Maharashtra Times brings its readers Bappa’s blessings

On the auspicious occasion of Ananta Chaturdashi, lakhs of readers in Mumbai and Pune woke up to the Lord’s blessings delivered with their morning paper – a first of its kind initiative.

Ganesh Chaturthi is undoubtedly one of Maharashtra’s biggest festivals with lakhs of devotees thronging to pandals for a “darshan” of their beloved deity each year. However, with the threat of Covid looming, the state government banned all public gatherings and pandals this year, while temples were closed to the public. Citizens largely had to be content with celebrations within the safe confines of their homes, deprived of an opportunity to catch a glimpse of their favourite deity.

With devotees unable to make their annual pilgrimage to their favourite Ganapati pandal, Maharashtra Times helped bridge the gap by bringing the blessings of their beloved Bappa to their readers’ homes. Maharashtra Times tied up with Lalbaugcha Raja and Dagdusheth Halwai Ganapati, the two largest Ganesha pandals in Mumbai and Pune respectively, to distribute their blessings in the form of kumkum and shendur with the newspaper. On the auspicious occasion of Ananta Chaturdashi, lakhs of readers in Mumbai and Pune woke up to the Lord’s blessings delivered with their morning paper – a first of its kind initiative.

Speaking on this initiative, Kaustuv Chatterjee, senior vice president, Times of India, Languages and NPI at BCCL said “Maharashtra Times has always been a pioneer in reader engagement with a host of innovative solutions. Ganesh Utsav is extremely close to the heart of every Maharashtrian. We appreciate how much our readers missed visiting their favourite pandals owing to Covid guidelines. At the same time, as a responsible media house we respect the need to exercise caution when it comes to social distancing. So, we decided to do the next best thing; leveraging our wide distribution reach to deliver Bappa’s blessings to their homes.”

Sameer Sainani, director, Times Response, The Times Group added, “Times Response has always worked towards delighting both the reader and the advertiser. This is an example of that – where we decided to bring Bappa's (Lalbaugcha Raja and Dagdusheth Halwai Ganapati) blessings Shendur/kumkum to our readers’ homes along with their favorite Marathi daily - Maharashtra Times. This way, we utilized the physicality and reach of our newspapers to add delight to our readers uniquely and innovatively. I am sure that is something our readers will cherish for a long time. I would like to thank our advertising partners for partnering us on this initiative.”

In addition to this innovation, Maharashtra Times had an active calendar of events to engage readers and advertisers during the festival, ranging from live streaming of Ganesha aartis from across the most popular pandals in the state on its social media handles, celebrity aarti streaming, Times Green Ganesha, reader UGC contests and workshops.

(We got this information in a press release).