MUMBAI: Media agencies are busy scratching their heads as they prepare themselves for not some planning for a client, but to take up the challenge thrown by Sony Max’s ‘No Talkies.’

This ‘Guess the Movie’ challenge will see media agencies, buyers and planners competing, while also showcasing their acting prowess.

The event which will culminate in Mumbai on 19 September, seeks to find the filmy deewanas across three big markets - Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru.

Speaking about the differentiator this year, Sony Max VP marketing Vaishali Sharma says that the channel has stepped up the challenges and has made the competition more competitive. With the intention of creating a buzz for inviting registrations, the channel had pulled out all stops to amplify noise around the event.

Online registrations for the event took place on its microsite notalkies.sonymax.tv, on 19 August with total of three deewanas forming one team. Registrations were open for 10 days with more than 150 teams registering this year.

“We received an overwhelming response for our initiative last year and believe in going above and beyond movies to captivate our audiences,” opines Sharma.

It received entries from media agencies such as Maxus, MEC, Mindshare, Motivator, Madison, Zenith Optimedia, OMD amongst others participating.

This edition, all the participating teams will be slotted into different groups and they will have to compete against each other over a few exciting rounds of the games. The city round of the activity has already taken place in Bengaluru on 3 September followed by Delhi on 5 September. It will take place in Mumbai on 12 September. The finale will be based on the theme Bollywood.

Maxux, Mumbai general manager Mangesh Korgaonkar believes that the initiative is in sync with the channel’s positioning. “It is great to see the channel bring back the competition as we thoroughly enjoyed the last season and are looking forward to our participation this year.”

Agreeing with Kargaonkar, Mindshare principle partner Jignesh Ghelani says, “It is a kind initiative by Max as it is specially crafted for engaging with media agencies. It is a lot of fun as it provides us with an opportunity to let our hair down and celebrate our love for Bollywood.”

In order to boost the agencies response for participation, the channel undertook a range of prebuzz promotions. These were: setting up popcorn stalls in media agencies and also distributing banarasi paans to generate sufficient buzz around its B2B marketing initiative.

Last year the finale was hosted by the witty and charismatic VJ, actor and presenter Gaurav Kapoor. This year, the channel is yet to finalise the host for the event.

Although Sharma refused to divulge any details on the prize money, last year it had honoured with Rs 25,000 cash voucher. “All I can say is that it is a generous voucher which will enable the winning team to make good purchases at an electronic store,” laughs Sharma.