ON SONG: (From left) Kamat, Ramchandani, Manchanda, Bhasin and Mohapatra

Glamour gurus have mastered the art of marketing beauty queens. Now brand brains at Channel V are mastering the art of marketing a pop band. With its newly announced girl band-watered down to five after a squealing generation of 2,000-odd wannabes from six cities wrung it out on Popstars-it's making all the right noises.

At the channel's headquarters in Mumbai, a marketing strategy has been drawn up to attempt to change the face of Indipop. For the channel, the 16-episode reality show is a huge promotional gig, one that, according to channel rep Parull Gossain "is bringing in hordes of letters like never before". The channel did not divulge TRPs, but Star's coo Sameer Nair claims "Popstars is the KBC of Channel V." For the band members, the win means a military schedule-photo shoots, diet and fitness regimen, vocal and dance lessons, a wish-and-have-it image-makeover-but one that could catapult them to iconic heights. The girls have already stepped into Cinderella's shoes.

The Spice Girls screamed to the world what they really, really wanted. Channel V's "fantastic five", as its creative head Amar Deb calls the new finds, only really, really want to play good music. It will be some time before their names will gain household veneration, but Seema Ramchandani, Anoushka Manchanda, Neha Bhasin, Mahua Kamat and Pratichee Mohapatra ooze attitude, vaulted out of anonymity to instant TV celebritydom. Providing the requisite spit and polish is a team of experts: Manish Malhotra is giving them the look, Shiamak Davar is teaching them the right grooves, Diane Pandey is getting them to tone their bodies and Anjali Mukherjee is telling them what to eat. For the girls, all this is a unanimous "dream come true".

"They have realised that what started out as fun is now serious business," says supermodel Nayanika Chatterjee Singh, their band manager, friend, philosopher and guide. "They have nerves of steel and the mettle to metamorphose into popstars," says Sandeep Chowta, one of the eight music directors directing the band's first eight-track Hindi pop album.

Channel V, which has set aside "a hell of a lot of money for the girls" will godfather them as "adopted daughters", handholding them for the next two years. The album, to be out by the end of May, will be very contemporary. Song-writer Javed Akhtar has penned the lyrics, which he rarely does for pop albums. He was apprehensive about the girls being just bathroom singers, but was reassured the moment he heard them sing.

For starters, the girls are already forging their own identities-Kamat is "live wire", Manchanda is "supermodel", Ramchandani is the "Indian face". "We were looking for a team that could chuck whatever it was they were doing for this," says Chowta. Sure enough, the girls have put their studies and careers on hold. They have also given up other pleasures like holidays, ice cream and chewing gum. "But what the heck, people on the streets are going to recognise us now," trills Mohapatra. "We will do anything for music," coos Bhasin. "Aspiring singers will now look up to us," brags Kamat. The band will have their first music concert-only for the recording industry-in Mumbai on April 25. They don't have a name, leave alone an album. But these girls are out to woo. And they want success really, really bad.