"It took us 3-4 years to make the paper relevant to Mumbai": Nitin Chaudhry, business head, HT Mumbai

Hindustan Times (HT) Mumbai recently celebrated the start of its 10th year in Mumbai. From no presence at all to the second position in the English newspapers genre, the paper has had quite a journey in this market. It started with one edition in the city and over the last couple of years added Thane and Navi Mumbai to treble the score. In Thane, HT claims that it is more popular than TOI.

In all, HT Mumbai includes the main paper, HT Cafe, a lifestyle and entertainment supplement, HT Estate and HT Estate LUXE, its real estate offerings, HT education supplement, Brunch, the Sunday magazine and Sportsmax.

"Today," points out Chaudhry, "HT Mumbai has a just a little less than 14 lakh people reading it. TOI, with a legacy of 175 years, commands nearly 22 lakh readers (according to IRS 2013)."

Edited excerpts from the interview:

Edited Excerpts

Anybody who decides to enter any market goes in with eyes wide open. There is always a leader. The same must have been true for TOI a couple of decades ago when they entered the Delhi market.

When we came to Mumbai, we knew there was a strong incumbent with a legacy. But it was a promising and attractive market. In fact, there was only one large English newspaper available and this made it even more attractive. Readers were looking for an alternative.

Counter-intuitively enough, in a market with 2-3 existing players, making a mark is very difficult. But in a market with just one player - and no alternative - the chance of success is high. Wherever there is a semblance of monopoly, people look for an alternative. They want a choice and that's what we decided to offer when we came here.

Were we scared of TOI's legacy? Yes. But the readers gave us a chance. At the time, two other papers were launched as well, but and where are they today? This shows we have moved along with the city.

Top-of-mind recall is a challenge. For someone who is new to Mumbai - unless he/she is from Delhi or Chandigarh - the first choice would be TOI. And when there's a new newspaper reader on the block, his first choice would be his dad's preference, unless he has sampled something else. So the market has to grow with the existing consumer or with the consumer coming from outside. The top-of-mind salience TOI possesses is difficult to challenge but we are overcoming that.

We worked on the product design. You can't start producing a paper that's relevant to Mumbai from Day One. We had to learn about Mumbai's issues, its people's likes and dislikes. The easiest way would have been to emulate TOI but we did not want that. It took us 3-4 years to make the paper relevant to Mumbai. In fact, for the first 3-4 years people complained that it looked like a Delhi paper.

Slowly, we started changing. Eventually, when visitors from Delhi picked up HT Mumbai they found that they could not relate to it - it was a Mumbai paper now. A newspaper brand is not like a soap brand - it shouldn't give the same experience in Delhi and Mumbai.

We report facts, not firm opinion. We let readers form their own opinions. We have been very high on info graphics, along with text, so that readers can scan through a story and understand the salient points without reading the entire text. Page 1 Plus, for instance, is for a younger audience because they do not have the patience to read through the entire paper.

It was about 2-3 things: to get the product right, to report what people wanted to read, in a manner they wanted to, without offending them and without being arrogant or stodgy. We thought, 'First, get the product right, then go after circulation, readership and advertisers.' It worked.

Education was the route we took. There are many people who are new to the city or are still exploring the city. So our first set of events/campaigns was in the education domain (Campus Calling, a counselling session for students, Fresh on Campus for college freshers, Mission MBA for PG students, Top Schools to help parents find schools for their kids).

The strategy was to cater to the younger lot as they are the most likely to switch newspapers, unlike people in their 50s or 60s. It is important to stay relevant. The HT Mumbai of five years ago and the HT Mumbai of now are very different.

When we started, we entered TOI households. Changing reader habits is a slow and challenging process. This is an extremely low involvement category and changing a reader's habit is like changing the blend of his/her morning tea. It's not acceptable.

Initially, we were giving the product at Rs 199 for an annual subscription. We had to be careful about who was reading it or whether it was being read at all. People could easily buy it for Rs. 199 a month and sell it for Rs. 500 as scrap. Many other papers that reached a circulation of 6 lakh, eventually fell to 2 lakh. No one was reading them - the papers were just getting recycled.

That's why we have always kept the subscription model in our own hand and not outsourced it to a vendor. Today, of my 5-lakh copies, one lakh goes to the vendor but for the rest, I know the readers in and out.

I think the first breakthrough was in 2007 with the 'Mumbai Project' where we initiated a conversation between the city and its people. Soon after, we were rewarded and crossed the 5-lakh-readership mark in 2008. Then in 2010, when we launched a column Mumbai First, a citizen dialogue organised by HT Mumbai, we were immediately rewarded and became No. 2, moving ahead of DNA.

From 2012 onwards, we consolidated our position with the launch of the Navi Mumbai and Thane editions. That's when we started figuring out what the city really wants and realised that Navi Mumbai is not Mumbai. We also learnt that Thane is neither Mumbai nor Navi Mumbai.

We were the first to launch a Navi Mumbai edition and TOI followed soon. Then came our Thane edition and, within a week, TOI too launched the same. When we came up with the Unclog Mumbai campaign, TOI launched Mumbai Patrol. Being emulated by the leader is a great compliment.

Our reader is the tech-savvy 25-year-old but, overall, our reader profile is between 15 and 40 years. Through our initiatives we talk to college guys, job aspirants, the family man looking to buy a house or a parent looking for a school for her child.

Since it is a city-specific offering, the media we choose is also city specific. You cannot go to TV. You can use radio, the newspaper, hoardings, outdoor on railways, along with digital, to reach your readers. We get the biggest traction on digital with Twitter and FB since our reader profile is very young, as opposed to others. The money we spend is either on event-based or issue-based campaigns. For example, at 'Kalaghoda', 'Unclog' or 'No TV Day', we don't spend to say, 'Read HT'.

Right now we are in consolidation mode and we will do some relaunches in Mumbai itself. A couple of our products will be refreshed and we'll attempt creating events and issue-based campaigns the way we have done in past.

I don't think there are too many challenges. There is so much to do here and so many advertisers to reach out to. Now, if we have to go to any other city, we know exactly what to do. Especially if there's a strong reigning leader. We know their responses.

Yes, you have to manage the print prices, paper cost and advertising crunch during the recession, but those are more of industry challenges. The team that has worked on the paper has been here all through. For example, the editor has been here since the beginning.