CNBC's creative edge

When TBWA's former creative director, Zubin Driver, quit the advertising agency to join the small creative shop started by CNBC-TV 18, he did not anticipate that he would be snowed under with work.

Today he, and his 25-member team at The Cell, makes nearly 50 ad films a month for a range of advertisers on CNBC. This is in addition to the in-house promos it makes for the shows on the channel.

"Typically, we make ad films for the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) which have a budget of around Rs 4 lakh to Rs 5 lakh for a commercial," says Driver.

The division also prods companies which have never advertised on TV to use the electronic media. The Cell, he claims, can create an ad film for a client in a day's time. For the purpose, it uses the channel's existing infrastructure of animators, editors and editing and post-production facilities.

Though CNBC's creative boutique is over two years old, the team is pretty excited about the first pan-Indian television commercial it is about to shoot for a client. Driver refuses to disclose the identity of the client but says that the ad film is budgeted at around Rs 10 lakh.

CNBC-TV 18, the media company that runs the business channel CNBC, set up its in-house promo and ad films division to cater to advertisers exploring opportunities on the business channel. Driver claims that they understand the budget constraints of its advertisers.

And quite often, The Cell executives approach the clients with an ad film on their product or brand. Companies such as GAIL, ONGC and Solaris have taken up the CNBC proposal for ad films. Usually, the television commercials are made exclusively for CNBC, but sometimes clients buy the ads and show them on other channels as well.

The Cell does business worth at least Rs 50 lakh a month, but it still does not see itself as a separate unit. "The focus is to seamlessly integrate with the sales and marketing team and enable it with the tools to go and make a pitch to clients," he says.

To tap this nascent demand, CNBC used the services of the advertising agency Lowe for the first four months of its launch. But later, the media company decided to handle the creatives on its own.

With the launch of Awaaz, CNBC's consumer affairs channel in Hindi, the company is looking at broadbasing its client profile. And together with the creative forces of The Cell, it hopes to steal a march over competition.