Close on the heels of donning a new sound, Radio Mirchi has embarked on an on-ground initiative that includes the hunt for India’s smartest kids across 13 cities. 24x7guru.com and Mirchi have joined hands with Aamir Khan’s latest movie ‘Taare Zameen Par’ to organise a talent hunt campaign titled ‘Destination NASA’.

‘Destination NASA’ will kickstart on November 28, 2007 across 13 cities. Khan inaugurated this search for India’s smartest children, where the winners would get to go to NASA.

Mirchi Activation, which does multi-client on-ground activities using radio as a prime medium for its promotion, conceptualised and executed this activity. A P Parigi, Managing Director, ENIL (Radio Mirchi), said, “Radio Mirchi is India’s No. 1 radio station, known for not just great music and great RJs but also for the way we are constantly able to match the pulse of our listeners. With the introduction of the ‘Destination NASA’ programme, we wish to provide a platform for young talent to earn fame among their peers and to make not only their parents but also the country proud.”

Sanjiv Gupta, Director, Learnsmart, said, “Through this campaign, we propose to reward well performing kids and also drive the values of a concept and fundamentals based education system in the country. The whole programme has been designed with the objective of encouraging students, help them take more interest in their studies and polish their online skills.”

Mirchi’s new avatar sees the station launch a new station jingle. Combining elements of hip-hop and special sound effects, the new station identity has been specially composed by the music director duo of Vishal-Shekhar, who have composed the music for movies likes of ‘Hum Tum’, ‘Salaam Namaste’ and ‘Om Shanti Om’.

Sujata Bhatt, Station Director, Radio Mirchi Mumbai, said, “We are absolutely excited with the new jingle, which is just the first step in a series of steps that would make Radio Mirchi even hotter than before. It was a great privilege for us to work with Vishal and Shekhar on the new jingle and we are going to increase the music quotient on our station even more.”

She added that the next few weeks would be action packed with listeners in for many pleasant surprises and an even better listening experience. “We did extensive research in the last few months and it was from this that the new jingle and the other new elements were conceptualised,” she said.

On how ‘Destination NASA’ would be taken forward, an official communiqué stated, “Banks of networked computers would be set up across schools for students to participate in the 30 minutes of online tests, based on the current curriculum of class they are studying in, specially designed for this contest. Selected 750 top performers shall then compete for the city finals. This number will be further filtered to 130 candidates (10 students per city), who would go through the last round of the national finals in Delhi, sometime in February 2008. Top 10 winners along with one parent each and a teacher would make it to ‘Destination NASA’ and have a special one-on-one meeting with Aamir Khan. The other 120 runners-up would be given with gifts ranging from computers to iPods.”

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