Jottings of an Ex Circulation, sorry RMD, guy

I was in the first batch of the Times School of Management in 1990. When I joined it post doing 3 years of Hotel Management from PUSA it was a typical move of a confused young Bengali who was not smart enough to join Engineering or Medical so from my parents side it was do whatever so that you can earn a living.

On joining I realized that, there is this group called BCCL and in its helm is this three siblings – SJ, VJ and NJ - who are trying to rewrite the rules of the print media in the country. My interactions (mostly in a group) were more with the elder brother than with their late sister or the then young VJ. In that one year, I heard and saw the little steps that were being taken to shake the company out of its lethargy.

I was told about why the Sesquicentennial (I am deliberately not doing spell check here as to emphasise the point that even now I don’t know how it is spelled) events were critical in giving a larger than life image to a newspaper group and move it into a happening brand category.

I was told how and why NIE was started, to ensure that the kids of the Punjabi families started reading TOI from School so that 10 years down when they decided to demand their own newspaper they asked for TOI and HT which was ' Punjabi written in English'. It was also explained to us by Buro Lahiri (sadly no more) the reason behind the setting up of TSM. As per him SJ realised that the media planners plan their media 1/4 by data (can be manipulated so no one really trusts) and 3/4 by guts and what he reads. His reasoning was, as over the years the students from this Institute proliferate and join agencies and take marketing decision-making positions in Orgs they would have a natural bias towards the group thereby making the sales job easier.

If these are not examples of being far sighted I don’t know what are. Ask any Delhi guy who is more than 35 years old and he will talk about the night 'The Boss' sang in JLN stadium. Success of NIE forced the competition to start PACE (and they have done a great job) but BCCL is pushing NIE to the next level in making it a medium to reach School kids across the world and not limit it to Delhi. Thanks to face book I know lots of TSMites who are decision makers and decide on Advt spends across orgs.

When I passed out of TSM I decided to join RMD, circulation to non-BCCl folks, and not the more glamorous Response (Advertising Sales to the aforementioned) as it was spoken as the place where men get distinguished from boys. This was thanks to a speech from SK Mehta (MKD) where he exhorted us to take the tough route rather than the easy. I realized once I was in that I was conned but that is a different story. RMD in the city of Delhi used to be all about getting up at odd hours to go to street crossings where 200-300 hawkers used to come and buy all newspapers. In the afternoon it was going with the magazines on Feeder routes.

Now coming to the main point of this edition of my blog as a rejoinder to Robin and Sen about distribution in the print industry and some myth busting.

Myth 1: Hawker decides which copy a reader reads. I say Bull Shit; this myth was manufactured by the hawkers and given by air by moth balled circulation managers who thought this would increase their worth. Tell me when was the last time a hawker came and sold a newspaper to anyone of us. Most of us don’t even know the bugger as he comes when we are asleep.


Myth 2: We circulation guys know where each and every copy of ours goes and who is our reader. Bull bloody shit, PCC (again started by Times group through Bimal Chadha) showed very clearly that most of the old fogies in circulation had no clue about their readers and even with the name and address in hand could not ensure that the newspapers were delivered at the right address by the right hawker.


Myth 3: Schemes help in selling copies. Yes it does but only because the hawker rotates the copies. Just by giving Tupperware or Bed sheets one cant increase circulation on a permanent basis. That needs to be backed by product improvement, consumer interaction and communication and old-fashioned distribution.


The third myth is where I feel the FMCG types who came in to print have really added value and that is where again the Times group was way ahead of the competition. In spite of the jabs of the old times that these Joote aur biri bechne wale kya jaante hain newspaper sales ke baare mein, they were the ones who broke the mould and brought in new management styles which are the norm today.


Regards,

SN

(Blogkeeper's Note: SN now is the Country Manager of a leading International Wire-Agency in India. He keeps a blog : 'Random Musings' at www.saurjyesh.blogspot.com and can be reached at saurjyesh@gmail.com )--

Whither Print ?

Having decided to start a blog on Print Media, I suffer from occasional bouts of self-doubt of a lover who can never be sure. In one of my earlier posts ( "Babu Boro Najja Korey"), I had put this question to you. This time around I decided to ask it of 2 LinkedIn Groups that I am a member of - Those in Media and Media Professionals and Managers. Here are some of the answers I received :

Richard Klicki wrote:

Print's imminent demise is more of a U.S. thing, where publishers here have been very slow to recognize ... or even ignored ... changing reader habits over the past 25+ years. I think European news orgs have recognized that and adapted their print products to meet those readers' needs; hence they are more viable and will survive in the Internet age.

Here in the U.S., you're going to see a dramatic shakeout as print eventually catches up to its counterparts in the rest of the world. What you won't see anymore is a one-size-fits-all newspaper that has been the norm for centuries. Big metro and regional newspapers will be more drastically different than the smaller, more local newspapers. But those who do not or cannot adapt quickly will die as the revenue stream continues to shift away from the general-interest newspaper.

Viraj Kalra wrote:

I think print is here to stay!

It might loose market share (as it already is) in most markets sooner than later but will it go completely extinct? I think not! It needs to evolve to become more niche and target focused and have online and mobile downloadable content but the physical paper will always have takers.

In India like a friend pointed out earlier - education coupled with bandwidth will keep print growing in times to come. At the same time in European countries like Italy, France and even UK (where education and bandwidth are not a concern) where I have most of my media clients - print is still mainstream and new media is an add-on feature.

Lastly, it is a habit thing... in the morning when on the pot ;) traveling alone in the underground, on that long flight; in the dentist's waiting room... print in its many avatars is your true friend!


Marion-Isabelle Muszynski wrote:

Dunno in India, but in Europe, print will never die. Even the youngest are attached to printed stuff. Print industry only need to adapt its strategy.

Aseem Malhotra wrote:

YES print has strong potential to grow but need to evolve a bit as far as content goes. Nowadays in busy lifestyle no body has time to read papers
With 30 to 50 odd page. Finding Once type/ choice of content from 30 -50
Odd pages is still time consuming. Now its time for News paper to be Repositioned like youth paper, students paper, Senior citizen specific paper, Bpo/KPO specific etc, to be specific Rather than mass/General choice Paper. Hope this will happen soon there will be papers, which will be TG specific rather than Masses.


Mike Jones wrote:

Print in India still may be or have growth potential. However, I don't believe in the US print will continue to grow. It lacks the ability of being interactive with the consumer, reader, user... With most communication mediums...users look more with engagement and being about to actually interact with its medium of choice. And because solid print cannot offer that...it will sure to slip in the future

Kapil Munjal wrote:

Every media type is expected to be strong in respective verticals. PRINT is going to grow in verticals such as Education and property. Classifieds are going to move out to an online free-free model; In India however, the literacy levels have to still catch up and coupled with broadband issues, Print in India is only going to grow rapidly over the next decade at least.

any further thoughts on this? keep writing in...

Sen hits back (with a kick in the 'butt' - literally !!)

Bravo Robin,You are on the home stretch.Just a little more "footwork" and the "net" is all your's! Someone with your depth of insight should not have been "slow" to realise at all.In India, we've shown a historical tendency to "ape" & "adapt" westren trends / models, roughly with a 20/25 year lag. Applies to almost everything, apart from the way our country is run.Why is it that "many" big newspapers are given away free (a la Yellow Pages), abroad? The cover-prices charged by most deshi mastheads hardly cover anything, anyway! So why charge it at all? Sandip has indeed very aptly mentioned his vendor's POV.

This reminds me of a very similar incidence (oldies like me are very fond of anecdotes you see), albeit in a very different product category. Those were the days when ITC, India's tobacco major, got to know about the possible bans on tobacco advertising. And they were naturally groping all the wrong things, in the dark. Other smaller competitors smelled blood & went on a launching spree! Rothmans King Size was rapidly rolled out aimed directly at the India Kings & Classics. Even VST, technically a sister concern, threw all caution to the smokes & ventured into the premium brands arena with their deshi vesrions of King Sizes & Wills beaters.

As we all know, the underdogs get major support from the aam-aadmi.So, the Rothmans & the other wannabe Kings got ample shelf space, visibility & support from the pan-shops.This irked the giant even more. To add insult to this monopoly threatening injury, BATCO, ITC's parent, refused to let 555 or B&H to be manufactured in India. Unless of course ITC could "prove" that it had the "mettle" to fumigate local heroes out of retail shelves!

Thus begun the great store-merchandising industry in India (that was 1990/91). With pockets reaching all the way to its pulled up socks, a huge & capable field force and of course many extremely talented top managers, ITC went to battle. Retailers all over India were mapped & put on street-maps, manually. Each was alotted unique codes & relevant commercial data was tagged, against each individual outlet. The exercise took almost 90 days & about 800 of us worked 24X7 to compile the data, digitize them on to a spanking new oracle platform & create tailor made reporting & analysis modules.

On completion, it was almost a child's play to locate any cigarette selling outlet in any corner of the country, with almost current data about its shelf-space, compass-bearing, ownership, disputes, offtake & what not! Then some of the most brilliant managers, including legends like KNG, Chandu Mishra, (Late)K Ramnath & Mehmood Ahmed, churned out a list of the "most coveted" outlets across the top cities. These outlets (several 000s) HAD to be ITC's & ITC's only! By whatever means. Now starts the similarity with today's 3-letter wars in print media! Outlets were first reasoned with, then coaxed & cajoled and finally "bought out" against huge contracts. I still recall the record sum signed up by the outlet next to Bengal Club, just outside ITC's Kolkata HQ. The ministry of direct taxes will summon me in as a government witness to sugnificantly boost their revenue, if I mention any of the sums involved!

After about 3 months, I was doing a round of a particularly "sensitive" market in Kolkata (as I was heading Kolkata then). Sensitive, as many of our top honchos used to reside in the same neighbourhood (rings any bell now?). To my surprise, I found a very "expensive" Classic Branded outlet, not having a single stick of cigarette to sell! Naturally I was fuming & getting ready to blast the sales guys. Somehow, I mustered up some courage (these sensitive retailers could get lowly ITC staff like us sacked real fast, seriously) to "ask" the pan-wallah WHY he did not have any cigarette to sell! The answer was, as you may have guessed by now "why sell anything when you are already paying me xxxxxx every month? My income, earlier was merely 800-900"?

So, you see, it's quite pointless to "ask" whether the industry leaders (advertisers) or media honchos "know" about the ABCs & NRSs' real worth! Who cares a damn?

September 3, 2008 10:49 PM