Did you watch the T20 Final between Pakistan and Sri Lanka on Geo SUper? Did you hear what the commentators said after the winning runs? I couldn’t. Why? Because the abominable Geo animated character was dancing to the equally repressible jingle ‘Geo to aisey’. Either a child was at the controls hitting the animation button gleefully, or a mentally
Aaj TV may not be inclined to follow the Ries’ school of thought for its marketing strategies, but inadvertently they seem to be following their laws of branding for their new channel Play. Play is a pretty neat branding effort. It has got a great name in line with the relevant laws of branding.
The questions that arise are, why can’t Aaj compete with Geo in the conventional way, and why should it go after Geo in the first place? Can’t they co-exist peacefully as it is? For the first question, no. Marketing is nothing short of full-fledged warfare. In a battle, one party avoids going head-to-head with
‘Don’t you think that people today are more program loyal rather than channel loyal?’ Hameed Kashan, the marketing manager for Aaj TV replied in response to my branding scenario for their channel. In other words he was saying that the laws of branding don’t apply to the television industry, which for some inexplicable reason he
