Navbharat Times adds another hyper local to its kitty!

Navbharat Times, the Hindi daily from the Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd platter, launched their new Greater Noida edition. An attempt to strengthen their presence in Delhi - NCR region, NBT as its fondly called, launched an eight pager colourful, infoteainment pull out along with the mainline paper. Unlike others in the market who cater to up country market, NBT concentrates on hyper local cities, with editions in Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Faridabad and Noida.

Speaking to Adgully about this concept, Aman Nayar, Brand Head, NBT said, "NBT has a strong foot hold in Mumbai and Delhi - NCR region. We launched these 'hyper local editions' alongside the mainline newspaper, to cater to the specific needs of each of these cities. They are a growing market now, both, in readership as well as ad-revenues."

Highlighting the need for this niche catering, Nayar added, "Greater Noida is silently marching towards progress, with consistent jumps in economic activities centering around the Formula One race and Noida Extension episode. Thus, with the boom in the region, Greater Noida has become a critical point of focus, hence we have launched NBT Greater Noida. The consumption patterns of people in this region are constantly evolving, so are their needs. Thus NBT Greater Noida aims to satisfy the needs of the readers, for local and 'customized' news and information, alongside providing an opportunity to local advertisers as well."

"Our focus is on development and growth in these cities. We plan to highlight opportunities along with weak areas, to initiate changes in these boom towns. A lot of our campaigns have been done in these cities to build ground-level connect and have yielded more than encouraging responses. We will continue with these campaigns in coming days as well and would want to be a solution-centric newspaper of Delhi NCR", he added.

Interestingly, post their launch in 2007, NBT hyper local editions for Ghaziabad, Faridabad and Noida cities had been withdrawn from its working in 2008, due to recession. However, in 2010, along with the launch of a new edition from Gurgaon, NBT re-launched its Ghaziabad, Faridabad and Noida editions. The No.2 player in the market, NBT has a circulation of about 18 odd lakhs copies, giving tough fight to not only its language competitors, but English 'biggies' like Times of India and Hindustan Times as well. With an AIR of 19.66 lakh, the daily has seen a growth of 8.50 per cent as against IRS 2010 Q1 in NCR, and manages to remain the most read newspaper in Delhi - NCR region.