Nick unveils a new aggressive approach

It’s been close to thirty years since Nick launched as a television channel and the management felt that it was time for a new approach. The transformation begins on Friday with a new logo. Nina Elavia Jaipuria, senior vice president and general manager, Nick India, said, “The first part of the two-fold idea was to synergise ourselves across the world on television and off it. The second was to make the brand more relevant and relatable for kids. Hence, the ‘Splat’ logo is replaced by one that is sleeker.”

The logo is just one part of a more aggressive strategy to dominate the category, that is being put in place for the rest of the year. Jaipuria elaborated, “We’re introducing new unique content and characters that this young wired generation can relate to, like Artzooka, an art and craft show that will deal with Photoshop, photography and stop animation, and Dreamkix, a show where farmyard animals form a dream league for a sport that’s really in at the moment – football.”

In addition to new programming, Jaipuria says that growth will stem from the digital explosion. Jaipuria stated that the Nick India website gets 1.2 million page views a month, and they plan to build on that. “We’re going to take interactivity to a whole new level, by letting kids communicate with each other or drop us a line on the message board. It’ll be almost like another safe social networking site,” said the general manager. The website will also become a revenue stream when it’s offered as one of the various media advertisers can use to connect with kids, in a package deal developed for their requirements in the third aspect of the expansion plan. “The focus is on going beyond vanilla advertising to providing customised brand solutions to our advertisers," said Jaipuria. "For example, last quarter, we had the “Pak Pak Pakao” that ran for Perfetti and the Horlicks Nick Carnival that took place in four cities and took kids engagement level with Horlicks to another level.” Retail visibility will also be reinforced with the introduction of new Dora and Ninja products to add to the thirty categories and 500 SKUs already on shelves.