Hindustan Times lights up a dark past

Being able to enter your consumers' lives in a personal manner is what all marketers and media houses are looking at. To be able to converse with your consumers and connect with them in their hour of need and otherwise, to be able to let their customers know that they care. Last year Times of India had their whole edition of their newspaper in black and white to commemorate the terror attacks on 26/11. This year, readers woke up to the title, "Let's do something that words cannot' on the supplement and a tea light candle which was packed in to a big blue envelope along with Hindustan Times newspaper.

Speaking exclusively to Adgully about the initiative, Ajay Mohan Dang, Head Marketing (West & South), Hindustan Times, said, "We are a part of the city and after two years of this incident, there is much to be remembered and learned. We wanted the city to participate in this initiative and support it. We wanted to do a gesture that would show that we care and understand."

He further adds, "There were many logistic problems and the whole process was complex given the number of people this had to reach to. Given the cause, the newspaper vendors' community was extremely supporting in this initiative and ensured all our readers got the blue envelope safely by ringing the bell and delivering it."

Javed Akhtar wrote a specific poem observing 26/11 which was carried in the front page of HT the next day.

HT received a lot of comments and fair amount of feedback on social networking sites and blogs.

On one blog, its-mad-ad-world.blogspot.com, as a reaction to this initiative, it read. "A newspaper with something more significant that wisely worded headlines!!The line on the their main page read-'Let's do something that words cannot' and true to their proposal they did provide each and every reader with a tiny tea light candle to light up a dark past at 9.30pm tonight..A tiny tea light candle, signifying a tiny ray of hope for anyone who was touched by what happed to this wonderfully crazy city...I see HT in a new light!!It's always been about the smaller things in life that makes life worthwhile!!" | By Janees Antoo [janees(at)adgully.com]