‘LOKMAT IS THE DE-FACTO NO. 1 NEWSPAPER IN PUNE’
Rishi Darda, Editorial & Joint Managing Director, Lokmat Media Group explains why the Pune market is so important for the group and says the focus is now on innovation and engaging with each and every stake-holder in Pune BY TEAM IMPACT According to the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2017 data, shared by Lokmat, the newspaper has taken the top spot in both Pune city and district, on the basis of Total Readership and Average Issue Readership, moving ahead of its competitors. Explaining why the Pune market means so much to the group, Rishi Darda, Editorial & Joint Managing Director of the Lokmat Media Group, says, “We are the de-facto No. 1 newspaper in Pune city ahead of Marathi, Hindi and English newspapers providing a 37.2% reach with total readership of 18.98 lakh. In fact, when we go deeper, our sole readership at 5.13lakh+ is 10% of total Pune city’s readership. Our readership in NCCS A & B is 28% of the entire Pune city, while our closest competitor at best provides a 25% reach. Hence, planners should find Lokmat to be the most cost-efficient medium to talk to consumers in Pune in future.” Darda adds that Pune market’s Print advertising revenue is ‘equivalent’ to that of the full States of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. “Those markets will be worth approximately Rs 500 crore in revenues. That’s the revenue of Pune market alone. So, it’s an important market from the planner and client’s perspective,” he states. “In the last three years, we have spent a lot of energy changing the perception even on ground. We are always talking to audiences directly. Every 10 days, there would be an on-ground activation in Pune. That’s what has brought success. Post February 15, there will be a lot of innovations. We will be engaging with each and every stake-holder in Pune.” Going ahead, Lokmat plans to approach brands for bigger initiatives, just as they have been running successful projects with P&G’s Whisper Choice and HUL’s Rin. Karun Gera, President, Advertisement, Lokmat Media Group, says, “We will now approach other brands, work out a methodology about how we can make their communication stronger, more targeted and layer it with the Lokmat brand. Lokmat has a lot of credibility. From the brand side, we connect with rural customers’ initiatives like Lokmat Sarpanch Awards and on-ground activities like Lokmat Maharashtrian of the Year Award, among others.” On the digital platform, Darda shares his ambition of launching six to seven properties in the next six to eight months in different languages under their digital initiative Clickstart. On soaring ink prices, Darda says he has no intention to increase cover price of the newspaper. “As of now, we are holding good inventory. So the impact would be seen in the second quarter. We are expecting a 10% hit. We will compensate by playing around with number of pages of the newspaper,” he adds.
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