NDTV Good Times brings heartthrob John Abraham closer to viewers

Lifestyle channel NDTV Good Times is looking to alter its programming pattern. A precursor to this move is the launch of a new show ‘John Abraham: A Simple Life’ which gives all the Bollywood fans an exclusive opportunity to get a sneak-peek into the life of their favourite Bollywood heartthrob, former model and producer.

With a lot of research in terms of need and demand of the market, the channel is all set to take the show live from 18thNovember. The series will showcase a never-seen-before journey of the country’s leading Bollywood celebrity. It will take viewers into the personal space of John Abraham, the superstar, the actor and the producer; giving them an opportunity to delve into John’s personal life.

Adgully caught up with Arati Singh, Channel Head, NDTV Good Times and Kanishk Khanna, AVP, Marketing Services, NDTV Good Times to know more about the channel’s strategy and rationale behind this step.

Singh said, “John is the face of young lifestyle of India and our channel’s tonality goes quite well John hence we thought of starting with him. Going further, there might be more such series with any other Bollywood star too, but at this time the channel is focusing only on John. This is the brand fit for us.” Adding further she said, “NDTV Good Times aims to attract a wider audience and does so by constantly innovating its programming to reach out to generation Y. Given our renewed focus on content for the young and young at heart, we are very excited to present John Abraham: A Simple Life. The show gives the viewers a sneak peek into John Abraham’s life and brings the Bandra boy closer to his fans, for the first time on Indian television.”

“We are not only focusing on celebrity associations but we also look at how the content would buzz and woo our audience. Despite being John, we believe that it is great show as well in terms of thought and content that goes around with it,” she added.

The channel custodians assert to the fact that looking at the changing needs and demands of their audiences they took a decision of taking this show live. Khanna  says, “From the past six months we have been diving deep down to understand the need, preference and demand of our consumers and how it has been changing over the time and hence looking and considering all that we felt that this show would be a great fit.”

When it comes to sponsors’ bit, the channel has always married the correct brands with their shows. Elaborating on that, Khanna said, “We have always believed in maintaining and building a long and strong relationship with the brands we work on from show to show. We also believe in the fact that brand-associations should go beyond product placements hence we try and work hard on how we can place and engage the brands in our shows.”

On the marketing front, Khanna told us that there will be high impact OOH in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Also, national press ads in their key markets, NDTV network and a lot of properties are being brought into play for this show. Of course, all their social media platforms with content engagement and organic posts (no specific ad spends though) will be a vital part of the marketing mix.     

The channel promises its audience great content with this show. The audience will get a chance to get to know their superstar’s personal life, behind the makeup and the flash lights. Viewers gets to experience candid moments – in between breaks on a shoot, getting ready for a meeting, interacting with fans, promotional tours, workouts and his 'me time' at home with a loved one! Just like any other urban Indian, John Abraham too needs to put in extra hours, brave the traffic and earn the success he enjoys.

“Post digitization, the power has shifted to the consumers totally and for brands like us who are into multi-platforms and quite consumer engaged, the shift is quite positive as it helps the consumers more in terms of getting to know what exactly they want and it also helps us to cater the exact demands and needs of the consumers. We are quite happy with this trend as it helps the brand to move beyond just on television and open up to engage more deeply with their audiences in terms of opening up more avenues like books, digital space, apps, mobile etc,” Khanna said. The channel has been seen using ‘mobile’ quite extensively for their shows.  

Though the custodians were silent about their new strategies and plans with being a ‘Youth Infotainment channel’, but, assured the fact that down the line, with locally produced content that is already been aired on the channel, there will be more ‘Youth’ targeted shows too.