Cat got the cream

I was reading today on afaqs on the success of Meow FM, which is apparently a "womens only radio station" and the first niche radio station in the country. I have, on travels to delhi, heard Meow FM and the one thing that struck me was that it was extremely chatty. More prone to talk than to music. Ofcourse the talk centred on steoreotypical topics usually associated with women - relationships, clothes shopping etc. But what works for this radio station is pure differenciation

Differentiate or die. I feel I should create a T shirt and embrace this slogan. Its especially true in market which is overcrowded and the opportunities for differentiation is small. Thats the story of the Indian radio scenario where all stations pretty much play the same music and sound the same. Yes there are myriad types of music but if you consider the Indian milieu, if you're not playing bollywood music you might as well die. Some channels do play english music as a point of differentiation but the audience for that is still very small even in urban cities. The issue for radio stations is to cater to a mass audience and still be different. World space kind of attempted this by catering to various music like southern music, classical music and more but again the critical mass of all these channels, I feel, weren't significant. Meow's differencitation of catering only to women has apparently worked. According the article, Meow enjoys "a share of 3 per cent in Delhi; in Mumbai, the share is 2 per cent. In Kolkata, however, where it was launched recently, the share is 8 per cent".

In the name of differentiation, one might end up catering to a niche and that might be a risky proposition but as the Meow FM scenario shows, it might also work to an advantage especially with advertizers. As the channel is so niche, advertizers, for whom women are a major target audience, prefer to advertize on this channel as the effectiveness of advertizing increases. So more buck for your money because your audience is being appropriately targetted. Meow attracts advertisers who are interested in women’s products and women consumers, such as the FMCG brands, retail brands and educational institutes. "You won’t see too much property, banking and financial brands on our station," Meow's Chief operating officer, Anil Srivatsa asserts.

Meow in fact has gone one step further. The article goes on to say that because their channel is so niche, "Meow has a dedicated team called Meow Research, which conducts research on women, lifestyle choices, product preferences and the various aspects of a woman's buying pattern or behavioural pattern. This data is churned out every two weeks and will soon be made available to anybody – advertisers or media agencies – who wants to use it ". Who said advertising was the only way to make money?

Another interesting feature is that Meow has started a social networking site called merimeow.com which not only enables them to connect with their audience over web 2.0 but also, as most Social Networking sites require sign ups and profile entries, these guys get valuable profile information on their target audience. They get to know which dempgraphic listens to meow the most, what's hot, what's happening, what the buzz is and more!! Jeez these guys ARE smart! Infact on checking the site out, I was reminded of another brand that used web 2.0 very very smartly - Sunsilk's Gang Of Girls website.The Meow website has a virtual bazaar that no doubt markets women's products. Soon there will be tie ups with third party companies that cater to cosmetics, soaps etc and meow will end up creating another revenue stream.

A lot of interesting best practices from a radio station that no one took seriously when it first launched and which proved that differentiation is critical for survival. Read the complete article here

Also, I really do not want to say MEOW one more time