Coke Studio Returns (Season 2)

A much awaited concert….. lets hope it rocks like it did last time… Don’t get to witness such events under one roof…”Paki”s United

I’m sure nothing can beat the 1st season of Coke Studio, surprisingly I’m in love with Ali Zafar’s voice after Allah Hoo. Anyways 5 days to go can’t wait!

Waiting for Zeb & Haniya and Noori’s performance.

nice article….cant wait for season 2 to start!

Thank you for your appreciation farah … hope to see your comments often.

Awesome Hira u rock really….such a nice article.. i dont know dat u r dat gud buddy … keep it Up :):)

what makes you say history creating popularity?

@ yasir: hello yasir, there are a several factors that made me say that. the first being that this was for the first time we got to see & hear a perfect amalgamation of rock & folk, which had never been brought in the history of Pakistani music industry.

Second, if you’ve visited the coke studio group, there are approximately 6500 people desperately waiting for the show. Note that this is only the facebook stats.

Third, anybody who has seen season 1 would not say that it’s a repitition or it wasn’t worth watching. Legends like Abida Parveen & Tuffail Ahmed performing live, with some of the rocking pop artists, the whole world witnessed the Pakistani talent

So all in all, it has created a history making popularity

Welcome to the PakMediaBlog Yasir. Great to have you on-board. I guess “history creating” would be to do a show that was one if its kind, and take that initiative. Although last year the hype that was created by this show was amazing, but I personally think that the hype of the over all show died down after the first episode of Ali Azmat and Rahet Fateh Ali. In my view there were two reasons for that:

1. There was a 2 weeks gap between each episode which killed all the hype that was generated
2. The other episodes were not as good as the first one (totally personal opinion), and it did not maintain the standard as it could have.

Being on the planning side of Pepsi at the time when season 1 was launched, we really thought that Coke Studio might take over the greatness that Pepsi Battle of the Bands created at that time which people still remember. But this was never the case, and Pepsi Battle of the Bands still remains where it was.

As it is said that the execution of a concept is the most important, and the improvements can be added on with time. That is the greatest thing what Coke did, and it is yet to see that how have they improved on from last year. Another thing is that they are going on with the 2 weeks gap between episodes again this year, which is another thing that i want to see if it works for them this year.

@ sarosh & hira : history creating format i agree. history creating popularity – i don’t agree. If you like it and your circle of friends ( the 200 -300 ppl u know ) like it – doesn’t imply people like it.
Sarosh you seem to be working in media – do ratings imply the same? Did your tracking show that the program popularity is going up?
6500 could be the people related to the show or coke in one way or the other. What is that as a percentage of Pakistanis on Facebook or as a percentage of youth in Pakistan?
Personally i like coke studio, i saw all episodes last time ( online ). But here we are debating ‘ history creating popularity ‘

@ Yasir: Yes I do know that if talk about “history creating popularity,” Coke Studio was not a show that has done that. What I would relate to creating popularity would be the hype that was generated which really made the show sound very big at the time it was launched last year. The kind of 360 degree campaign they executed actually had the synergy as they connected everything that was onground, online, TV and Radio (I cannot recall any print media campaign for this, do let me know if there was one).

Yes I had been associated with media, and as far as the ratings for Coke Studio were concerned for last year, one thing that effected the over all ratings was that the program was spread on to different channels at different timings which really didnt give a consolidated picture of the whole program. Good strategy, but too expensive to experiment. But the analysis that we did for last year showed that the ratings did not really peak as they should have in terms of the percentage of the whole population. In fact, the ratings kept on declining either because there was too much gap between the episodes or maybe the audiences started watching them on the internet or maybe people just lost interest after the first episodes. The website views that I found out for last season were close to 170,000+, which was a decent figure. This is just a general figure which I found out and I might not be able to comment in terms of details, authenticity and unique visitors.

I agree that we cannot gauge a campaign on the basis of facebook alone, which has about 500,000 users as to my knowledge till last month from Pakistan, and 6500 is certainly not a big percentage even of that figure since we are talking about a mass brand.

In terms of the whole initiative it was a great move by Coke, but I am really eager to see how they build up on it this year and the years to come. It personally believe that even if the program is not as big today, it has potential that can be exploited at the next level. How I see Coke’s strategy is that they have been working upon the Elite-Mass Model where they want to influence the urban life-style and capture on to the trickle down effect over the masses. This is totally my opinion and your view maybe different on this …

@ yasir: When I wrote “history creating popularity” I meant the 360 degree campaigning they’ve done to promote the show. They’ve used the social media channels in the most effective way possible, till date, in Pakistan & facebook figures were just a glimpse of how they’re campaigning basically.

Secondly when I said history creating popularity I didn’t restrict it to Pakistan alone. Pakistani talent was brought out for the whole world to see.

Lastly, may be the figures didn’t turn out to be that well, what I’m talking about is the hype the show created, obviously through the marketing strategies they made.

Perhaps, you have every right to contradict to my view

@ sarosh & hira : I am not commenting on your views but trying to understand how you arrive at ‘history creating popularity’.
So far it seems that history creating popularity = 360 campaign.
@sarosh: since you are in the media field so out of all you should be very clear on the difference between hype and 360 campaign. How do you know it created the hype? How would you measure hype?

Hello again … I’m not sure if I am wrong here but hype as per my understanding is more of a qualititative measure. Creating hype in my view is more about generating talkability and excitement of something about to happen or about an up-coming event. There definitely is a major difference between hype and a 360 campaign in terms that creating hype preceeds the actual campaign to make it even larger if done correctly. Hype can even exist as a separate thing which would mean generating the excitement about something which leads on to something may it be a campaign or event or etc. As far as creating the hype is concerned, I believe that Coke Studio clinged on to the popularity of the artists that were a part of it, and bringing them together on one platform to play a fusion of music actually created that aura of excitement. The concept and the idea of having famous artists of different music genre actually excited the audience in my opinion which resulted in the talkability within the target audience for that show.

And as far as the ‘history creating popularity’ is concerned, I am not saying that the 360 campaign is leading to the popularity factor, but the hype that preceeded the actual show . It may only relate to the urban audience that was the core target audience for the show. Using the word popularity may not be right in this context if we see it and I do agree where you are coming from in terms of the complexity the phrase ‘history creating popularity’ is creating. And to an extent this might be an incorrect use of the phrase if we see it from a broad angle …

sarosh thanks for clarifying that history creating popularity is not equal to 360 campaign.
Now coming to hype. I have been out of the market so when you say it is about talkability and excitement. Were you able to measure it? is there a measure on it in the local market?
Or is it based on what you heard and read?

To be very honest, I would say no. As far as my knowledge is concerned there is no concrete way of measuring hype. I mentioned that hype is a qualitative subject so I guess we can try to analyze the post campaign through certain researches, which in turn would give us back a picture that we can use to understand. Majority of it I would say is based on what I have heard or read, which I agree cannot be a depiction of the complete picture. How would you rate Coke Studio as a program and in terms of the hype? Since I am not as experienced I might have a different opinion altogether. Would love to know your view on the overall Coke Studio strategy?

the ever best music i heard 1st time, thrown by COKES STUDIO. KEEP GOING. BST OF LCK.

Everybody I met and had a chat with today loved the Coke Studio 2 1st episode.

it was an awesome expression of what music is love, peace, freedom its so many things to so many people……
yesterday showed our culture, our range our creativity and the promise of a bright future !!
Coke rocks im switchin over
Go pepsi(musharraf) GO

@ sarosh: in developed markets there are tools to measure WOM (M=mouth and mouse) & Viral
As a pepsi planner i would have asked pepsi to put in few questions into the brand tracker to see how many people are aware of Coke Studio. How many saw it and what do they think of the brand after watching it.
I like the show and the concept. But my music taste is not reflective of this country where Abrar sells more than shafqat.

@ yasir: Grilling the younsters again!

I liked the Coke studio idea and agree that it was a historic event, however whether it was popular or not can’t say but it seemed to be the topic of conversations for quite a while.

I think it was the best marketing event we’ve seen in a long time the innovativeness beat anything that was around at the same time from Telcos to Unilever etc. (My view)

Perhaps we can say it was relatively popluar? What say Yasir?

@ tyrone: not grilling just trying that media professionals talk like professionals and not like a common man.

We sincerely hope to have more professionals from various fields here who would contribute articles that would ultimately help in enhancing everyone’s knowledge.

And I just feel…that everyone has his or her view (professional and personal) and one should just express it as they feel comfortable. The point is to talk and express oneself.

Heh,

You’re right we should be more professional in our terms etc but having the common touch isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Helps to keep one humble and in touch with the public vibe.

Tyrone

A great way to make a difference in Pakistan Music industry .Impressed with the guys effort

I so agree with tyrone on this some people forget that we are human were not some in sensitive robots (not referring to anyone here)
we have our opinions how ever separate they define us as individuals with our own voices and our own concerns………. Professionalism may be professionalism but it is humanity and expression that needs to be encouraged !!