Ht Media: IT'S GREEK TO ME

Credits & Description:

Category: Publications & Media

Advertiser: HT MEDIA

Product/Service: MINT - BUSINESS NEWSPAPER

Agency: OGILVY & MATHER

Date of First Appearance: May 23 2009 12:00AM

Entrant Company: OGILVY & MATHER, Gurgaon, INDIA

Art Director: Shailender Mahajan (Ogilvy & Mather, Gurgaon)

Copywriter: Divya Bhatia (Ogilvy & Mather, Gurgaon)

Copywriter: Radhika Singh (Ogilvy & Mather, Gurgaon)

Art Director: Musfar Khan (Ogilvy & Mather, Gurgaon)

Art Director: Rohit Dhamija (Ogilvy & Mather, Gurgaon)

Group Creative Director: Ajay Gahlaut (Ogilvy & Mather, Gurgaon)

Senior Creative Director: Nitin Srivastava (Ogilvy & Mather, Gurgaon)

Group Account Manager: Kabir Baidwan (Ogilvy & Mather, Gurgaon)

Planner: Arvind Srivastava (Ogilvy & Mather, Gurgaon)

Planner: Nirmal John (Ogilvy & Mather, Gurgaon)

Associate Creative Director: Shailender Mahajan (Ogilvy & Mather, Gurgaon)

Media placement: Newspaper - Teaser - Mailed To Homes - 23 May 2009

Media placement: Newspaper - Teaser - Mailed To Homes - 24 May 2009

Media placement: Newspaper - Launch - Mailed To Homes - 25 May 2009



Describe the brief/objective of the direct campaign.

To launch Mint, a new age business newspaper, in two markets characterised for being sticklers for tradition: Chennai and Kolkatta.

Both these markets had established players who have been ruling the roost for many years. Mint had nothing more than a shoestring budget to create a stir and make a mark.

The strategy was to identify twenty thousand key households and send them direct mailers that challenged their current perception of business newspapers. In the process, clearly establishing Mint as the better alternative.



Explain why the creative execution was relevant to the product or service.

The creative dramatised Mint's core proposition of 'Refreshing clarity in business news'. It delivered this through a refreshing execution that questioned existing business newspaper codes like the colour pink, excessive jargon and large-formats. Using the newspaper in an innovative manner helped drive home Mint's clarity advantage.



Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective with reference to the projected response rates and desired outcome.

Complicated business news = Greek for you and me.

The idea was to disrupt the category by equating the complicated jargon of the competition to a language not easy to understand. Thereby underlining our proposition: clarity in business news.

In the execution, first a dummy newspaper entirely in Greek and of the same size and colour of the competition was sent to 20,000 households for two days before the launch.

After creating curiosity, the reveal next day launched Mint with the message, Now make sense of your business news. It was delivered to the same 20,000 households.



Describe the results in as much detail as possible with particular reference to the RESPONSE of the target audience including deliverability statistics, response rates, click throughs, sales cost per response, relationships built and overall return on investment.

The launch broke through the clutter and established Mint as the business newspaper of the new India. A business newspaper that got the message across clearly without the reader having to plod through tiresome jargon.

At the end of the activity, out of 20,000 households each in Kolkatta and Chennai, over 11,000 and 12,000 respectively became Mint subscribers. This overwhelming response meant that a niche product like Mint had to increase its print run in these markets.

The entire activity was carried out within a shoestring budget of Rs 3 million ($60,000) in each of these markets.