The Viacom18 program continues to attract a variety of brands and is one of the most expensive television advertising properties.
“Pooja, what is this behaviour?” “Tuada Kutta Tommy Sada Kutta Kutta” “Talk to my hand.” These lines are all too common today. While one might not have seen Bigg Boss where these lines were first uttered, they may be familiar with the context. This really explains the show’s popularity. It started on television in 2006 and is available on OTT. However, it gained popularity on social media with its viral videos and memes.
The show, now in its 16th season, still attracts a variety of brands and is one of the most expensive to advertise on TV.
Pavithra KR (head – Of revenue, Colors, Viacom18), says this is because Viacom18 offers customized solutions for brands from all categories.
“There is no show like Bigg Boss that lends itself so well to interactivity with brands. It drives deep engagement through at least 107 days of the year. Be it a personal care brand or a short video app we find a solution for every category. These are platform-agnostic – TV, OTT, or social media. It is one of the most expensive shows in the GEC space. There is a certain premium that one pays to be associated with the show,” she says.
Paritosh, a media and communication consultant, said that brands always look for scripted reality to break through the clutter.
“In the last decade, the huge number of brands that compete for the consumer have made integrations, placements, and branded content in various forms a marketing imperative. They need ways to break through the clutter. With in-content placements, there is no other competitor. It is not in a commercial break. People can’t tune out of it as the brand communication happens during the actual story,” he says.
“The format demands repeated viewership. There’s a high proportion of loyal users. That enables advertisers to deal with different facets of the brand they are promoting. For example, they want to show a product in use and describe its features. If done in one shot it will look like a brand documentary. But on the show it can be done over four episodes,” he explains.
TRESemme, Chings, and MyGlamm were this year’s sponsors. These brands were integrated into the show in many interesting ways.
MyGlamm has been selected as the makeup partner for this season’s show. A contestant who finishes the season will be named the “Face of Season” and will have the opportunity to appear in the next TVC featuring actress Shraddha Kapoor.
Sukhleen Aeja, CEO of The Good Glamm Group’s Beauty and FMCG brands, stated that “…Bigg Boss was the IPL in entertainment. MyGlamm is the official makeup partner of Bigg Boss Season 16. We want to inspire viewers through our new range of innovative make-up products. Bigg Boss gives us the opportunity to make MyGlamm a household brand across India, especially since we serve over 20,000 Indian PIN codes via our MyGlamm App
It has created a ‘Greed Corner” in recognition of its collaboration with Dark Fantasy, Licious, and Licious. Bigg Boss is all about food, or the lack thereof. Gamifying it means that we open this corner whenever we feel we have something to offer the contestants. It may suddenly be able to offer dark chocolate biscuits, satisfying all their fantasies. Pavithra says that it could also open up to offer Licious chicken wings.”
TRESemme also offers hair spa services to contestants.
Industry sources say that a 10-second spot on the show will cost around Rs 3 lakh.
“Bigg Boss is one of the highest-rated reality television shows and has the maximum reach. It sets the tone for the channel and brings a lot of these brands onto the channel. The very nature of BB allows us to integrate brand engagements that are well and truly beyond any other content on Indian television. These brands then stay on to advertise on our other fiction shows as well. The show’s fan-following is such that it sells itself year after year,” she adds.
Bigg Boss’ popularity with the viewers is due to its ability to satisfy viewers’ voyeuristic needs with legitimacy. This is the same urge that drives many to pull over on the roads to see two drivers argue about an accident.
Joshi says that watching these contestants argue, scream, and patiently navigate through different situations after being placed in a house for an extended period of time can be cathartic.
“The platform takes voyeurism to a massive programming format. The reality is people are fundamentally voyeurs. Society expects us to live moderately. But through this content people can live vicariously. They can give free play to their repressed emotions and deal with human frailties like anger, jealousy, and lust,” he says.
“We break patterns and change the grammar of the show, otherwise the predictability gets too monotonous for the audience and even the contenders behave in a certain manner as they know what gets more eyeballs,” she says.
This season has seen many changes. To facilitate more conversation, there are now four bedrooms rather than one. The house is smaller, which can lead to uncomfortable situations. Salman Khan’s weekend episodes are now live on Friday-Saturday. He enters the house, not behind a screen. The Sunday episodes are now live, and there is a third anchor who provides information from the outside.
Today’s Bigg Boss was adapted from Big Brother. It is available in many languages including Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam across different platforms. Pavithra claims that it doesn’t cannibalize Hindi Bigg Boss viewers.
“Each of the languages is in very different markets and there is no overlap there,” she says.
Last year, a separate Bigg Boss was launched on OTT with Karan Johar as its host. However, Voot has discontinued it this year and only the television show streams on the platform. “The TV show is so large that we may as well capitalize on that,” she says.
Pavithra says the OTT viewing is adjacent to the television. “We see the audience moving in and out of these platforms. Those who watch the show on TV and want to dive deeper, experience it on OTT. OTT complements television. It is not TV vs OTT, but TV plus OTT. All of our shows are now platform-agnostic,” she says.
Linu says due to the nature of the content, there is an upsurge in the show’s consumption on Voot. “Bigg Boss is a household show for a section of the audience and has a regular following. Since there are limitations to watching this kind of content in single TV households, the consumption on Voot has seen an upsurge,” she adds.
