Audiences are sure to shake a leg in this season of Jhalak Dikhla Jaa: Team Colors

Jhalak Dikhla Jaa, the local adaptation of the BBC Worldwide format Strictly Come Dancing, which is produced in over 30 countries worldwide including India is back with Season 6 of their successful  dance reality show. The show is all set to air with 3 judges and 12 contestants from various backgrounds. Starting June 1, 2013 , the dance reality show on COLORS every Saturday and Sunday at 9.00 pm, will showcase the dancing abilities of 12 contestants like television actors Drashti Dhami, Shweta Tiwari, Karanvir Bohra, Siddharth Shukla and singer Shaan, amongst others who are coming together to compete in this exciting show. The judges for this season are the same as the last season, choreographer Remo D'Souza, Bollywood actress Madhuri Dixit and director/producer Karan Johar. However, Madhuri is said to be seen in a new avatar in Jalak Dikhla Jaa 6.

From the dance studio to the dance floor, follow the moves of the twelve celebrities as they will be seen surpassing all limitations and outshining in the new frontiers of dance with some never-seen-before acts . They are seen in the first look of this season and have succeeded in building immense anticipation among viewers. The USP of this show has always been that contestants participating in the show are a mixed group of people from different backgrounds, some of them  actors, dancers, singers, models and so on. The show has been successful on the back of this concept alone.  The fact that most of them have no dancing background but showcase their dancing talent is what makes the show interesting and entertaining for viewers. The season also introduces innovative concepts from Relay dance to performing with Live DJ Music to shaking a leg with an extra partner in ‘Teen Ka Tadka’.

While at the launch of  Season 6 edition of Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa, Adgully caught up with Rajesh Iyer , Marketing Head, Colors, Viacom 18 who spoke about their marketing and promotional strategies , to Vivek Srivastava, Digital Head of Colors, who shared insights on the digital front of the show and also spoke to Raj Nayak , Chief Executive Officer , Viacom 18, about competition they face in the weekend slot and much more.

The channel is definitely betting  big on Jhalak Dikhla Jaa (JDJ) and Iyer spoke on how they intend  marketing the show to promote it . “Jhalak Dikhla Jaa is one of our biggest show , and has always been a big show for us. We are going  to 40+ channels outside the  metros. We then have OOH which have started in the city today and also the LC 1  market which is a new addition to the entire mix so there are obviously audiences present to be tapped.”

Coming back to their marketing and promotional campaigns he said, “We have  900+ screens of Yeh Jawani Hai Diwani , the Ranbir-Deepika starrer, 100+ newspaper ads too have been planned on the day of launch i.e. 1st June 2013. Iyer further went on to inform about Dancewithmadhuri the online initiative started by the diva herself, which they intend starting on their social media website.

The outdoor campaign extends to 12 cities across HSM markets, with a concentration of close to 60 hoardings per city. More than 40 channels outside the Network18 and Viacom networks have been flooded with 4000+ ad slots that promote the dance reality show.  The channel also plans to have a web premier of the show.

Elaborating further he said audiences can upload their videos which will be judged by Dixit herself . They get one video everyday for 7 days to learn a step or a dance form for e.g. Tango in 7 days . So everyday one video will be released and subsequently people can upload their dance videos and weekly prizes and big prizes will be awarded for the same the latter  being an opportunity  to Dance with Madhuri.

Viacom 18 has beefed up its entire digital set up and Vivek Srivastava has been given the mandate for Digital at Colors. Speaking about their task on hand and his role in the digital media space, Srivastava said,“ Our mandate is two pronged. One is to create our own platform and make the community as big as possible , the second is to drive engagement. So the idea is to have concentrated audience on our platforms across different social media platforms or websites and moreover  if I have the audience and I cannot engage with them it does not make sense.”

He continued to say “Engagement is the key for us . Engagement comes across all social media platforms , across all digital platforms and it could be driven by one or more ideas as in the case of our entire association with Dancewithmadhuri.com.”

Last year they saw major engagement from the viewers on their properties only over the weekends. They were  eager to talk about the said property or share comments on it . Hence the idea this time around is to give viewers  an opportunity to engage with the property on a daily basis . Thus came up the thought of the videos which viewers can upload after learning a certain dance form and this can be considered engagement on the platform and will continue throughout the entire period of the show. He says it is imperative for fans to interact and engage with the show. “It’s all about starting conversations, channelizing conversations and holding them preferably positively for the brand.”

Last year Colors had revamped their website and had also launched a JDJ application and a Bigg Boss application . The main idea is for people to converse and a good indication of that is the number of times fans trend and Colors and its properties have trended 51 times across the year (almost once a week). They have increased their FB and Twitter base. Apart from this they are also launching a microsite for Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa.

“But interaction is of utmost importance whether it is through sharing pictures, talking to them on different platforms, giving them star interactions, getting them to come on web chat, taking part in contests, but the key factor is how many more conversations can you generate,” said Srivastava. So hence this year their mandate remains the same i.e. to build on communities and drive engagements.

When asked if they have considered the idea of missed calls he said the missed call route as of now has not really resonated with them and does not match with the properties they have and he considers voting on the website  a better option for viewers. They are also exploring mobile in a big way. “Mobile is the converging ground for our consumers and we expect it to grow as a second screen medium from an engagement point of view since most viewers today are tweeting, liking, commenting or viewing videos while watching television,” he says. According to Srivastava consumers have to be nurtured and given more options to interact. More applications are on the anvil for this season of JDJ . Presently a JDJ viewer has the option of voting through sms and the website.

Speaking on the social media front Rajesh Iyer stressed on the fact they are presently focused on this front so they are starting to build up their own social assets on the digital platform  and more activity will be seen on this platform in the near future. There will also be a certain amount of Twitter and Facebook activity as well. “So social is an important aspect  and we also  have the reach built up mechanisms through our  traditional media,” informed  Iyer.

Sharing about brands they have on board presently Iyer  said, “We have associated with Cadbury’s Bournvita and Vaseline and there are few more brands that are going to be associated with us soon.”

Says Srivastava, “All properties are being pushed across our platforms. The idea is to drive the concept of every show, drive the character and build characters on the digital platform , get interactions on the digital platforms across properties and across platforms and this is applicable to every show on the television medium.”

Where fierce competition in the time band is concerned  Raj Nayak agreeing  on this point said,  “Weekdays we faced competition, now weekends we will face competition, and in any business competition is good because it benefits the viewer . He gets variety and choice and it keeps us broadcasters on our toes because we have to work that much more harder to deliver quality content to grab our viewers eyeballs.”

Sharing his views on the rationale behind  focusing  on social and digital media for JDJ , he said, “I am personally quite active on social media both on FB and on  Twitter. In digital media people consume content on various platforms whether it is a phone or an ipad or a laptop. We want to be future ready and we want our product to be consumed on any platform.  We will be doing a lot of work in social media to engage our viewers and that is one of our priority this year and shows like JDJ gives us an opportunity to do it far more effectively compared to our fiction shows.”

With regard to more fiction shows on the channel Nayak said “Fiction is the staple diet for any channel or broadcaster and we are no different. In fiction shows on weekdays we have been continuously the no. 2 channel since last 1-2 years now. So that focus will not change and it is week-ends where we are weak and need to work upon.”

Speaking about extensions of shows he said, “Different channels have different strategies and we have no such plans and our calendar for the year is almost fixed since we pre-decide and since most of our shows are big format it is difficult to keep it flexible.”

“This year we have decided that we will do 3-4 shows. The new mix for us is 24,” he said. Elaborating on the launch of the new show 24 he informed that no time frame has been planned as yet but once everything is in place they will require 60 days to launch the new series.

As of now Colors has  no plans of rescheduling their shows between the  7.30 – 11 pm time band . “Also besides non-fiction shows like JDJ or Bigg Boss we also are trying to build a sustainable long term non-fictions shows whether it is a comedy , crime or any other genre and that is something we are experimenting with,” said Nayak. Speaking about early prime shows he said currently they have no plans for the same.

Says Nayak in conclusion , “I am a firm believer that if there is good content and if you have a good show people will definitely watch it and if it is a good show it will work in any given time slot.”

There is no doubt that audiences will now be on the edge of their seats witnessing never before seen performances and be entertained through the week end with their favourite dance reality show ‘Jhalak Dihkla Jaa’.