TOI looks at strengthening language offerings; Why now...?

Times of India kick started its new year with tapping another market and that is Gujarat. The move comes after the launch of it's Bangla language news paper "Ei Samay" which took place little over a year back. Times of India has always been one of the biggest leaders in the daily newspaper space but off-late the group has been seen expanding its footprints, quite literally. Recently the group has entered the Gujarati language space with NavGujarat Samay from Ahmedabad. It is rightly said that every step is correct only if it is taken correctly and undoubtedly, being a leader in the newspaper space, The Times of India Group has fabricated a strong and respected presence in Gujarat.

Adgully with a motive to know more about the new step spoke to Arunabh Das Sharma, President at Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd. (Times Group) and also spoke to some industry experts like Sanjay Chakraborty, AVP, Triton Communications, Bharat Kapadia, Founder, ideas@bharatkapadia.com and Manoj Soni, Director A.B. Jewels (a local advertiser from Gujarat) to get an understanding of the market.

Sharing the thought behind launching NavGujarat Samay and foraying the Gujarati space now, Sharma said, "As a group, we believe in expanding phase by phase.

We want to establish ourselves both in the language and English space. I believe that there are certain markets in our country on which advertisers are betting big and the combination of the market and the language is what is important. We believe in optimizing our resources, going step by step and analyse in getting our market timing, logistics etc correct before entering any new market."

Well, TOI has been quite aggressive from last two years in terms of launching and entering new markets. Recently we saw the launch of Ei Samay in Kolkata, seven new editions of Maharashtra Times including Pune, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Nasik, Kolhapur, Jalgaon and Ahmednagar and one new edition of NavBharat Times in Lucknow.

Speaking about the estimated advertising market in Gujarat, Bharat Kapadia said, "The estimated all-Gujarat ad-market is around 650cr. NGS is launched only in Ahmedabad with a moderate circulation. It will take time to garner significant share".

Sanjay Chakraborty opined that its not how the market is, but it is all about optimizing it. Speaking about whether there is a scope for new products in the market (Gujarat), he said, "Yes there is always a new scope of having a product in the market, subject to it has its own differentiating factor, and provides solution to a vacuum in the market or else you create a need of a product like yours in the consumers mind". Kapadia here opined that there's always a scope for a good product; Gujarat market is affluent and vibrant.

On the advertisers’ front, Manoj Soni, who was one of the first advertisers of NavGujarat Samay during the launch edition said, “Yes I was of one of those first advertisers who advertised in NavGujarat Samay and my company had two ads in the newspaper which costed 1.5 lakhs approx. I feel the new entrant; NavGujarat Samay will create both confusion and opportunity for the advertisers. In terms of confusion, for advertisers like me it will become difficult to choose among the newspapers and in terms of opportunity we all will get one more platform to reach out to our target audience. Also I feel this confusion will end very soon as every industry grows and evolves by time. Like Radio and Television also grew from being having one channel to so many so even print industry is facing the same.” 

Also in terms of whether the time is right or not, Chakraborty said, "Yes you may say so because in Gujarat after the month long Religious period which is called 

Kamurtha where no purchases are usually done, it got launched immediately after that. The marriage season starts now and to top it all, elections are underway."

Supporting the above statement Kapadia also felt that any time is right time for the launch provided the product is good.

In terms of benefiting readers and advertisers, Chakraborty said, "Readers shall have another option and they are getting the newspaper in a minimal cost as an introductory offer for 6 months. Besides this the publication is trying to do lots of innovations and experiments in the editorial content too."

In terms of benefits, Soni opined that of-course it will benefit the advertisers because TOI is one of the leading and established groups in the print industry and will obviously have better quality and reach which will directly help the advertisers to build their reach with the newspaper. 

"It depends on what the new offering is and its effectiveness. However, it too early to comment," said Kapadia

"On the other hand since it is coming from TOI group which is already leader in English newspaper in this market, the advertisers shall get an additional economical combined offer to advertise in English and vernacular newspaper", Chakraborty added.

But at last the questions arises that whether the new entrants will break the clutter or create a clutter in the Gujarat market? Both the experts opined that though is too early to say and the excitement needs to prevail and market is never cluttered for a good product but is saturated for a bad one.

The Times of India is one of Ahmedabad's No. 1 English newspaper group with a devastating 95% readership share among English newspapers. Having presence in Ahmedabad for the past 45 years, who better than TOI group know the challenges and opportunities of Gujarat. Having said that, we at Adgully hope that NavGujarat Samay would take the ethos of the group ahead and add value to it.