Divya Bhaskar registers a 32% growth in retail advertising

Divya Bhaskar, the Gujarati daily from Dainik Bhaskar group, has not only increased its tally in terms of readership and circulation, it is also growing in advertising revenues.

The largest read newspaper of Ahmedabad, with a readership of 9.84 lakh, is also experiencing a quantitative growth in the retail advertising, which is an accepted benchmark for product performance.

The maximum growth has happened in the retail education category. While in May, Dainik Bhaskar had booked 1,508 col cms of space for the retail educational advertisements, June saw a growth of 66 per cent with 2,503 col cms of space booked by advertisers. In terms of revenue, Divya Bhaskar earned around Rs 5.26 lakh from the education sector, which is almost double Rs 3.17 lakh - the revenue earned in May.

Likewise, the electronics retail sector also booked 2,383 col cms space in June as compared to 2,169 col cms space in May. The jewellery and the ready-made garment industry was the other retail segment which booked 204 and 622 col cms of advertising space, respectively in June as compared to 120 and 520 col cms space in May.

In terms of revenues, the newspaper registered a growth of approximately 32 per cent in the month of June. Overall revenue earned from the retail sector was around Rs 12 lakh as compared to Rs 9 lakh in May.

Explaining the spurt in retail advertising, Harish Bhatia, senior vice president, Divya Bhaskar Ahmedabad, says, "Our product connects with masses. That, coupled with aggressive and innovative marketing strategies, steered this growth."

The Gujarati daily also organises special events which worked as a catalyst for the growth. It keeps on organising different events such as Education Mela in Ahmedabad, where educational institutes from around the country participate. These events helped the publication reach out to these educational institutes which were outside the city or state and educational institutes got the opportunity to understand the readers and consumers of Ahmedabad.

Bhatia also give credit to the team for this growth. He says, "The team deployed here is also of a very diversified background, thus helping us have very wide perspectives of the overall market scenario. This helped in the expansion of business as well."

This growth has not been a easy task for the Bhaskar group as it was a new kid in the block. Bhatia points out: "Initially, there was apprehensions within the retail advertising community to try out a new daily, but gradually there was rise in the confidence level and more and more retailers started using Divya Bhaskar as their advertising platform."

Divya Bhaskar which started off with 4.5 lakh copies on June 22, 2003 in Ahmedabad has now reached 5.5 lakh copies.

Divya Bhaskar comes with 15 supplements on different subjects such as career lifestyle, movies, religion, etc. From Monday to Friday, the newspaper has two supplements everyday and three supplements on Sunday. The supplement on religion and spirituality is the most popular one among the lot .

Divya Bhaskar has two editions from Ahmedabad and Surat. The Surat and Ahmedabad editions, in turn, have three and 10 district editions, respectively. © 2004 agencyfaqs!