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Mid-Day holds a horse race for YUMPIs
Mid-Day holds its first ever Mid-Day Trophy, a horse racing event to target the top-end YUMPIs
Holding a horse racing event is not the way news media houses generally target their core group. However, Neville Bastawalla, head, marketing, Mid-Day Infomedia Limited, apparently believes in offbeat strategies.
Mid-Day has been taking many experiential marketing initiatives to strike a chord with its target group, the young urban mobile professionals of India (YUMPIs). The afternooner held a horse racing event, Mid-Day Trophy, on February 15 in one more effort to connect with its target group.
The event was held in association with the Royal Western India Turf Club, Mumbai at its ground, with actor John Abraham as the chief guest.
Bastawalla says in an official statement, “Our research shows that the YUMPI audience not only wants to be successful at work, but also wants to be seen as successful by their peers. The Mid-Day Trophy is an extremely premium YUMPI event that allows us the necessary connect provided by Mid-Day in terms of being their guide to the finer things in life.”
Bastawalla, in a conversation with afaqs!, says, “This is the first time that a news media company has taken such an initiative. We are taking our brand philosophy of making work fun forward with this. It is the most YUMPI event one can have and we have all the plans to make it an annual property for Mid-Day.”
Other celebrities who were present at the event were actors Shriya Saran and Adhyayan Suman (of Raaz - The Mystery Continues fame); Rakesh Rao, general manager, marketing, Zapak; Suresh Amarnani, head, marketing, Onida; Yogesh Anand, vice-president, marketing, Cadbury India; Manpreet Singh Kochhar, VP, marketing, Kotak Mahindra Bank; Nisha, marketing manager, Cafe Mocha; and Abhishek Saksena, chief executive officer, Netcore. Manajit Ghoshal, CEO, Mid-Day and Neville Bastawalla also attended the event.
The company plans to turn the Mid-Day Trophy into an annual event. Though the club holds a number of races, Mid-Day will give its target group a reason to come and bet on the horses running in the Mid-Day Trophy. Bastawalla says, “Along with the experience of a good race, they will also take home the experience of meeting Bollywood stars.” Mid-Day plans to make Bollywood's presence bigger next year.
To ensure brand visibility, the entire club was branded with Mid-Day standees and banners, while huge sampling was driven by distributing copies of Sunday Mid-Day to everyone. The event was pre-promoted in the Mid-Day afternooner and the club put up race notices for all its visitors.