With the philosophy of playing superhit music throughout the day along with Bajaate Raho attitude being intrinsic to all the marketing activities, Red FM as a brand has done exceptionally well in the past year. Approaching 2013 with a host of new marketing strategies, its various stations are hosting innovative campaigns and on-ground events alongside developing its event property Red Live.

In a conversation with Radioandmusic.com’s Chandni Mathur, Red FM general manager marketing Rajat Uppal highlights the importance of marketing in radio and the growth of Red as a brand over the years.

Excerpts:

Highlight the growth of brand Red in the past year?

On the whole it was a pretty challenging year and when times are tough, it calls for people to do things which are different and innovative. 2012 has been a decent year for Red FM, where we have explored new genres on radio. In Delhi and Mumbai, we did an entertainment programme on crime. This was the first time a radio station has done something like this. It was called Crime Chi Gheun Tak in Mumbai and Crime ki Keh Ke Lenge in Delhi and was very well received in both the cities. In terms of the quality of content and marketing, we have won quite a few awards in the previous year as well. So it’s been an interesting year, where we explored new areas and delivered well.

What kind of an expertise did you bring into the various activations undertaken?

Our entire marketing team stressed on was that whatever we do, it should be kind of a disruptor and should shake the market. Innovation is something which we have stressed upon through the year. In Mumbai, we did ‘Malishka Hawa Main’ wherein an entire show was done from a live radio booth mounted on a hoarding. Similarly when wrestling was thrown out of the 2020 Olympics, we did an innovative campaign ‘ Vote for Langot’  in Delhi where we got wrestlers to fight at a mall in support of the fact that wrestling should not be removed as a sport from Olympics as it’s a medal winning sport for India.  This was supported by  Poonam Pandey who herself was present at the venue endorsing the event. So the focus has been to integrate a good innovative activity in each marketing campaign that we do. That’s been the silver lining for 2012 as far as marketing is concerned.

With the power of radio increasing now, how do you see the future of the medium?

Radio being a very regulated medium and with Phase III around the corner, everybody is hopeful. I see the future being pretty good for radio. As a medium it is now being accepted far more easily by advertisers. Categories which were earlier not explored on radio have also started now. Earlier advertisers treated it as a frequent medium, but now they treat it as a mainstream medium. Infact some of the brands have done campaigns which might have been exclusively on radio. Brands are showing confidence in the medium, so it is becoming a mainstream advertising medium. This will help the medium grow.

Do you feel innovations and advertising are set to be the main growth drivers for the industry?

Advertisers are showing confidence in the medium and using it as a mainstream advertising medium because of the fact that radio stations have started to offer differentiated & customised adverting solutions for their brands. Innovations on Red FM have been something we focused on last year and they have surely helped to break the clutter. If the medium offers innovative solutions to brands, they would be keener to invest in the medium. So innovations are very critical for radio.

How do you aim to strengthen your marketing activities and strengthen the brand?

We have been a little more particular about the fact that the activities that we do, we run it up the brand filter. We ensure that most of the activities have the main brand attitude and tonality in it, which is being relevant and fun. Going forward, the idea is to do innovations and campaigns which are very quirky and relevant in nature, and consistently do those initiatives over the years. It is good if a brand is consistent, then it is bound to strengthen over the years.

How important is the role of marketing in the success of a radio station?

Content and communication, with content being programming and communication being marketing, both play a critical role in radio. So if good content is not marketed well, it doesn’t take you very far to reach out to newer audiences. Also, good marketing not supported by good content does not give you any loyalty. Marketing plays a very critical role in building a radio station with the help of good content as well.

How has your experience been in marketing?

Red FM is a fun brand to work with and is far bolder than some of the other radio brands in the country. As a marketer it gives you a lot of leverage to explore things which one might not be able to do in other radio stations. Over the past one year that I have been with Red FM; we have had fun in what we marketed.

What are the challenges for marketers of every radio station across the country?

Radio is still now a very differentiated and evolved medium in India so far, and station A is not very different from station B. The challenge which the marketers have faced is to create differentiation for their stations. Most cities especially the metros are cluttered with 7-8 radio station essentially playing similar music, making it tough for any listener to build loyalties. It’s the brand attitude that a radio station delivers,  becomes the differentiator here. Fortunately at Red, we have been consistently ‘Bajaate Raho’ over the years. This has helped us to build  a very differentiated personality and build a strong loyal listenership base across the cities we operate in.

Over the years, Red FM has tried to build an on-ground connect with its listeners in various ways. How do you plan to create a better on-ground connect with audiences in future?

If you look at the way Red FM has approached marketing in the past five years, we have always been far more active in terms of BTL (Below the Line) activations as compared to other stations. We believe that BTL essentially gives us a chance to create engagement with our audience and radio personalities to meet up with them. Inspite of building on visibility and giving saliency, BTL also helps you to build engagement and interaction which helps in building loyal listeners. Going forward, we will continue to do a fair bit of brand activations as we believe it works for the brand. Innovation is one of the pillars on which I want marketing to go forward. Be it BTL or ATL, we are looking to do innovative things as that is far more destructive than regular activations.

What is Red FM doing on the digital and social media front?

Digital and social media are now an integral part of any brand’s plan and we realize that importance. In 2012 itself, we started our focus on both those aspects and we plan to make Red FM much bigger on these two fronts. Infact our Delhi station page has got the largest community for any city specific page and stands at 1.7 lakhs. That is the benchmark we have been keeping for all our stations and we plan to explore the digital and social media front extensively in 2013.

Red FM recently changed its format in Bangalore. What was the strategy and how did you market it?

Our proposition to the radio audience in Bangalore is that we only play Hindi superhits at any time of the day. We also did a fair bit of exploratory and qualitative research to figure out what the audience wants. We are not targeting the local audience there; we are actually aiming for the Hindi speaking audiences. There is a fair bit of local audience also, who want Hindi music along with Kannada music. So we are essentially reaching out to non-Bangaloreans who have migrated there along with the local audience who want their share of bollywood music.

Our campaign essentially brought out the fact that we are 24/7 superhits by taking a track and an issue which affects the city, and crafting out a plan that delivers the superhit in a very Bajaate Raho style.

You also launched an event property 'Red Live’. How are you‘ll working towards marketing it?

The live entertainment space has been growing in the country and as one of the leading radio networks, we saw an opportunity. We then got into this live music format where we get contemporary artistes to perform superhits in front of a large audience. We did our first gig in Delhi with Honey Singh, who is one of the most popular contemporary Punjabi rap artistes in the country. The first event went off well; it was a packed house with 15,000 people. So Red Live does work for our brand and gives me an opportunity to take superhits music live to the audiences, and also helps the property to reinforce the fact that Red FM plays only superhits. Going forward, we are looking at doing similar events in other cities as well including the metros and some smaller towns.

Have you managed to get the right response, or is there still a lot of work to be done before you achieve the desired results?

The first event gave us a fantastic response. We are being a little careful in picking out the artiste and the cities, because we believe that if we do our research well and go into the market with the right event and artiste at the right time, we will surely be able to deliver success. We are currently in the process of figuring out the cities and the artistes whom we want to work with on the concert. Infact we have just closed in the second outing of Red Live in Kolkata. We are completing 10 years in the city, so we are doing 10 concerts over 10 days in different areas and then culminating it with a big concert. They will start in another couple of days, as we complete 10 years in the first week of May.

Tell us about the marketing plan for Red FM in 2013

In 2012, we were far more active than the previous years, so 2013 will up the game. We will be far more active in terms of marketing initiatives and our campaigns. Audiences will see a lot of Red FM in the coming year. So we will be aggressive, consistent and a lot more active.

What kind of a growth do you perceive after FM Phase III expansion?

I believe Phase III will lead to more competition and post it there maybe some consolidation as well. As radio brands, one will need to be very consistent in the way they market their radio stations and they will have to make sure that they build on the core DNA of the brand in each activity. Consistency in marketing on radio is the key to success.