Harini has a scathing post on the headlines Now, Mumbai to get a no-nonsense paper…. featured prominently in today’s Economic Times.
Today it is the turn of their yet to be launched tabloid (why would any group want two tabloids) the Mumbai Mirror. 🙂 (words hers, smile mine)
“Bennett now has a good insight of exactly what readers in Mumbai want†– does this mean that so far they didn’t know what the readers of Mumbai wanted.
This reminds me of the ad / corporate slogan that Philips had come up with – let’s make things better – implying what? that things were so bad at Philips they finally decided to roll up their sleeves and do something about it…? The sad thing is, having adopted this slogan, they failed to milk it in any way – they could have used it to pitch strongly for their sense of social responsibility – we are concerned not just with making better products but also a better society… but no. A smart slogan is the key to market supremacy.
And now having cracked the ‘better’ scene, they have moved on to sense and simplicity
In the same vein is Hindustan Times’ Let there be light – are the Caucasian model types featured in the ad to deliver us from the darkness and lead us on to the light? I know there have been a lot of power cuts in Bombay but surely this is not the solution? And does anyone know if this campaign is on in Delhi as well or is HT content with leaving their strong market in the grip of darkness?
In this case, there is clearly no place for the prosumer – in a market where newspapers are vying with each other to tell the readers that it is their opinion which matters (your newspaper, your DNA), HT is sticking to the role of traditional agenda-setter…. They must have their reasons…
Incidentally, The Catholic Bishop’s Conference of India, the apex body of all catholic churches in the country, has expressed its displeasure at the way Hindustan Times has borrowed ‘Let there be light’ from the Old Testament of the Bible. Copyright issues can be rather complicated in this case…
Do you feel the way I do – that less slogan and more strategy is in order?
yup that “let there be light” campaign is on at Delhi also…if they launch in Bangalore I promise to buy their papers if they can get the light to remain on when it rains here !!
On a serious note a slogan is very open to interpretation specially if context is not clear…a generic slogan does not connect with any demographic group…and as brands try to be cool, by acting cool, they only show themselves as inept…most of them seem to be saying the same asinine things, selling the same stuff…so much so when you run into an unbranded soap at the retail shop, you choose it because its cheaper…thats why the Wal Marts and Dells are the biggest organizations today…they have realised that brands that deliver what they promise (lower cost than anybody else) are better than brands that overpromise and don’t deliver (in the mind of the customer!)
More strategy is certainly needed…..but what to do, India is a land of slogans only!
But TOI and HT really, really need to start looking into their own content before any of this. Their strategy right now is sell, sell and forget about content. Not too good, what?
In a spate of 4 months the city is going to get one tabloid, three broadsheets in addition to the papers that we already have.
out of a 14 million odd population, there is a single digit lakhs worth of english paper circulation. So what is the business model?
There is so much clutter that I guess advertisers have to come up with a line that atleast initially grabs the attention of the consumer – but the sad thing is that having achieved that (sometimes thru really silly ads), they don’t seem to know what to do further…