The Times of India (ToI)(website link) has been trying to make inroads into Chennai, a stronghold of The Hindu(website link) for some time now. I was exposed to the war between these two news papers thru TV ads put up as updates by friends on Facebook and then by a barrage of web banner ads. Here’s my take on this story.
First the story… The Hindu is so strongly entrenched amongst the intellectuals from south that it is called ‘the Asian paper with southern accent’. The Chennai edition of ToI was launched on Tamil New Years Day (sometime in May) in 2009 with a film set to Naaka Mukka, a pretty popular song. The strategy to gain inroads was simple – ToI, now understood TN and was speaking in the local language. This is the very catchy first ad…
Though it won some lions, this campaign obviously didn’t work wonders. The Hindu lost a bit of readership, but still continued to hold its position. The ToI gained whatever readership it could from other English papers in South.
A couple of years into the south entry, and hopefully, tons of research and analysis later, some Brand Manager found out that the only way to gain leadership in South was to take The Hindu head on. Then, the ad agency – TapRoot (who obviously grew up on the ToI) thought they found a great insight into what the news reporting on The Hindu was like.
They also had a series of print ads… One of them below, see the other executions here.
Notice all the situations where they show, their take, on the reporting of The Hindu!
This ad clearly pissed off the new management at The Hindu. The reaction was swift and severe. Watch the series of 3 ads. They are good depiction of the ToI reader according to The Hindu.
They followed up with digital and print… One here, the rest can be seen at this link.
I saw the online banners of this print campaign by The Hindu. Almost everyone I knew, was full of praise of The Hindu campaign on Facebook or Twitter. I think, the admiration was more for the fact that someone was standing up and telling the world what ToI was all about. Something which they always thought and felt but could never tell.
Seeing the reactions, ToI put an end to the flack it was facing, with a very cleaver ad.
and this
While the readership war is still on in the South, I don’t think ToI will take on The Hindu as it risks loosing more readers down south than gaining them if The Hindu continues with the series of ads it started.
Some believe that Times of India has scored for 2 reasons – it laid claim to the #2 slot in English print readership in South India & The Hindu ad was more Times of India than The Hindu. The list of admirers include people at another leading newspaper. A lot of people think The Hindu’s reputation went down several notches as this highlighted the very public spat the owners of Hindu had (covered here).
Before I give my point of view, here are 2 articles on the difference in the style of journalism (a very good read) and the succession battle (great compilation of links covering the issue) at The Hindu that one should be aware of.
Now my take… I was a Hindu reader right from my childhood to my Engineering days (which also means I wasn’t exposed to their coverage on the Srilankan conflict and 2G scam which has put off many loyal readers). My general affairs knowledge was built thru the ‘put you to sleep’ kind of reporting in The Hindu. I still remember, during the morning prayer session at School, 3-5 minutes were given to the days news. Some student would read the headlines from the first page of the Hindu and that’s it, you knew exactly what was happening in India and around the World. You could spend your entire Sunday afternoon going thru the op eds. Some people I know prepared for the IAS examination just reading The Hindu and The Frontline!
As I said, I was a Hindu reader. Since I moved out of South, I have been trying to get hold of a paper ‘as good as’ The Hindu. The Telegraph in East was just about ok. The Indian Express had good but very little news and not consistent at all.
The real quest started when I moved to West. The Times of India was downright trashy. All it was made for, was a good water cooler talk in office. I found people from Mumbai were really good at absorbing and relaying contents from this paper in the office. I never got the newspaper wallah to put the ToI. My room mate got it and we had our own term for this paper – Toilet paper. You needed it just for that much time and that much news! (as an aside, I find this ad of big rock hilarious, at the 22nd second, the teacher can raise both hands, point to both the papers and say – toilet paper, toilet paper).
I subscribed to the DNA as it claimed to be good and came at a throw away price. Quick to realize that it was an unjustified claim, I moved to the Hindustan Times. Another newspaper which came at almost the same throwaway price. Frankly, I don’t like this one either. It is trying just as hard as the ToI to be another Toilet Paper. Its not there yet, but if the style of reporting continues, it will reach there sooner than later.
So what do I think of The Hindu vs. Times of India? I think The Hindu did a brilliant job with the campaign. Though tactical, it makes for a brilliant launch campaign as well if they were to enter West (I think that its high time they launched in Mumbai). Some one finally told the Times of India readers to wake up. More importantly it raised a couple of serious questions on the new style of journalism and what was being passed off as news. So as of now, from me, The Hindu-1, The Times of India-0.
By the way, I am still searching for a good newspaper in West (and willing to pay a lot more) and a good TV news channel from India.
