Branding The Printline

When Satish Mehta, deputy chairman of Indian Tobacco Company (ITC) joined The Times Of India as marketing director in 1987, he found the print medium dull fare.

It was a quiet industry marked by a typically Tollygunjish bonhomie. Theyd address other publications not as competition, but as contemporaries, he recalls. People played by established rules. Mehta decided to stir up the industry a bit. Soon enough, a startling caricature of Hindustan Times appeared on the hoardings along with a caption: Humpty Tumpty had a great fall!

That was first blood. Since then, the print medium has never been the same again. Today, editors talk of brand management and strategy in the same breath as layouts and editorial content. Because of strong cross-media currents pervading the industry, publishers are awake to competition. As a result, the industry finds itself in a state of flux. Says Mehta, now a media-strategy consultant, We are witnessing a stage where newspapers are trying to become magazines, and vice-versa. Publications seem to be striving for fresh definitions, both in terms of ethos and operations. What are these forces that have shaken this industry from its torpor? A look at the engines of change.

 

The marketing mantra

The growth-through-advertisement rou-te espoused by Samir Jain, vice-chairman, Bennett Coleman group, is a well-documen-ted one. Aggressive marketing has now been adopted as an integral part of the business. This is reflected in the rapidly changing market shares during the post-1988 period, says Siddartha Ray, who claims to have been the first ever brand manager in the industry. Brought in by Bennett Coleman in 1987, Ray soon gained a reputation as the hatchet man for the Jain-Mehta combine. I killed Dinman, Indrajal Comics, Illustrated Weekly, Sarika, and Times magazine, he gloats. We realised that while magazines contributed to only five per cent of our revenue, they accounted for 25 per cent of total costs.

Ray, managing director, SPA Group, a media consultancy outfit, believes Bennett Coleman had a headstart of three-to-four years in terms of the marketing push. We were willing to take risks upfront; like sacking intransigent editors, for instance. This was vastly different from the early days when I would get the last chair in the corner in any edit meeting, he says. The rules of the game had changed. Soon enough, everybody was jumping on to the marketing bandwagon. Marketing tools like price cuts, invitation price, readers accident shield and SWOT analysis became part of industry jargon.

A publication is now seen as just another fast moving consumer good (FMCG). But to the extent that it is a perishable product which needs to appeal to the mind, it has many more dimensions, says Deepak Shourie, publisher, Outlook. This fresh attitude changes the whole approach to the business, which is now seen as a consumer service activity, with emphasis on professional marketing. As a result, with sharper focus and a stronger brand push, profit margins of marketing-friendly media houses have burgeoned in a spectacular fashion.

The new competition

Even as the marketing mania swept across the industry leaving growing bottomlines in its wake, there was a growing realisation that the print medium could be a serious business opportunity. Earlier, newspaper barons like Ramnath Goenka and Ashok Jain had used their publications more for political influence than for any profit motive. Others thought of themselves as moral keepers of the nation, says Ray. All that changed when Samir Jain showed the industry that publishing could indeed be profitable, and the rejuvenating effect that marketing could have on a balance sheet.

Peoples eyes began to pop when they saw the Bennett Coleman profit figures, says an industry watcher. TOI profits are comparable to Telco profits. Its not a joke! Nobody thought there could be more money in the print medium than in manufacturing.

Now, business tycoons are waking up to the fact that they can make money in this industry. This has attracted new players into the print medium, especially into vernacular publications like Dainik Bhaskar, where entry is easier. This dynamic scenario has caused players to alter strategy and revise estimates, all of which translates into the flurry of activity that has been perplexing industry watchers.

The carpetbaggers

With more players wielding sophisticated marketing tools, competition is growing. As a result, media houses are encroaching on each others territories. Examples include Dainik Bhaskars invasion of Rajasthan and that of The Asian Age in Calcutta. An eminent section of market watchers is of the view that the blatantly predatory approach of the Samir Jain-led Bennett Coleman juggernaut is instrumental in causing shock ripples in the industry.

Newspaper business is essentially a regional game because of distribution logistics, but Bennett Coleman has been raiding territories with complete disdain, says the marketing manager of a business daily. After its significant advances in Delhi, TOI has now become a respectable second. Its the undisputed leader in Mumbai. Its persistent efforts at making a dent in Deccan Heralds effective monopoly in Bangalore have started showing results. Also, a Calcutta edition is on the cards. Besides, there have been numerous test marketing runs, and renewed forays in regional markets, like Navbharat Times in Jaipur.

We have brands all over the country, and theres a fluid give-and-take situation in response to pressures on bottomlines. But perhaps, we go about it with a little more intensity, says Pradeep Guha, director Bennett Coleman. To consolidate its hold over diverse territories, Bennett Coleman grants complete independence to local editions. For instance, the Calcutta-edition of The Economic Times even carries matrimonial advertisements! Its not easy to make advances if the existing player defends its turf, adds Guha. But then, even the perpetual threat of such an invasion is enough to keep the entrenched interests on the backfoot.

The tweezer campaign

But such dedicated dependence on advertisement revenue has exerted its own concomitant compulsions. The main cause is the sudden availability of multiple media options like satellite television which has resulted in both fragmentation (of categories) and segmentation (within categories) of audiences. As a result, advertisers costs have gone up. Theyve become more savvy and demanding. So publications are having to compete harder for advertisements to generate the required level of business.

Its not so much the shrinking advertising-pie thats putting pressure on bottomlines, as the dictates of the ad agencies. Earlier, good public relations could get you enough business. Sadly, wining-and-dining doesnt work anymore, and space sellers have to do their work, says Sajal Mukherjee, senior media director, RK Swamy/BBDO. Adds Gopi Menon, media director, Chaitra Leo Burnett, Till recently, press was being sold, not marketed. The space campaigners job was nothing but dignified begging. Now he needs to offer me something new.

So bombarding cold numbers doesnt cut much ice with media planners. Advertisers are now looking for relevant numbers. Publications need to sell the entire environment design, technology, reader profiles, income groups. The free sketch pen offer with Maggi might not be a sales promotion tool at all, but a response device instead, says Menon. Even if TOI has half the circulation of HT, but gives me double the response, Ill go for TOI. Very often, it makes more sense to go in for a high involvement paper with a loyal readership which is often widely divergent from claimed readership. Thus, for all you know, the letters to the editor hitherto ending up in dustbins might prove to be a goldmine of consumer profiles and loyalties for media planners. With advertisers setting the tune, most publications are coming round to the view that they need to sell markets, not media. Thats why TOI is proposing West Delhi, and the nineteenth edition of The Indian Express is selling Bhubaneshwar.

Tell us if Allen Solly has opened showrooms in Gorakhpur, urges Menon, adding, that might be a valuable indication for us. Today, a publication needs to deliver the right target audience to the advertiser. The more clearly defined your constituency, the better it is. Whats the point of a Rs 25,000-a-metre suitlength ad reaching an audience that cant buy it, says Shourie, whose weekly magazine Outlook, contrary to expectations, has carved out a large constituency of contemporary, upscale readers. No wonder correct positi-oning is the new buzzword in the print medium. In such a situation, the fact that consumer psychograpics can be better defined in print medium has been some consolation for industry players. But disturbing developments like people meters research still gives them insomnia. Besides, theres always the battle within their own ranks to contend with.

A publication is now seen as just another fast moving consumer good (FMCG). But to the extent that it is a perishable product which needs to appeal to the mind, it has many more dimensions,

Deepak Shourie, publisher, Outlook.