The name’s Bond, James Bond.” “A vodka martini, shaken not stirred.” Our favourite secret agent who made these phrases part of popular lexicon is the hero in STAR Movies’ bid to revive consumption of the English entertainment channels. The James Bond festival on STAR Movies, Bond Forever, will run till July-end. According to viewership data provided by TAM, English entertainment accounts have only 0.1 per cent share and English movie channels 0.7 per cent (in 2010) of the overall television viewership.
To promote the festival, the channel is undertaking initiatives such as on-air contests, digital promotions, besides a tie-up with Hard Rock Café, Delhi, for a special Bond Martini Menu along with a James Bond gig every night.
Estimates peg the advertising pie for the English entertainment segment on television at Rs 600 crore. There are seven players in the category, of which STAR Movies and Movies Now (a Times Television Network enterprise) are neck-and-neck with television viewer ratings of 0.45 and 0.43 respectively, followed by Pix (0.31), HBO (0.27), Zee Studio (0.09) and WB (0.08), according to TAM (cable & satellite homes, target group15-plus in SEC AB, across seven metros, between May 30, 2011, and July 10, 2011). Movies Now entered this already-crowded space in December 2010.
The entire James Bond campaign is based on the insight that men fantasise about living the Bond life for the cars, women, gadgets and the overall adrenaline high, says Saurabh Yagnik, general manager and senior vice-president, English channels, STAR India. Drivers in Mumbai would have also seen a live hoarding on Mahim Causeway. The hoarding has an actor in James Bond attire trying to grab the attention of people through various activities (like dancing, shooting with his laser gun, to name a few) from 8 am to 12 noon and 6 pm to 10 pm in the evening.
In the digital space too, STAR Movies has interactive banners across popular portals that will allow users to register and destroy ‘live’ pages. There will also be an application on www.starmovies.in which will allow viewers to drive the Bond car and use all the gadgets. Bond fans will further be treated to a host of regular Bond webisodes such as 007 Best Sex Scenes, 007 Best Bond villains, 007 Best Bond gadgets, 007 Best Bond car chases and so on.