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Capital wins creative mandate for India Today's newspaper
Capital won the business following a multi-agency pitch, which also involved SSC&B Lintas and Rediffusion DY&R
Early this year, Associated Newspapers (ANL), the publishers of the ‘Daily Mail’, UK, announced a tie-up with the magazine publisher, India Today Group, to launch mainline newspapers in India. The creative duties for the venture have been awarded to Capital Advertising.
Sunil Sachdeva |
Capital won the business following a multi-agency pitch. Apart from Capital, the pitch process involved two other agencies, SSC&B Lintas and Rediffusion DY&R.
The pitch was divided into two phases. For the first phase, which involved the three agencies, the agencies were required to submit a creative and strategy presentation, on whether there was place for a third newspaper in the market with two leaders already fighting neck to neck, as also some fictitious information to check the skill of the agencies on brand positioning and design. Capital and SSC&B Lintas made it to the second round, and were asked to submit creative and strategy presentations, but this time, with more information on the venture that the agencies could utilise for their presentations.
The venture will be floated as a separate company altogether. Balakrishnan refused to divulge either the brand name or the date of the launch.
For the record, Grey handles the creative duties for the group’s flagship brand, ‘India Today’, for the English and five language editions of the magazine. Euro RSCG handles the creative duties for ‘Business Today’ and ‘Golf Digest’.
Apart from magazines such as ‘India Today’ (which also has a nationwide presence with other editions) and ‘Business Today’, Living Media publishes international titles such as ‘Cosmopolitan’, ‘Reader’s Digest’, ‘Men’s Health’, ‘Good Housekeeping’, ‘Scientific American’, ‘Prevention’ and ‘Harvard Business Review’ in India. The group is also present in the television space with TV Today.
The ‘Daily Mail’ is the UK’s largest tabloid, firmly aimed at a middle class audience, with a circulation of 2 million copies on weekdays and 3 million copies on Saturdays. Its parent, the Daily Mail General Trust – which is listed on the London Stock Exchange – also publishes ‘The Mail on Sunday’, ‘Evening Standard’, ‘Metro’, ‘London Lite’ and ‘Loot’.