ET Now ‘Market Masters’ to expand footprint across 8 metros: Shantanu Gangane

ET Now, the English business news channel from Times Network, is beefing up its presence amongst all stakeholders through various B2B and B2C initiatives. Be it through their quirky advertising campaign at Goafest 2016 or the latest campaign, ‘Dealing Room Heroes’, the channel is on its way to secure a powerful and firm positioning as one-stop business news destination.

Earlier this month, ET Now launched ‘Market Masters’, an Investor Welfare Initiative of the channel. ‘Market Masters’ is a series of on-ground seminars that enable participants to interact with leading market experts and learn from their outlook on the markets. The experts share their perspective on the prevalent market conditions and how to formulate simple yet effective portfolio strategies to grow their wealth.

Nilesh Shah, Managing Director, Kotak AMC, who played an integral role in guiding investors, said, “This initiative is all about educating and enlightening retail investors on stock markets. ET Now has done a fabulous job to launch this initiative as this will only help educate investors and guide them to invest wisely. ET Now is a premier business news channel and whenever we talk about markets, stocks, etc., the first name that comes to mind is ET Now.”

The event was attended by over 400 investors and Shah addressed various investor queries, giving them investment advice and guided them on how to pick the right stocks and sectors. He also stated that investing isn’t a passive game and that one should be an active investor and not a lazy investor.

Scheduled to be held at all major metros across the country, ET Now has invited its viewers to write in to the channel, expressing their interest to attend the next seminar or host the seminar in their city.

In conversation with Adgully, Shantanu Gangane, Head of Marketing – Times Now, ET Now, Magicbricks Now & Zoom at Times Network, speaks at length about the various investor welfare initiatives lined up by ET Now. Excerpts:

How and why did you come up with the ‘Market Masters’ initiative?
As a leader in the English business news channels, it’s our responsibility to drive initiatives that pioneer change in society and help the nation at large. We look at macro economy and drive initiatives like ‘Market Masters’ that encourage disciplined investing. These initiatives are an amplification of ET Now’s investor welfare philosophy, which involves creating intelligent and well-informed investors. Our aim is to grow wealth and help the economy boom.

What are the other Investor Welfare initiatives that ET Now has?
We have undertaken a host of investor welfare initiatives like NSE Nivesh India, BSE Day, Kem Cho Gujarat and the recently concluded Kotak SIP Day, to name a few. All of these have been immensely successful and reflected in tremendous on-ground participation and channel viewership. It is this overwhelming response from the audience that keeps us encouraged and pilot initiatives with strong content that can make a huge impact.

In which other cities will you be carrying out the ‘Market Masters’ initiative?
We will be aggressively expanding footprint across the eight metros. The target will be to cover at least one market per month going forward from here. We started the camp at Ghatkopar and we plan to host such camps across India from wherever our viewers reach out to us. We will give viewers the option to write to us and invite us to organise ‘Market Masters’ in their city. ET Now looks forward in getting this initiative to more and more places across the country.

Have you partnered with any brands for the ‘Market Masters’ initiative? If so, could you throw some light on the structure of partnerships?
We have not partnered with any brands in the inaugural run, but we’re very much open to partner with like-minded brands for sponsorships/ association with this property. Considering we have a vast reach via our network channels and we engage with viewers across 16 countries, all over the globe, the property holds several opportunities for brands willing to get on-board. Owing to the tremendous potential and outreach of ‘Market Masters’, amongst the right audience, we are sure to collaborate with large brands that support our vision, in the near future.

How do you conceptualise an initiative which is mass centric? What are the criteria that you have in mind?
We keep investors and industry welfare at the core of whatever we do. As a brand and an important constituent of the business ecosystem, we wish to encourage investing and promote financial participation at ground level. We are happy to take events which are mass-centric and benefit as many people as we can. The core criteria to steer such initiatives is that it should add value to the end users/beneficiaries of our initiatives.