Nick believes, it's important for kids to touch, feel and play

Nick India, the kids' entertainment channel which has recently taken an on ground initiative "Big Green Help' which aims at making earth-friendly activities a part of kids' everyday lives is not the first outdoor activity by the channel. Adgully talks to Nina Elavia Jaipuria, Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Nick India to know what is the idea behind these on ground activities and what new initiatives the channel is planning in the future.

"We are responsible broadcaster and time and again we have leveraged the platform and influence that we have on our viewers," says, Jaipuria. She feels this is the best way to send across a message as instead of mothers or teachers nagging and teaching children, if cartoon character like Ninja Hattori or a Dora sends across a message children will listen to it keenly and follow it. "Global warming makes no sense to the children but if you try telling them in their own language without throwing jargon's, you can make a difference. So "Big green help' was an initiative making it relevant to children and help spread environment awareness.

Prior to "Big Green Help' the channel has also done "Let's Just Play' which is being done two years in a row. This initiative is again an outdoor activity that deals educating kids that being active and energetic is very important. This was in response to many parents blaming that their kids are stuck to Internet, video games and TV. Jaipuria explains, "The whole idea was to tell the kids watch TV but also play. So we also switched off the channel for half an hour and the channel went blank so that kids can go out and play. We had a 10 hour playathon in five cities simultaneously where we asked kids to come and play."

Bringing another reason from the outdoor activities she says, "The whole idea emerges from the fact that we wanted to be where children are and take our channel to outdoor as we believe it is very important for kids to touch, feel and play. It takes it closer because then you catch them by the pulse." She further said, "I am sure that as we go along and if we have such more initiatives we will continue to be a responsible broadcaster."

So does these responsible BTL activities help add viewers to channel? Jaipuria answers, "Yes it does at the end of the day but it's not as measureable but the more we go beyond TV and reach out to children the more loyal viewers and little ambassadors we create for us."

The channel has launched a new show called "Chicken Stew' some ten days back and will be promoting it through 'watch and win contest' from March. She elaborates, "We continue to do stuffs on the channel like after "Chicken Stew' we are doing some interactivity on Holi that is "Don't Mind its Holi' and we will celebrate April fool's day. So the channel is always buzzing and trying to engage children but the new shows will definitely come from April-May."

Jaipuria promises, "We have many things in the pipeline and we will launch them coming April-May when the vacation will start and kids will be at home. Due to the exams February-March is little quite so all the activity in programming and marketing will start at summer vacations."