Q&A: Rajesh Iyer, associate vice president - marketing, Colors

We had a quick chat with Rajesh Iyer, associate vice president - marketing, Colors, to ask him about the marketing plan for this season of Khatron Ke Khiladi.

WATCH the video of the "burning billboard", one of the marketing ideas for the show (story continues below)

CI: Is it difficult to bring the audience back for the fourth season?

RI: Khatron Ke Khiladi happens to be a successful format; people have embraced it and they've come back year on year. Akshay's back after a season's break and that's a big draw. Apart from that, the show is looking good. We've upped the quotient of adventure and stunts; it's a little scary as well.

CI: How about from a marketing standpoint?

RI: From a marketing standpoint, we have all the rigmaroles of the big bang launch. We have put together a complete and robust on-air plan. Colors also happens to be one of the highest reach channels in the country, we've gone to around 25 channels outside the network. We're also doing an outdoor campaign which is pretty big in 25 cities. A print plan will be rolled out on Friday.

At an on-ground level we're doing a lot many things. We're getting into railway stations, where the announcements are in Akshay's voice where he says, "Do not cross the railway track, take the foot over bridge." We've tied up with eBay where we're auctioning his jacket and his ring. We've tied up with Gelato where they're coming up with a special Khatron Ke Khiladi flavour of ice-cream. We've painted 50 zebra crossings in Mumbai yellow, so it looks like the "line of fear" which is the Khatron Ke Khiladi property. We're doing a lot more on the onground level from that standpoint.

The promo campaign was developed by Leo Burnett, the outdoor campaign is developed by film publicity designer Rahul Nanda.The idea was to launch it in the scale of a movie. MAD films has produced all the promos for us.

On June 3 and 4, we also did a billboard innovation at Mahim Causeway in Mumbai [video above]. Projection was done on a billboard in a high-traffic area, the technology used was 3D mapping with content using 2 projectors of 16,000 lumens each for the first time in India on a billboard (basically it is projecting a moving video on a billboard for the first time in India). The activity was managed by Milestone Brandcom Pvt. Ltd., with the key people being Nabendu Bhattacharyya (managing director), Hanoz Patel (founder member and managing partner). [Campaign note: The concept and idea was led by Iyer.]

CI: Have advertisers shown interest in the show?

RI: Well, obviously Thums Up is on board as our main sponsor. It's been a fantatic relationship, we've worked in tandem with them and they've also put their might behind promoting the property. They've used their franchise and real estate to promote it.