Media is the 'life in your day': Network 18 launches new ad

It’s never easy for multi-product, multi brand companies to create a corporate campaign. What should the campaign end up becoming? A catalogue of all the products of the company or a ‘corporate’ film which talks about, and focuses on a theme, a vision, a philosophy?

When Network 18 briefed the advertising agency Grey India, the creative team, comprising Malvika Mehra, Amit Akali (both national creative director and executive vice-president at the agency) and Rohit Malkani, (Mumbai executive creative director), many routes could have been explored.

“The task was to introduce Network 18 to the world and explain the role it plays in impacting people’s lives. We were given the list of iconic brands that come under the network 18 stable. While each of these brands like Colors, CNN IBN, CNBC TV 18, Nickelodeon, MTV, moneycontrol.com, Forbes, bookmyshow.com, Firstpost.com. Homeshop18, Comedy Central (the list is endless) is an icon in its own right, very few people know that they belong to one media conglomerate: Network 18,” said Mehra.

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[caption id=“attachment_440808” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Screengrab from the ad film[/caption]

Mehra explains why they didn’t take the ‘philosophy’ route. “While doing a corporate campaign, the first temptation is to talk about the company’s achievements and philosophy. We could have easily spoken about the vast number of brands under Network 18, their leadership in the categories they were present in, and the way they’ve changed the game with each of their media properties, be it CNN IBN, CNBC TV 18, Colors, etc. But then, we wondered, does the consumer really care about all this? The answer was ‘No’.”

What Grey’s creative team did not want was a “chest thumping ‘rah rah’ corporate campaign”. They wanted a solution that connected with the consumer.

“When we went over the various properties under Network 18 we realized that though none of us might know of Network 18, it’s actually a large part of our life. We interact with it nearly 24x7 – when we hear the news, keep abreast with the business world, get entertained, listen to music, book tickets, send mails, shop online and in many other countless ways. Network 18 impacts us in ways we don’t even realise, and is truly ’the life in your day’. That was the genesis of the campaign,” says Mehra.

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Once they had decided on ‘a life in your day’ as the route, they decided to build on the Network 18 logo, what Mehra calls ’the red tag’. “We were clear that the film had to tell people about the impact Network 18 had on their lives. But rather than just telling people, we decided to let them discover the extent of the impact for themselves. That’s what the red ‘post it’ route does. It starts with the premise that if everybody in this country had a pack of red post-its and were to play a game where they slapped it on to anyone they saw being impacted by a Network 18 property, the whole country would probably be tagged. So, as the film progresses you slowly discover how Network 18 impacts you, the consumer.”

Grey brought in director Dibakar Banerjee, director of the popular Bollywood films, Khosla Ka Ghosla (2006), and Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! (2008) to tell the story. Banerjee brought Grey’s storyboard to life, lifting the idea even more by his usage of the popular song ‘Bachke Rehena Re Baba’ as the background track.