Local Newspapers-- the new voice of Indian Masses

A few years ago, Mohanlal Parwani used to mount his black stallion each morning and ride along the hilly terrain of the Vindhya and Aravalli mountain ranges to Sawai Madhopur, a town in the northwestern region of Rajasthan. His mission: To deliver the Rajasthan Patrika, a top-selling Hindi newspaper, to the doorsteps of more than 150 households. In the course of his nine-hour workdays, he always found time to juggle an assortment of tasks -- gossiping with the locals, running errands for many of them (for a fee) and scribbling notes about village affairs on a dusty pad to relay back to the paper's editors. All the while, he was sure to put in a plug for his newspaper whenever he came across someone new in town.
That's still the case today, except for one difference: Parwani's horse, which was becoming too expensive to maintain, has been swapped for a moped -- the utility vehicle of choice in rural India -- provided by Rajasthan Patrika as a reward for his diligence. A delivery person like Parwani "doubles up as a journalist and garners new subscriptions for us," says Arvind Kalia, marketing and brand communications head at the Jaipur-based Rajasthan Patrika publishing house, whose paper has a pan-Indian circulation of two million copies a day. "Parwani is one of our most resourceful employees."
Rajasthan Patrika isn't the only publishing house tapping the resourcefulness of rural India. In fact, at a time when newspapers are folding in other countries, India's media scene is admirably buoyant, thanks to the country's burgeoning rural, local-language newspapers. According to the New Delhi-based Indian Newspaper Society, India has 62,000 newspapers, with a staggering 90% of them in local languages. Indian news publishers are doing relatively well, precisely "because they've spread their wings to smaller towns," says Divya Radhakrishnan, president of TME, the media division of Mumbai-based advertising agency Rediffusion-Y&R.
But with nearly 80% of local-language papers having a circulation of less than 10,000 copies -- at a cover price of between 2 U.S. cents and 6 U.S. cents a copy -- they are not without their strategic challenges. The economic hurdles they face are familiar to newspapers the world over, especially at a time when so many other types of media compete for their readers' attention. But India's papers also must address home-grown challenges, like the country's relatively low literacy rate and poor infrastructure hampering delivery.
What Really Matters
Local papers are a hit with readers in India for various reasons."Language publications in India are doing well because of their connection to local issues," says Sridhar Samu, professor of marketing at the Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad. "First, they cover local news, which is more relevant for [these] consumers than national or international news; and second, they cover national and international news [insofar as it would concern] local people." The upshot for publishers is "an impression that the language publications actually care for their readers by emphasizing what really matters for them."
A typical, 24-page local edition will have the regular fare of national and regional news, in addition to eight to 12 district-specific pages with coverage of local events, spanning business and politics as well as social news and profiles of, say, village heroes and villains. There's also a large dose of reader-generated content that goes beyond the industry's ubiquitous personal ads. For example, in Eenadu -- a paper published in the Telugu language -- alongside tips on animal husbandry provided by a farmer in a weekly column, readers were invited during the state elections in April to write about their political opinions and grievances. The idea is "to make people feel like it's their own paper ... [that their] involvement matters," says I. Venkat, director of the paper, which is the flagship publication of Ramoji Rao, a media magnate.
There are also grassroots papers written and published by and for locals. A prominent example is Khabar Lahariya, or News Waves, a weekly newspaper based in Chitrakoot, one of the poorest districts in central India. Written in Bundeli, the local language, the paper's all-female staff has forged a reputation for investigative journalism and support of grassroots causes since the paper was founded in 2002 by Nirantar, a New Delhi-based literacy education non-profit.
With a readership of 35,000 in 400 villages and costing 4 U.S. cents, the paper has no glitzy promotion strategy like its urban counterparts. Khabar Lahariya's marketing strength is instead its bold reporting on issues concerning lower-caste communities, for which it won the 2009 King Sejong Literacy Prize from UNESCO, among other recent accolades. However, the main reason why Khabar Lahariya receives such kudos is that it is run by trained women from marginalized communities and it conducts (in conjunction with Nirantar) journalist training and writing programs for locals -- a vital step, many believe, in increasing rural literacy.
But Khabar Lahariya's roots make it an exception to the rule. Most other local newspapers are owned by large parent companies. Media experts note that major newspaper groups, whether urban or rural, are launched thanks to the deep pockets of politicians and their supporters, often businessmen with political ambitions. "Media barons have not only used papers as vehicles to support politicians, but to build their own power base," according to one media director of a leading ad agency. Two years ago in Andhra Pradesh, the state's now deceased chief minister YSR Reddy started Sakshi, a paper for the hinterland. It now claims a circulation of 1.2 million copies.
Whatever their origins, local papers often depend on the diversified revenue streams of their parent companies for survival. The media group that publishes Eenadu, for example, also makes films and has a sprawling studio in the south of the country, which it rents out to Hollywood and Bollywood producers. The media house that publishes Rajasthan Patrika sells outdoor advertising, mobile value-added services and a directory-listing service.
Weathering the Downturn
Like their urban counterparts, local papers also rely on advertising revenues rather than subscriptions and newsstand sales to stay afloat. Working in their favor are the rising disposable incomes of consumers in India's villages -- a phenomenon that certainly isn't lost on consumer goods companies hoping to increase the appeal of their products or services through ads adapted to local languages and cultures.
In fact, these locally focused ads have helped rural newspapers weather the global economic downturn. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, a voluntary organization of publishers, advertisers and ad agencies, while circulation for most publications has remained static, ad revenues have taken a beating. Over the past year, publications in India reported a 15% to 30% drop in advertising revenues, and while 60 new magazines -- largely Indian editions of foreign glossies -- were launched during that time, no new newspaper hit the stands. Even today, belts are being tightened. For example, hard-hit English-language dailies such as The Times of India and Hindustan Times discontinued their highly discounted subscription deals, reduced pages and downsized their staffs.
Amid the gloom, local papers have provided a ray of hope. "Our local editions played a key role in minimizing the effects of the downturn," Venkat of Eenadu notes. Like other newspaper executives, he claims that while Eenadu's circulation has remained steady throughout the downturn, ad revenue has been under pressure. Costing around 6 U.S. cents, the Hyderabad-based publication -- in business for more than three decades -- has more than 20 district editions in Andhra Pradesh as well asin neighboring Bangalore and Chennai. Eenadu also has three separate editions in the densely populated cities of Hyderabad, Vijaywada and Tirupati. The paper, which refers to itself as "the heart and soul" of the state, has a total circulation of 1.4 million copies, with 66% sold in rural areas.
But as marketing budgets continue to be squeezed, advertisers are scrutinizing their spending in local language papers more closely than ever while hunting for more ways to reach consumers. Unlike in other parts of the world, however, the battle for advertisers' budgets is not as intense between offline, print publishers and their online rivals. Internet adoption in India is still relatively low. In a country with a population of 1.2 billion and growing, there are only 55.5 million Internet users. Meanwhile, there are 376 million mobile subscribers -- yet only 15% to 20% of all handsets are Internet-enabled.
Instead, television is posing the biggest threat to local language papers. In India, 125 million households own a television, and 80 million of that total have cable or satellite service. According to TAM, Nielsen's television viewership rating arm, rural penetration of television is 65 million homes -- or over 50%. Until 1990, television in India included only the state-owned channel Doordarshan. However, subsequent liberalization and reforms opened up the staid media market, and nearly 400 channels now beam TV programs into homes, including India-specific, regional channels launched by foreign media heavyweights like Rupert Murdoch, Turner Broadcasting and Viacom. In the last two years, in fact, Rupert Murdoch's Star has acquired or launched over a dozen regional channels in Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi and a range of other languages.
According to Arun Tyagi, vice-president of media at Mumbai-based Reliance ADA Group, television is giving newspapers a run for their money in rural areas. "It's not print that clicks in rural areas," he says. Reliance ADA, which has interests ranging from power and entertainment to telecom and capital markets, is one of the biggest buyers of rural media. "We just don't consider print when we want to promote products outside big cities and towns."
That makes it even more urgent for the local papers to reduce their dependency on advertisers by extending their brand portfolios in a much different way than their urban counterparts. One way, Samu and others point out, is to build a "brand community" around a publication. Brand communities have been an important part of the marketing strategy at Marathi daily Lokmat, which was founded by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a freedom fighter who rebelled against colonial British rule nearly a century ago. "The urban-rural divide is not distinguished by markets but by lifestyle," says Jwalant Swaroop, director of advertising and business development at Lokmat, which is based in Nagur,in the western state of Maharashtra. For that reason, the paperhas spent the past 10 years growing its community platform -- a club aimed at three different segments: women, youth and children. For an annual fee of US$4, the paper's 500,000 "members" are entitled to free medical checkups, passes for cultural programs and invitations to product-sampling events run by consumer goods companies. Swaroop says these communities help Lokmat to retain current readers and capture new ones.
Not-so-hot off the Press
While advertising is one ongoing challenge, distribution is another -- especially given the poor state of infrastructure in rural regions. Typically, publications in India hire distributors in urban areas to deliver newspapers to homes by 7:00 a.m. or earlier. Agents and sub-agents like Patrika's Parwani are recruited for smaller towns and villages. Until a few years ago, rural areas received what publishing houses referred to as a dak or mofussil edition. Each day, these editions needed to be published earlier than the others to accommodate the long hours necessary to transport them to their readers.
But with the increasing presence of television and rising print competition, newspapers have more recently begun moving closer to their customers. One example is the Dainik Bhaskar group in Bhopal, in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. Its brand stable includes 42 editions of Dainik Bhaskar (one ofthe most-read Hindi news dailies), Business Bhaskar and Gujarati daily Divya Bhaskar. It also has Daily News & Analysis, an English paper published under a joint venture with local partner Zee. The group's language papers are now printed in 40 locations, compared with 13 a few years ago. The strategy has helped shrink average delivery times from seven hours to four hours, and papers are now supplied within a 200-kilometer radius of where they are printed, instead of the previous 350 kilometers.
"The dak edition is no longer an inferior paper," says Girish Agarwal, director of the Bhaskar group. The group's flagship paper now has offices in every district in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, with a fleet of reporters. The expansion has clearly had a positive impact on circulation: 35% of its total circulation of five million is sold outside of the major cities. The group wants to expand further and is finalizing plans for a public offering on the stock market.
But the biggest challenge confronting local papers -- illiteracy -- still looms large. According to government statistics, the national literacy rate is around 60%; the rural average is 50%. While some argue that local publications increase literacy in the local language, others disagree. "Editions in local languages don't mean the papers are touching rural households," says Ravi Kiran, the Mumbai-based CEO (South Asia) and emerging market leader for specialist solutions at Starcom MediaVest, a media conglomerate in Chicago. "It's not just about reaching the hinterland. What are newspapers doing to encourage reading habits? Growth [of these publications] will be challenged."

 

Passionate About India: MAHATMA GANDHI, THE ULTIMATE MARKETING GURU!

Passionate About India: MAHATMA GANDHI, THE ULTIMATE MARKETING GURU!: "Gandhi has been my favourite for seminars on leadership and management for years! In fact, in the last chapter of my first book Count Your C..."

HOLISTIC MARKETING

Holistic Marketing Concept
In the new marketing environment, companies wonder how to operate & compete. Marketers in the current age are increasingly recognising the need to have a more complete & cohesive approach that goes beyond traditional application of marketing concepts. This concept is based on the development, design and implementation of marketing programs, processes and activities that recognise their breadth and inter-dependencies. Holistic Marketing recognises that “everything matters” with marketing - and that a broad integrated perspective is often necessary. The important components are :
a.    Integrated Marketing,
b.    Internal Marketing,
c.     Relationship Marketing,
d.    Social Responsibility Marketing.

The Holistic Marketing Concept is an approach to marketing that seeks to recognise & reconcile the scope & complexities of various marketing processes.nit
 Integrated Marketing

One of the major tasks of marketers is to “integrate” all the marketing activities & programmes like “creating”, “communicating” & “delivering” value to the customers. The marketing programme consists of various decisions on value-enhancing marketing activities that can be used. The Famous Marketing Mix – the Four Ps, as devised by McCarthy constitute the traditional marketing activities in four broad groups as given below in details :
1.    Products – Design, Features, Brand Name, Models, Style, Appearance, Quality, Warranty, Package (design, type, material, size, appearance & labelling), Service ( pre-sale, after sale, service standards, service charges), Returns.
2.    Price – Pricing Policies, List Price, Margins, Discounts, Rebates, Terms of Delivery, Payment Terms, Credit Terms, Instalment Purchase Facility, Resale Price, Maintenance prices.
3.    Place – Channels of Distribution (channel design, types of intermediaries, location of outlets, channel remuneration, dealer-principle relation, etc.), Physical Distribution (transportation, warehousing, inventory levels, order processing, etc.)
4.    Promotion – Personal Selling, Selling Expertise, Size of Sales Force, Quality of Sales Force, and Marketing Communications - Advertising (media-mix, media vehicles, and programmes), sales promotions, publicity & public relations, direct & interactive marketing).
Now, these traditional concepts of Four Ps represent the sellers’ view of the marketing tools available to influence buyers. In holistic marketing one has to see also the buyers’ point of view, where each of these tools will deliver the customers’ benefit or value. Robert Lauterborn suggested the buyers’ Four Cs as follows :

Product = Customer Solution	Price = Customer Cost
Place = Convenience	Promotion = Communication

Thus the successful companies are those who can meet (1) customer needs (2) economically, (3) conveniently & (4) with effective communication. Two broad concepts of integrated marketing are as follows :
1.    Several different marketing activities are used to create, communicate & deliver customer value,
2.    All marketing activities coordinated to maximise their joint efforts.
Or in other words, the design & implementation of one activity is done with all other activities in mind. The business of running a successful organisation is to integrate the system for management of demand, resources & network. Integrated marketing communication is a case in point.

Internal Marketing

Internal marketing ensures that everyone in the organisation adopts appropriate marketing principles and the top management should see it happen. This is the management task of hiring, training & motivating the employees to serve the customers well. Smart & successful companies understand that there is as much activity outside the company as inside. For it makes no sense to promise excellent services before the company’s service staff is ready to provide. Internal marketing must happen in two levels as follows :
1.    At the first level, all the marketing functions like, sales force, market research, customer service, product management, advertising, etc. must go together, i.e., all the personnel should work in tandem or unison for  common goal.
2.    At the second level, “marketing” must be embraced by other departments for a common goal of the organisation. All the relevant functional departments like Finance, HR, Operations, Logistics, Systems, etc. must coordinate each other to have a marketing orientation. Only trying to meet individual department’s target & norms and not supporting the marketing objectives will take the company nowhere. One has to bear in mind that it’s marketing that earns revenue.
Internal marketing requires that everyone in the organisation buy into the concepts & goals of marketing, and engage themselves in selecting, creating, communicating & delivering customer value. Only when all the employees realise that their jobs are to create, serve & satisfy the customers does the company become an effective marketer.

Relationship Marketing

The development of deep, enduring relationships with all the people or firms involved directly or indirectly in the firm’s marketing activities is appearing as a key goal; of marketing. This is the concept of Relationship marketing – it aims at building mutually satisfying long-term relationships with key parties like customers, financiers, suppliers, distributors & of course the stakeholders, in order to earn & retain their business. It also builds strong economic, technical & social binding amongst the parties. There are four key constituents of marketing are :
1.    Customers
2.    Employees
3.    Marketing Partners : Channels, Suppliers, Distributors, Dealers, Retailers, Agencies, etc.
4.    Financial Community : Shareholders, Stakeholders, Financiers, Investors, Analysts, etc.
5.    Another key constituent is the Society : well-wishers, scientists, professors, environmentalists.
The ultimate goal of relationship marketing is the building of a unique company asset called a marketing network, which consists of the company & its supporting stakeholders as listed above with whom it has built manual profit relationships. Interestingly, today, the competition is not between companies as such, but between the carefully built marketing networks – whoever has a better network wins. So the principle is simple – build an effective network, & the profits will follow. But the practice is not so. The development & building of a strong relationship requires a deep understanding of the capabilities & resources of different groups as well as their needs, goals & desires. Relationship marketing involves the right kind of relationships with right constituent groups, like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) with customers, Partner Relationship Management (PRM) with other partners. Since these being separate subjects themselves, are beyond the scope of this article.

Social Responsibility Marketing

Holistic marketing incorporates social responsibility marketing. This involves broader concerns of the society at large, like social, legal, ethical & environmental in the context of marketing activities. Companies operate in a society, and so do their customers and hence they should never forget its contribution to the company. It requires that marketers carefully consider the role they are playing in terms of social welfare. Companies need to evaluate whether they are truly practicing ethical & socially responsible marketing. Several factors are driving the companies to practice higher level of corporate social responsibility, such as :
1.    Rising customer expectations,
2.    Changing employees expectations,
3.    Govt. Legislation & pressure,
4.    Investor interest in social criteria,
5.    Changing business procurement criteria.
Business success and continually satisfying the customers & other stakeholders are closely linked to adoption & implementation of high standard of business & marketing conduct. The most admired companies in the world adhere to a code of serving people’s interests, not only there own. The following are the most important factors of socially responsible marketing :
1.    Legal Behaviour : Companies operate within the law of the land, and they must impart the employees with adequate knowledge of law & how to practice them. We have Govt. laws, Society laws, and the organisations must ensure the employees know & observe relevant law, and restrain themselves from practicing illegal, antisocial, corruptive, anticompetitive practices.
2.    Ethical Behaviour : Companies must evolve & adopt a properly written code of conduct based on the social & cultural ethics, decency, tradition & legal practices, and ensure that all concerned are responsible in observing these guidelines. Today customers are well aware of the social, cultural, ecological & environmental affairs in their day-to-day lives.
3.    Social Responsibility Behaviour : As said above, the customers also want to know what the firm’s contribution to the society is, or what the company’s social conscience is while dealing with customers & the stakeholders.
4.    Cause Related Marketing : Contribution to the society can be enormous, and hence companies choose a particular area of society for a particular cause. The examples are :
a.    Health awareness - Heart Diseases, AIDS, Cancer, Diabetic, Obesity, Old age, etc.
b.    Running children’s home, old age home, rehabilitation centre, women’s home, etc.
c.     Infrastructure - rural housing, hospitals, preserving archaeological places, maintaining roads & parks, homes for endangered species;
d.    Educational scholarship for the poor & needy, higher education facility, Institutes;
e.     Treatment for destitute, food for the starving;
f.      Information legal & technical help during the hour of need;
g.     Volunteerism & Philanthropy.
The list can be endless. Reputed companies even have their own charitable trusts, and also have special cause related marketing plans. Cause-related marketing is the concept where the specific cause is directly or indirectly linked to the particular revenue transaction. The company has at least one non-economic social objective and uses the revenue generated from the designated sales. This concept is also known as Corporate Societal Marketing (CSM). The CSM can include other activities like traditional & strategic philanthropy & volunteerism.
5.    Social Marketing : Some marketing is conducted to directly address a social problem or cause. Social marketing is done mainly by NGOs, Non-Profit or Govt. organisations to further a cause, such as “No smoking”, “Say NO to Drugs”, etc.
The Holistic Marketing Matrix

HOLISTIC MARKETING MATRIX
INTEGRATED MARKETING	INTERNAL MARKETING	RELATIOSHIP MARKETING	SOCIAL RESPONSIBITITY MARKETING
a)Products & Services	a)Top Management	a)Customers	a)Community
b)Communications	b)Marketing Department	b)Partners	a)Legal, Ethics
c)Channels	c)Other Department	c)Channels	c)Environment

marketing , india , internal , social , integrated , holistic