DB's Divya Marathi creates pre-entry buzz in Aurangabad

Early this month Adgully reported that the Dainik Bhaskar (DB) Group had sent an intimation to the Bombay Stock Exchange about its plan to launch a new title in the Marathi language daily segment. Following this update around the second week of February the group launched an OOH campaign in Aurangabad.

The hoardings put up by the group at strategic locations initially had one man or three men who had their mouth plastered and with a prominent Marathi line on the hoarding reading - "Thamba ani Waat Paha" (Stop and Wait). After almost a week the men were freed of the plasters on their mouth and the hoarding read that "Dainik Bhaskar Group's daily Divya Marathi will be coming soon to know your preferences." Clearly the message given out to the masses was that the newspaper from the Dainik Bhaskar stable will be more closer to the people's needs and preferences.

However following this big sized OOH campaign, Lokmat, a leader daily in the Marathi daily segment ran a designed font on the front page of its Aurangabad edition, right under the mast-head, reading- "Aata Chalel Aapli Marji" which when translated in English also means "Now your preferences will be given prime importance". The Aurangabad market is abuzz with the news that Divya Marathi will start operations from Aurangabad's Shendra MIDC.

While Lokmat alone accounts to about 20 lakhs of circulated copies in the Marathi daily market, Sakal has grown in Aurangabad by 20% in terms of circulation within the period Jul-Dec 2010 vs. Jan-Jun 2010. The current net paid average circulation of Sakal Aurangabad edition is 241,929 copies. | By Prabha Hegde [prabha(at)adgully.com]