Wunderman Thompson rolls out 'The Times of a Better' India campaign; focuses on growth, progress

The Times of India (TOI) has just launched a 360-degree campaign, conceptualised by Wunderman Thompson. Titled The Times of a Better India, it turns the lens on positive news. The Independence Day-themed campaign focusses on India’s progress through the decades and encourages Indians to aspire to create more things.

The ad is rife with references to startups, space travel, women breaking the glass ceiling and individuals beating the odds to achieve their goals.

A press release mentions that readers can win prizes via interactive contests on TOI’s social media handles.

Kaustuv Chatterjee, director – The Times of India, Language Brands and NPI (New Products & Innovations) at Bennett Coleman, mentions that typically, news is filled with negativity and this rhetoric has been going on for a while now.

“The news debates tend to be polarised too - people are saying that we’re doing great or things are going down the drain, depending on what view you subscribe to.”

According to Chatterjee, the reality that this campaign wants to focus on is that every decade in India has been better than the previous one.

“When we emerged from the COVID pandemic, TOI felt an important narrative to put out there is that many developments have taken place in the country. Thanks to these developments, there are unprecedented opportunities that have come forth and the common man is always thinking of opportunities to better his life.”

Siddharth Prasad, VP and executive creative director, Wunderman Thompson Delhi, says that his company spent a lot of time debating and deciding on the campaign’s direction.

“Things started falling into place when we hit upon this quote - today is the best time to be an Indian. The story of India has been one of steady progress - decade after decade. That was our brief’s starting point.”

Prasad adds that it was challenging to create a brief that would appeal to every Indian. “We wanted to represent different types of people and sections of society. The Times of a Better India isn’t just about cosmopolitan India or social activists. All the people in the ad are representative of something that’s going on today.”

Chatterjee says that one of the biggest challenges was selecting what to talk about and how. This was the biggest part of the process of putting the campaign together. He adds that the campaign seeks to dial up the relevance of the brand itself and not just the print edition.

“When it comes to media mix spending, the campaign focuses more on print and digital. Social conversations around virality happen around social media. We’ve not focussed on TV. Our campaign is very socially-driven. It only works if we’re able to engage people on that narrative and measure that engagement. That’s only possible on digital and print. It’s less easy to do that on TV.”