show perhaps, but we have to do something which engages with the TG on a daily basis literally. So Video Wars is one such concept. The youth are given a camera to shoot a slice of their daily life. It is an empowerment for the youth to get famous basis the content you shoot about self."
bindass earlier took the tagline ?What I am? and got in shows that the channel says took it to the number one slot. In the second round of positioning, the channel adopted the motto ?Rest less Do More?. Video Wars is a way of furthering this motto. The channel realised that to engage the TG and empower it with the attitude of being bindass and to live up to the positioning of ?Rest less?, it was eminent to provide shows, content and properties which the youth relate to in their current space.
"Having been at the top, we realised that we need to innovate and take the product and the brand to the next level," said Gandhi. The channel will also have some additional small shows like Beg Borrow Steal and the recently introduced daily half an hour Bollywood based show called Filmy Leaks. The idea is to build more content and engage at a different level.
Video Wars will be heavy on online collaborations. Viewers will be able to see not only the show but also engage with it online, follow the contestant and see their popularity through the virtual space.
"We are looking at using Facebook, YouTube and Google for engaging the viewers online. For us in this case, YouTube makes a lot of sense as it is ultimately user generated content that we are dealing with and we are already strong on the social viewing portal. Every show we do will be present online as well and it won?t be a replication of the on air content, but a value addition particularly for the online audience. For Superdude we have the Dudeschool which is an online property," said Gandhi.
The marketing of the campaign too will focus heavily on internet along with the usual ATL mediums like TV, outdoor and radio. The channel has been making on ground engagements by collaborating with music concerts and events like the Enrique Iglesias concert and the NH7 Weekeneder.
bindass will also be making changes in the format of its successful reality show Emotional Atyachar. "The show has reached iconic status and we still get mails from people to be featured on the show. Having said that, yes after three seasons, we did find a need to innovate and that is what we will be doing in the forthcoming season. We are looking to introduce some twists in the show in the coming season," informed Gandhi.
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