Subscribing to a new strategy

Well, you know you're going to hear from sundry telemarketers every time you get a new credit card. Banks have always sold subscriber data, right?. Now, you might just start getting unsolicited calls next time you sign up for a daily newspaper.

Explains Himanshu Shekhar, investment director at Fulcrum, the media buyer for Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL): "Newspapers have good databases on consumers, helping us conduct focused marketing activities and thereby reducing spillover."

HLL has already used subscriber data gathered by the publishers of Hindi newspaper Dainik Jagran to carry out promotional activties for its Lux brand of soap.

"Besides telling us the best locations to carry out the activity, it told us that specific stars in Jallandhar and Ludhiana had a high appeal. Based on that, we launched a promotion where Amisha Patel visited the homes of consumers which turned out to be a great success," says Shekhar.

According to industry sources, Jagran has signed a Rs 4 crore deal with TVS Motors, which is planning to use the newspaper's subscriber data to promote its Scooty Pep brand among young girls in UP.

Denying that any money actually changed hands, TVS vice-president (marketing) Prasad Narasimhan elaborates on the deal this way: "Since Jagran knows the UP market like no one else, we're just using their expertise to reach out to about three lakh teenage schoolgirls in 35 towns of UP to create an awareness campaign. In return, they will be getting ads."

Gathering data about subscribers isn't a new concept for newspaper publishers. Dainik Bhaskar was probably the pioneer, launching a contact programme with readers about eight years ago in Rajasthan. Although the data collected then was not robust (for instance, it did not include demographic details or income brackets), it certainly gave the newspaper an edge by providing an insight into reader tastes with regard to content.

Today, a diverse array of publications"" mostly Hindi dailies "" are involved in far more extensive personal contact campaigns (or, PCCs) with readers, collecting and collating data, and utilising the information to conduct below-the-line marketing activities. They include Dainik Jagran (which has carried out PCCs in Punjab and Haryana), Hindustan (in Bihar and Jharkhand), Prabhat Khabar (in Ranchi), Divya Bhaskar (in Gujarat) and Rajasthan Patrika (in Rajasthan).

The basic aim of PCCs is to generate a database of readers and non-readers of a publication. It entails elaborate location mapping of a target reader group, down to the nearest tank, park or temple, along with hawkers' names. The questionnaires, which the team fills after visiting each house in the locality, determines not just the size and gender distribution of the household, but also its income, literacy level and consumption pattern.

The fruits of these exercises so far have been sweet. "People did not know Jagran in Punjab until the year 2000. With the help of our PCC teams' penetration, our readership grew from 0 to 10 lakh copies in a matter of five years, threatening the market leader, Punjab Kesri," says Jagran editor and publisher Sanjay Gupta.

The success of recent PCCs only served to pique the interest of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies, who are always on the lookout for an edge in the market. And with such a good fit, tie-ups between newspapers and these companies were inevitable. "PCCs serve a two-pronged objective: selling our products as well as carrying out cross-promotions for FMCGs," says Arvind Kalia, national marketing head for Rajasthan Patrika, which has carried out cross-promotions with Ariel and Zandu.

Clearly, PCCs present a win- win situation ""while they subsidise costly contact programmes for media houses, FMCG companies can use the information to reach out to their target groups, either for sampling or carrying out specific promotional activities. In the past, Patrika has carried out cross promotions for Ariel and Zandu. Of late, HLL has tied up with Amar Ujala, taking information on their target audience of kids in order to activate markets for its Lifebuoy soap in eight cities of UP. Some other brands which have carried out sampling exercises using PCC data include Horlicks, Cavin Care, Kiwi shoe polish and Rasna.

Of course, the recent newspaper war in Mumbai between The Times of India, Hindustan Times and DNA only served to replicate this formula in the English-language press. "Until some time back, the newspaper industry was one industry where the circulation or distribution system was not evolved. There was hardly any need to do anything different. You just created a paper, put it into the circulation pipeline and expected people to pick it up. But now, there is a distinct need to develop or change the reading habits of people and, hence, the shift in the marketing gameplan like adopting this PCC exercise," says Sandip Ghose, vice-president and business head (west and south) at Hindustan Times Media Ltd.

According to industry observers, the interactive campaign helped DNA generate a lot of excitement about the product much before the actual launch. In a matter of six months, DNA's PCC team is believed to have covered about 3.5 lakh homes.

"It's on account of the success of the PCC team in collecting and collating data about readers that DNA has been able to rewrite the history of the media. How else could a newspaper clock over 3.5 lakh copies within 15 days of launch?" asks brand consultant A S Raghunath.

DNA is is now believed to have offered its databank to advertisers.

"We do have a tremendous amount of data with us on readers. While at the moment, it is being used for our own direct marketing and CRM activities, there's certainly a possibility of putting it to multiple uses by tying up with advertisers. We are currently exploring that possibility," says DNA's head of sales & marketing, Suresh Balakrishnan.

Marketers like WPP media-buying arm Group M, which has already used data from Outlook magazine for a Lufthansa airlines promotion, believe reader information from dailies like DNA could prove invaluable to companies targeting consumers in the metros.

"Although they haven't explicitly stated whether they will share the CD or give us the profiles of consumers, they have expressed their willingness to tie up with companies," says Alok Sanwal, investment director at Group M.

Clearly, publishers are creating as many headlines in the market with their valuable data, as they are on the pages of their dailies.