Malayala Manorama redefines Yearbook on CD-ROM

Thirty-six years after the publication of the first Manorama Yearbook, the Malayala Manorama company is gunning for a larger audience with its CD

Thirty-four years after the publication of the first Manorama Yearbook, the Malayala Manorama company took the same content to a new medium - CD-ROM - in 1999. Two years ahead, it is finally ready to promote Manorama Knowledge Advantage 2001, as the CD is titled, on a big scale. The last two years have lent the media combine valuable insights into consumer and trade nuances vis-à-vis the new media. The result: while the Yearbook is aimed at young adults preparing for competitive exams, Advantage 2001 targets the whole family, in the words of Kurian Mathew, senior manager, diversification, Malayala Manorama.

The second edition of the CD, which hits the marketplace this month, is print-plus. While the 844-pager Yearbook sells for Rs 90, the CD is priced at Rs 495. Besides capturing all Yearbook content, it also showcases multimedia elements based on interactivity, animation, and audio and video clips. A new section called Kids' Stuff is in. Plus, sensing the quizzing craze sweeping the nation post KBC, Advantage 2001 has a 6,000-questions quiz bank. While it enhances the scope for the Yearbook, it also brings it in closer competition to brands like Britannica and Encarta (the encyclopaedia from Microsoft). Moreover, Encarta is also bundled with certain computer packages. While admitting the new competition, Mathew counters: "It is the difference between the ‘nice to know things' and the ‘need to know things'. While competing with them, we have a topicality and context of news and information that other CD-ROMs don't."

It also comes packed with other learnings, on the product, distribution and the market front. The editorial team is actively considering hyperlinking the content on the CD in a big way. "We have some hyperlinks currently within the CD," explains Mathew. "We are now actively considering lot of hyperlinking within the product, between topics and to the sites on the Net so that the CD becomes the starting point for a wider search." Additionally, the company is considering taking product upgradation to the Net. All that a buyer may have to do is visit the site on an annual basis and upgrade his CD. "It may affect repurchase but overall purchase may go up," believes Mathew. As for now, buyers an fill up a coupon attached with the pack to become eligible for discounted future editions (on trade margins of up to 40 per cent).

On distribution, the initial thought was to retail Advantage 2001 through CD-ROM outlets. But now it is finding its way through every shop possible. Also, the dynamics of CD distribution is different from that of books, says Mathew. "Industry margins in books are 30-35 per cent while in CDs they can go up to 40-50 per cent," he says. While keeping margins in check, Advantage 2001 will ride the distribution network of The Week, the group's 19-year-old English magazine. Above all, the company is laying more focus on its online sales channel this year - manoramaemart.com. Only 250 copies, out of total sales of 13,000, were sold through this channel last year.

The company is also looking seriously at servicing the bigger education market, including schools. "We will be actively looking at strategic alliances with various companies," says Mathew, indicating an prospective interest even in e-learning companies. His team is targeting sales of 25,000 copies for this year. It will be helped by its first advertising blitzkrieg, as Mathew calls it, this year.

The strategic reason behind the launch of Advantage 2001 is explained by Mathew on a new products-versus-new markets matrix. "It is part of the strategy of taking existing products to newer markets (market expansion), launching new products in existing markets and launching new products in new markets (pure diversification)," he explains. The company's best-selling women's magazine, Vanitha (claimed sales: 4 lakh copies), for instance, was taken Hindi in 1997. Today it competes with the likes of Sarita and Grihshobha and sells 1.6 lakh copies across UP, Bihar, MP and Rajasthan, according to Mathew.

Sighting the growing market for home computers in 1999, the company decided to wet its feet in a nascent market. "By 2002, home computers are projected to grow to 1 million," he says. Since the Net did not offer the company a "viable revenue model", it decided to package the content in a CD-ROM. It was initially priced at Rs 595 keeping in mind three factors - the competition price, the value on offer and the strategic objectives.

The company is also working on taking its children's magazine, Magic Pot, national this year. It is the English offshoot of Kalikkudukka, a Malayali magazine for pre-schoolers, introduced last year. The 113-year old Malayala Manorama owns about 25 publications, most of which address the Malayalis across the world. Having jumped into TV software and music production in 1993 and 1995, and with the launch of its site Manorama Online, the company has been actively exploring markets beyond home-state Kerala. The immediate target though, is to take flagship daily Malayala Manorama to daily sales of 1.5 million copies by 2003, says Mathew. It sells a claimed 12 lakh plus copies to date, making it the country's largest-selling Indian language daily.

© 2001 agencyfaqs!