As Radio Mirchi rebrands to Mirchi, Prashant Panday walks us through the brand's transformation

• Radio Mirchi will now be called Mirchi, with an aim to tell people that ENIL's business has now gone beyond just radio.
• Over the years, Radio Mirchi has diversified its offerings across music, video, filmed entertainment, social media, live events, storytelling, podcasts and original content.
• Prashant Panday, MD & CEO, ENIL talks to us to help us understand the brand's journey, its gradual transformation over the years and what this rebranding will entail.

Entertainment Network India Ltd (ENIL), the organization that operates Radio Mirchi is all set for a transformation. Over the years, Radio Mirchi has diversified its offerings across music, video, filmed entertainment, social media, live events, storytelling, podcasts and original content. Today, while Mirchi’s FM business contributes around 66% to the overall revenues, the other 34% is coming from the organization’s ‘solutions’ business. And to better depict this transformation that the brand has been in the making for years, Radio Mirchi is now becoming Mirchi.

The company is launching their new brand identity, signifying the diversification of its business. It wants to be identified as an entertainment company owing to its offerings rather than a radio company. The master brand Mirchi will encompass all its businesses including radio as a sub-brand - Mirchi 98.3FM, Mirchi Originals (original content), Mirchi Play (digital), Mirchi Live (live entertainment) etc.

To understand what this transformation means for the brand and the organization, we caught up with Prashant Panday, MD & CEO, ENIL to understand the need for the rebranding, and what it will entail.

Radio Mirchi to Mirchi – The transformation

While ENIL’s core business lies in radio, over the years, it has diversified its offerings. Today, about 34% of its revenue comes from its “solutions” business, which is where the organization makes use of its different offerings, be it activation, through original content, its digital platforms, to give brands a solution to their problems. While most of the planning is done in-house, the final execution is outsourced to specialized people.

It was therefore critical for the organization to communicate the fact that while its core is in Radio, it is also a diversified media and entertainment content company.

“The radio business is what has actually gotten us here and remains core to the company. It will continue to remain core even 5 years from now. When I say core, it means that's where most people in the company are currently employed, and will continue to remain employed,” he shared.

Currently, the organization has around 650 people in the radio part of the business and another 150 people in the non-radio businesses. Panday is however confident that the non-radio business will see the number swelling from the current 150 to about 500-600 in the next 4-5 years.

He also feels that the revenue coming in from the non-radio businesses will increase substantially in the coming years. “Right now, the radio and non-radio revenue divide is around 66% and 34% respectively. We feel that in 4-5 years, this will become 50-50. So if you were to see ENIL 5 years from now, you would find a company rooted in radio but also doing a lot more. So, the transformation takes shape in terms of the number of people working the businesses and the revenue profile of the company. And if I were to extend the logic to the profit profile of the company, you'll again realize that a lot of the contribution of the profits will also come from the non-radio businesses. So that's what the transformation is all about,” he explained.

What will the transformation entail?

Panday stressed on the fact that the work ENIL has been in the entertainment business for the longest time. “But when you are called Radio Mirchi, people just put you down as just a radio company,” he said.

So, to bring about the change in how the company is perceived, there are a few subtle changes being made. “First, we are dropping the word Radio and the brand will be called Mirchi. The radio business will now be called Mirchi Radio. The other businesses similarly will be called Mirchi Online, Mirchi Live etc,” shared Panday.

Radio Mirchi has also always been recognized by its tagline Radio Mirchi, Its Hot’. “We are now reverting back to this immensely popular tagline, only now it will be ‘Mirchi, Its Hot’. For the radio proposition, ‘Mirchi Sunne Wale Always Khush’ is still relevant and we may continue to use it wherever and whenever we feel the need for it. And we are now overtly stating, ‘Har Entertainment Mein Mirchi’. It is a bit of a cue to people to place us in a slightly different place in their minds than they used to in the past. So these are a few things we're doing at this point,” he added.

Communicating the change to consumers

While the transformation will be visually manifested through the new brand logo, how else will the brand communicate the change to its consumers?

“We have two kinds of audiences – our listeners and consumers and then our B2B audience, which is clients and advertisers. We have plans to reach out to both. But the thing also is, we have already reached out to a lot of people. On the radio business, we have a weekly reach of about 40 million people and I would imagine our MAU is around 55 million people. On the digital side, we believe we’re crossing 60 million people. So assuming that they reach out to 100-120 million people already, we have enough captive power in-house to communicate what we are trying to do over here. And of course, we also will be using external media to communicate this. But our objective isn’t to shout out to the world and that we are different. What we’re trying to do is make people experience the difference. And that's what we will try to do,” he shared.