In an multi-agency pitch, Sab TV, the Hindi comedy channel from the Multi Screen Media (MSM) India stable, has awarded its creative duties to Pickle, a full service agency from the Interpublic Group.
The size of the account is estimated to about Rs 12 crore. Leo Burnett is the incumbent agency. MediaCom continues to be the media agency.
Anooj Kapoor, business head, Sab TV, says, “We are now focused as a family comedy entertainment channel, our brief given to the agency for the pitch was ‘How to project Sab TV?’. We found that Pickle’s thinking is more synergistic with that of ours. Sab TV is launching a new comedy show called Jugni Chali Jalandhar in mid-September, whose marketing apart from all the other shows, would be now inclined with Pickle.”
For the MSM India portfolio, Leo Burnett is the creative agency for Sony Entertainment Television. TBWA handles the creative duties for Max, while Saatchi & Saatchi handles Pix and AXN.
In India, Pickle was launched in May 2008 and is headed by Sumeet Chatterjee as president, and Rahul Jauhari, who heads the creative function pan-India.
To drive growth, Sab TV has recently started airing Charlie Chaplin series on Fridays and the dubbed version of international comedy shows like Home Improvement and My Wife and Kids. In the weekends, the channel also has Hindi comedy movies, which have done very well at theatres in the recent past, and dubbed English comedies too.
After taking over Sab TV in April 2005, MSM India (then SET India) had decided to position Sab TV as a second general entertainment channel (GEC) from the network, targeting males above the age of 25. After almost a year, in 2006, Sony decided to give Sab TV a makeover by launching some comedy shows, and had positioned it as a comedy channel.
In early 2007, the parent company tried to woo the youth, with shows such as Love Story, Mohalla Mohabbatwala and Left Right Left. But in early 2008, yet again, Sab TV has shed its youth channel image and become a comedy channel, with recently launched shows like Taarak Mehta ka Ooltah Chashmah, Lo Ho Gayi Pooja Iss Ghar Ki and Main Kab Saas Banoongi. Little wonder, it now desires to become a family entertainment channel.
However, MSM India is learnt to be experimenting with Sab TV and, unfortunately, the channel hasn’t been able to work out the right balance so far. “The channel is in a catch 22 situation, as none of their properties, be it comedy or non-comedy shows, has managed to garner good numbers.” says the media planner, who wished to remain anonymous.