ByMr. Pramod Patil Mr. Amey KumbarMr. Yogesh bokade

PGDM (Executive)

The Times Group is India’s largest media conglomerate with its flagship Bennett, Coleman and Company Limited (BCCL) being the largest publishing company in India and South-Asia.

BCCL has history of 175 years founded from the year 1838. BCCL and its subsidiaries are present in every existing media

platform -Newspapers, Magazines, Books, TV, Radio, Internet, Event Management, Outdoor Display, Music, Movies and more.

With a turnover exceeding a billion dollars, the group has the support of over 25,000 advertisers, 11,000 employees and an audience spanning across all continents.

The Times of India was launched 175 years back with its head office at Mumbai India. Mrs. Indu Jain is current chairman and Mr. Vineet Jain is Managing Director of the Times Group (BCCL).

Name: The Times Of India Logo: Two elephant- strength Crown-Royalty Visual Identity: The Name The Times of India itself world

famous. Slogan- LET TRUTH PREVAIL

Mission Statement of Times of India:“Create & build brands with differentiated content to capture

relevant audiences and market the value of these to advertisers to help them sell and strengthen their brands.”

Corporate Goals :Continue to develop innovative products in accordance with our

mission statement, adding three products each year.

Core Competency and Sustainable Competitive Advantage:

A strongly dedicated and innovative product development team. Largest infrastructure for advertising and circulation sales. A strong sales team. Dedicated employees. Strong business strategies. The Times of India has wide range of brands in different regional

languages which cover large range of audiences or readers. Today TOI is India’s national newspaper with editions spread

across most states, which is complemented by its robust presence in on-line domain too through its e-paper.

STRENGHTS World’s largest newspaper brand and strong brand image. Easy Brand Recall useful in a competitive market with numerous

dailies; high brand loyalty. Weekly paper called Ascent is widely regarded as excellent

platform and also a must read for potential recruiters and job seekers.

Times of India-widely circulated daily newspaper. Largest infrastructure for advertising and circulation sales. Very good newspaper printing quality.

WEAKNESSES

Some people have the perception that TOI publishes more celebrity / entertainment news.

Very less distribution channel in rural and small cities in India. Less information about stock market. Late circulation in small cities. Lack in covering useful news for competitive student.

OPPORTUNITIES

Expanding organized distribution channels in small cities and rural areas.

Has a limited presence in Southern India as compared to the rest of India. 

Huge opportunity in Regional Languages space. Better usage and interaction with online and mobile mediums. Personalized newspaper editions. Value addition Digital space media.

THREATS

Tough competitions from competitors .  Competitors-Hindustan times, The Hindu, DNA, Deccan

chronicle.  Regional newspapers. Changing economic conditions because increasing rate of dollar

as compared to rupee means increase in production cost.  Increasing digital media growth.

India has emerged as the second largest newspaper market in the world by buying 99 million newspapers daily, according to World Association of Newspapers (WAN).

China leads the pack with highest (107 million) number of dailies sold every day. The Indian newspaper market is projected to grow from Rs. 56,300 Crore To 92,300 Crore by the end of 2013, as per the research done by pricewater house cooper.

Advertising revenue by media category 2012-13

According to the Indian readership survey for the fourth quarter the average issue readership (AIR) of the top 10 publications and top 10 english dailies as belows:

We conducted a survey to find out which brand of newspaper people use. We took sample of 47 people, which helped in getting good insight.

1.Reading frequency

2. Brand Recall As seen below, 34% of the total respondents were

able to recall Times of India..

3. Percentage of people able to recall TOI Advertisement As seen below only 19% of the total respondents were able to

recollect the TV commercial of the Times of India. Hence more efforts are required to promote TOI on TV medium

4. Percentage of people satisfied with the quality and content of TOI

As seen below around 70% of the respondents are satisfied with the quality and content of times of India.

5. Most liked part of the Times Of India As seen below most of the parts are liked by majority of the

respondents.

6. Take on the price factor of Times of IndiaOnly 38% of the total respondents are OK with the change in price

of TOI…

7. Supplements of TOI Below statistics show that maximum number of participants have

responded positive for the supplement contents of TOI.

The marketing strategies for The Times of India are: To improve quality of product and extend variety of product

range. The marketing strategies for The Times of India are To improve quality of product and extend variety of product

range. To launch new editions in English and regional languages for

students and online newspaper i.e. e-paper or mobile paper and increase readership and circulation of newspaper.

To increase the advertising in paper and thus sales revenue. More advertisement through the medium of TV, Radio, Internet

and social campaigns. To Launch new social campaign ‘Young India’ basically

focusing youth of the county. Another keystone for the India marketing strategy is promotion.

It is important to get the promotional balance right. Combo offers with regional language newspapers. Combo offer for both newspaper buyer and advertiser. TOI come up at lower subscription rate at 250Rs per year. It also allowed the brand to build and maintain a consistent dialogue with vendors, which helps to drive sales. Also Times of India in collaboration with HDFC launched the Times Card.

Promotions will be used to attract new customers. These promotions will help build up brand awareness and consumer familiarity which will reinforce the Times of India brand presence.

Times of India have other brands like Economic Times, Mumbai mirror, Maharashtra Times, Film fare etc. so as to cover needs of all classes of consumer. The price of one copy TOI newspaper is 3 Rs which competitive price as compared to HT, The Hindu & DNA.