Sandhya Times turns 30; launches ad campaign

The Hindi language tabloid from Bennett Coleman & Co., on completing 30 years of its existence, launches an ad campaign and eyes new markets

The Hindi tabloid from Bennett Coleman & Co. (BCCL), Sandhya Times, recently completed 30 years of its existence. The Delhi based afternoon tabloid, which had undergone a makeover in July, plans to expand its presence in the newer markets and business areas that have come up in Delhi in the recent times.

Also, to mark its 30th anniversary, the tabloid has come out with a new ad campaign which talks about the brand as 'Shaam ka chatakdaar naashta'. The campaign has been designed in-house by the marketing and design team of the tabloid. The creative brief given to the team was to capture the key attributes of the brand - the differentiated content and reading habits of its TG (target group). Also, the brand campaign aims to capture the look and feel of the brand and showcase the life of the core TG, the trader and businessmen segment.

The campaign will go on for a few weeks and will be carried in Nav Bharat Times, Delhi edition, along with other trade publications in January.

Ranjeet Kate, director, Times language business (BCCL), says, "Recently (in June), we re-engineered the product to provide wholesome entertainment and fast spicy news. At the same time, there is a greater focus on the core TG of the newspaper, which includes traders and businessmen in the age group of 22-40 years. This has been necessitated by the fact that in Delhi, the commuter culture never really picked up. Even with the coming of the Delhi Metro, there is no real pick up of afternoon dailies."

In June, the tabloid changed its masthead, witnessed a design makeover and added two new pages, called Business Mantra, that give hyper-local business news on the trade and markets of Delhi. The newspaper has listed about 300 markets in Delhi and it tries to bring forth their issues and concerns, besides the regular entertainment.

He adds that the tabloid has enjoyed a strong presence in old Delhi - Daryaganj, Chandni Chowk, Sadar Bazaar, Subzi Mandi, Civil Lines and Malkaganj - and the Ring Road areas, and it now plans to increase its circulation and expand the distribution of the newspaper.

The tabloid comes out six days a week and its content mix includes fast paced news, glamour and entertainment, community news and human interest stories. Sandhya Times follows the cash sales model, with a cover price of Rs 2.

From a six page edition in the launch year, the paper has grown to a 12-16 page edition now. Mapping the 30 years journey of the tabloid, Kate says that the circulation of the newspaper fell in the recent years as the traditional points of sale for tabloids, such as traffic signals, were replaced by flyovers.

"Another challenge that we faced was from the TV news media, which was providing live breaking news as well as spicy content. Even broadsheets started providing entertainment and glamour centric content through their lifestyle supplements. That's why the newspaper decided to alter its content," he says.

Kate adds that the brand was unaffected during the slowdown. "In fact, after the revamp of the paper, the advertising has grown by more than 20 per cent over last year’s advertising."