"The Times of India" comes to Chennai, and how! Jingles on radio, ads on TV, hoardings on the road - these are just the regular ways any product is publicised. The Times of India's publicity for entry in to Chennai has just proved that Times is indeed part of the intelligent media brigade.
Apart from the regular ways of marketing, Times is also promoting the newspaper, through events. Here are just two observations from a Chennaite who has got minimum media exposure.
Usually in TN, when we move into a new locality and occupy a house for the first time, we visit the neighbours/get the neighbours visit our house.
Times has got ARRehman performing live, for free! Those who need passes have to collect them from the newspaper's office. What a way to say "we have arrived!"
Today when I stepped out of the apartment building for the morning walk, a bright white and cheerful kolam with "Times of India" awaited me at the porch, where they usually have the kolam drawn.
From thereon, I saw this happy kolam announcing the Times at every doorstep! This is some work of SOME brain! Really, what an idea! the last time i was so impressed with a marketing idea was when i saw small boards tucked onto gates saying "Do not park in front of the gate".
The board and labour sponsoerd by a company that proudly displayed its name on the board. Fair enough. You take a social issue of warding of unwanted vehicles parking in front of building gates, bundle it with publicity to the sponsor and perch it free of cost on the front gates of buildings. all are happy (except few owners whose gates' paints were minorly damaged)
I wondered what would have gone thru the discussion when the creative team working on the campaign for Times had the brainstorming. 'OK so we are going to Tamilnadu.
What do tamils like? what kind of ppl are they? what do they do?..they like music, they like Rehman. So pull in Rehman. They draw kolams everyday, they wont be offended if we draw a kolam announcing times in front of their houses!..' and so on.
The creative team has done its work, will the product itself be as good in understanding us? It remains to be seen if Times of India can gather up the kind of loyalty that The Hindu has among Tamils.
Apart from the regular ways of marketing, Times is also promoting the newspaper, through events. Here are just two observations from a Chennaite who has got minimum media exposure.
Usually in TN, when we move into a new locality and occupy a house for the first time, we visit the neighbours/get the neighbours visit our house.
Times has got ARRehman performing live, for free! Those who need passes have to collect them from the newspaper's office. What a way to say "we have arrived!"
Today when I stepped out of the apartment building for the morning walk, a bright white and cheerful kolam with "Times of India" awaited me at the porch, where they usually have the kolam drawn.
From thereon, I saw this happy kolam announcing the Times at every doorstep! This is some work of SOME brain! Really, what an idea! the last time i was so impressed with a marketing idea was when i saw small boards tucked onto gates saying "Do not park in front of the gate".
The board and labour sponsoerd by a company that proudly displayed its name on the board. Fair enough. You take a social issue of warding of unwanted vehicles parking in front of building gates, bundle it with publicity to the sponsor and perch it free of cost on the front gates of buildings. all are happy (except few owners whose gates' paints were minorly damaged)
I wondered what would have gone thru the discussion when the creative team working on the campaign for Times had the brainstorming. 'OK so we are going to Tamilnadu.
What do tamils like? what kind of ppl are they? what do they do?..they like music, they like Rehman. So pull in Rehman. They draw kolams everyday, they wont be offended if we draw a kolam announcing times in front of their houses!..' and so on.
The creative team has done its work, will the product itself be as good in understanding us? It remains to be seen if Times of India can gather up the kind of loyalty that The Hindu has among Tamils.
9 comments:
Hi,
You are absolutely correct, Whenever I go to my uncles home in Bangalore, I would be loving to read the TIMES. How glad to have the same TIMES with me, for an year long (yes, I might be one among thousand of others who made one year subscription for 300 Rs. (sorry 299) with an acceptable trolley bag absolutely free. Who would be paying you for eating sugarcane.
I'm not Anonymous, I'm the one who always admire your Personality, Attitude and lot more...
Keep up the good work of posting comments
oh, so they also gave free trolley bags with the subscription? great!
would have liked to know ur name
Name?
What's in a name...
Doesn't "Anonymous" itself sound better...(jus kidding)
Sweet things in life, almost comes in little packages...
But some times, they also come in "TALL" packages...
-Anonymous-
Hello. This post is likeable, and your blog is very interesting, congratulations :-). I will add in my blogroll =). If possible gives a last there on my blog, it is about the Flores Online, I hope you enjoy. The address is http://flores-on-line.blogspot.com. A hug.
well, as you like it!
Sunday Morning: 6: 45 (20th April 2008)
The TOI was stuck in our rooms door handle (as usual the paper was voluminous... I bet no one can
even go for a quick glance of all pages)
My conscious and subconscious mind was searching for AR Rahman's Free entry pass details (because for the past 6 days they were providing it and I had the paper cuttings of the first two days)
(As it happens to me often...This time too it happened)
"Thanks for the overwhelming response in ARR Chennai Changing notes concert and the House is full now" - Said TOI
I was a bit disappointed, but never let myself down.
9:45 am
Called TOI office at chamiers road, Nandanam, 044-24342121
"Sir, is there any chance of getting tickets for ARR concert..."
"If you have the paper cuttings, we r ready to provide u, was the reply...."
Got my friends bike.... reached Nandanam in the next 15 minutes...
Got the tickets.... But I had also other assignment of searching for a good house for my newly married Andhra Colleague and we got one house too behind kasi theatre...It nearly took me to settle down only by 5:45 PM: (I loved to have a small sleep that day AN, so that I can enjoy the concert to the fullest)
Form there, I went directly to Koyambedu and my friend reached over there and we too started only 6:15 form there
The show was to start at 6:30pm as the invitations said.
To a huge surprise the whole road which was from Koyambedu to Aminjakarai was blocked, as doubted, every single guy from 6 to 60's had their passes in their hand..
When we reached over there by 6:45PM the Lathiwalas (aka police.... when they threaten us they get this name) the gates of St. George was closed and said that, no parking facilities were there and as they were not able to Control the crowd, they had to restrict us and though many had the passes they were not allowed.
Myself and my friend, were determined and got the ray of hope, when few of our ancestors where jumping over the Schools compound walls.... we parked the vehicle in a nearby hotel and decided to take the same route...
To our surprise, the Main gate was opened for few minutes and we managed to get inside... To describe this
Situation, it was really like the bulls running as fast on the streets of Spain....
TICKETS? Who bothered about it, they were unable to control the crowd (50,000++++)...
I was able to hear the beats and voice or ARR getting louder and louder when I was nearing towards the standing gallery.
I can still hear it; it was from "ALAIPAYUTHE".... The song that, I heard from the first was "Vaaji... Vaaji"
from the BOSS movie SHIVAJI, where Hariharan and Madhusree were singing ( & dancing!!#$%)...Though Madhusree was beautiful in a Long Skirt made of Black and silver, HH stole the show with a black and black skin tight Tee of course sporting his ponytail.
Then they were followed by Shankar Mahadevan, Javed Ali, Neethu Kumar(Bar so re mega mega...What a song!) Rehana(ARR's sister for Chaiyya Chaiyya.. Though Javed could not even reach Shukwinders magic, it was enjoyable), Legend with his master piece from Dil se (Dil se re... Dil se re...), followed by Naresh Iyers (Rooba roo roshini.. from RDB)
Karthik's and everybodys favorite from BOYS (Enakkoru girlfriend venumada...) (Particularly boys were very happy to hear this song and they sang along loudly….to grab some attention of the opposites.)
Shivamani’s Drums were the highlight; he used the Suitcase and 20 litre water containers to give a different sound….
And the Show was continuing, but my other half of the active mind was still with the Bike, which we parked in the Hotel… So we thought to leave the concert with some disappointment….
Hopefully we had our bike over there and headed straight to our room…
Finally, if you still feel that, who is he posting unwanted scraps, in our blog…. Then a big sorry, I’m working on my own Blog, which will be release very soon…(Till then if possible, do post this one as a separate blog , under “Chennai City” column…
- Senthil (scratching your head…I have met you once in your office with Ergo!)
Without your knowledge, you r a sort of inspiration for my (yet to come) Blog…
ok, yes i remember you. and waiting for your blog to come online. and i think it would be good if you post this incident in ur blog. after all, creating a blog does not take more than 5 minutes. keep up the writing!
Hi,
If possible, could you please have a look over my blog www.sforsenthil.blogspot.com
Thanks a lot for your inspiration...Hope to keep up the writing.....
Senthil
visited the blog, liked it very much. hoping to have some regular reading material from your site. Please keep writing
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