Khan versus Khan

Dish TV’s new campaign presents Shahrukh in a new avatar to take on Tata Sky’s Aamir

You could call it the clash of the titans. Tata Sky’s innovative use of its brand ambassador Aamir Khan as a ventriloquist, aging taxi driver, family man and puppet (remember the actor’s man-woman act in the first of his commercials for the DTH operator last year) has indeed made rivals sit up and take notice of it.

That is why competitor Dish TV has also decided to do away with the mundane and present its brand ambassador Shahrukh Khan in a different avatar. He appears as a 75-year-old man in Dish’s new campaign Ghar Aayi Zindagi.

The slugfest is understandable. Despite mounting losses (the company had a net loss of Rs 476 crore in the last financial year), Dish hopes to cross the seven-million-mark in terms of subscribers by the end of this financial year. Its current subscriber base is 6.3 million.

Tata Sky, on the other hand, has a subscriber base of 4.5 million and has been growing fast.

According to industry estimates, there are 17-18 million DTH subscribers in the country. Not a large figure considering that India has over 75 million cable and satellite homes.

In a market that is choc-a-bloc with seven players, Dish realises that ads that can cut through the clutter will help it stand out in the crowd. If that means having to do something unusual with its brand ambassador, so be it. “Like FMCG brands, where consumers gravitate towards one for personal gratification, we aim to position Dish TV through Shahrukh as a brand that buyers can trust,” says Salil Kapoor, chief operating officer, Dish TV.

This is the first time in six years that Dish TV has embarked on a brand rejig with an eight-week-long campaign that includes two new commercials with Khan supported by a clutch of print and radio advertisements. This need for change, explains Kapoor, was necessary in order to build an emotional connect with consumers - something that was missing in its earlier campaigns.

Says Sudhan Deo, investment director at media agency MediaEdge:CIA, “In a category such as direct-to-home, it is easy to fall into the trap of product advertising. This is a problem that confronted telecom operators as well a while ago. They managed to get out of it with some intelligent advertising. DTH operators are slowly but steadily realising this.”

Both Tata Sky and Dish seem to be taking a cue from this insight. Never mind if the acting skills of their brand ambassador are put to the test time and again, they are up to to it, in fact, even enjoying it. Says Vikram Mehra, chief marketing officer, Tata Sky, “It’s a pleasure working with Aamir. He is involved in the nitty-gritty of every ad. It’s fun because he lives the brand.”

So far, Tata Sky has released four campaigns with Aamir since taking him on as their brand ambassador in 2008. Clearly, the DTH operator is hardly dissappointed with the show the versatile actor has put up.

Now it’s Shahrukh’s turn to wow audiences with his histrionics. Says Kapoor, “It wasn’t easy giving up a message as strong as ‘Wish Karo, Dish Karo’, but we were clear we wanted to establish Dish TV as a brand that a family can rely on.” These communication changes will be backed by Dish’s investments in back-end infrastructure. “That is an on-going process,” says Kapoor.

There is no doubt that the DTH industry is growing. According to a FICCI-KPMG report, digital pay TV households including digital cable, DTH, IPTV etc is slated to grow at a compounded annual growth rate CAGR) of 35.4 per cent by 2013.

That’s an opportunity Dish, Tata Sky and the five others don’t want to miss out.