A RESEARCH PAPER ON PERCEPTUAL MAPPING OF DIVYA BHASKAR VIS-À-VIS OTHER LEADING VERNACULAR DAILIES ABSTRACT Divya Bhaskar, a name that was alien to the Amdavadi readers 8 years back, has come a long way from its launch on June 23, 2003 to today where it has become not only a household name but also a habit and caters to around 11.59 lac readers across Ahmedabad 1 . The last time such a huge new player happened in the market of Ahmedabad was 70 years ago, which went ahead to pull down the then leader Sandesh and become the undisputed leader, Gujarat Samachar. The Bhopal-based Bhaskar Group identified Ahmedabad as the city with highest potential and conducted a pre-launch survey across 12,00,000 households with a team of 1050 surveyors, 64 supervisors, 16 zonal managers and 4 divisional managers in a time span of 40 days. Within 15 months, it entered two more cities of Gujarat: Surat and Vadodara. To counter Bhaskar group's threat, the leading Gujarati newspapers came up with color pages, price reductions and several high-value customer offers. However, by 2009, Divya Bhaskar became the largest circulated Gujarati daily with 11.5 copies, thus giving strong competition to the leading vernacular dailies - Gujarat Samachar and Sandesh. The present paper is aimed at mapping the perceptions of Divya Bhaskar vis-à-vis other leading vernacular dailies in Ahmedabad. This paper is aimed at studying the available facts regarding readership and circulation of Divya Bhaskar vis-a-vis other leading vernacular dailies, namely, Gujarat Samachar and Sandesh, a brief study with the English dailies and comparing the facts with the Perceptions and Emotional connect of the readers. Moreover, it also attempts to explore the experiences of the advertisers across various segments like Automobiles, Education, Electronics, Healthcare, Lifestyle, Real Estate and so on, so as to check the connectivity of the advertisers with the readers/ consumers. With all this secondary and primary data gathered, the paper intends to draw inferences about brand associations and perceptual belonging of Divya Bhaskar with its readers and non-readers as compared to its competitors. Subsequently, we aim at discussing the strategic implications for Divya Bhaskar. INTRODUCTION It was in the year 2003 that the Bhopal based Dainik Bhaskar group identifies Ahmedabad as a high potential market for the entry of a vernacular daily. But the entry was not abrupt rather it was a well planned strategic research which pre-launch door-to-door twin-contact launch program, an Orbit shifting innovation in itself. The research included surveys of 12, 00, 000 households, with a team of 1050 surveyors, 64 supervisors, 16 zonal managers and 4 divisional managers. The surveyors were gathered largely through posters at colleges and word- of-mouth publicity, instead of expensive print and TV advertisements from the local market of Ahmedabad so that they could understand and communicate with the Amdavadi households better. The team was trained to 1 Souce: IRS-2011 Q4
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A RESEARCH PAPER
ON
PERCEPTUAL MAPPING OF DIVYA BHASKAR VIS-À-VIS OTHER LEADING VERNACULAR
DAILIES
ABSTRACT
Divya Bhaskar, a name that was alien to the Amdavadi readers 8 years back, has come a long way from its
launch on June 23, 2003 to today where it has become not only a household name but also a habit and caters to
around 11.59 lac readers across Ahmedabad1. The last time such a huge new player happened in the market of
Ahmedabad was 70 years ago, which went ahead to pull down the then leader Sandesh and become the
undisputed leader, Gujarat Samachar. The Bhopal-based Bhaskar Group identified Ahmedabad as the city with
highest potential and conducted a pre-launch survey across 12,00,000 households with a team of 1050
surveyors, 64 supervisors, 16 zonal managers and 4 divisional managers in a time span of 40 days. Within 15
months, it entered two more cities of Gujarat: Surat and Vadodara. To counter Bhaskar group's threat, the
leading Gujarati newspapers came up with color pages, price reductions and several high-value customer offers.
However, by 2009, Divya Bhaskar became the largest circulated Gujarati daily with 11.5 copies, thus giving
strong competition to the leading vernacular dailies - Gujarat Samachar and Sandesh.
The present paper is aimed at mapping the perceptions of Divya Bhaskar vis-à-vis other leading vernacular
dailies in Ahmedabad. This paper is aimed at studying the available facts regarding readership and circulation
of Divya Bhaskar vis-a-vis other leading vernacular dailies, namely, Gujarat Samachar and Sandesh, a brief
study with the English dailies and comparing the facts with the Perceptions and Emotional connect of the
readers. Moreover, it also attempts to explore the experiences of the advertisers across various segments like
Automobiles, Education, Electronics, Healthcare, Lifestyle, Real Estate and so on, so as to check the
connectivity of the advertisers with the readers/ consumers.
With all this secondary and primary data gathered, the paper intends to draw inferences about brand
associations and perceptual belonging of Divya Bhaskar with its readers and non-readers as compared to its
competitors. Subsequently, we aim at discussing the strategic implications for Divya Bhaskar.
INTRODUCTION
It was in the year 2003 that the Bhopal based Dainik Bhaskar group identifies Ahmedabad as a high potential
market for the entry of a vernacular daily. But the entry was not abrupt rather it was a well planned strategic
research which pre-launch door-to-door twin-contact launch program, an Orbit shifting innovation in itself. The
research included surveys of 12, 00, 000 households, with a team of 1050 surveyors, 64 supervisors, 16 zonal
managers and 4 divisional managers. The surveyors were gathered largely through posters at colleges and word-
of-mouth publicity, instead of expensive print and TV advertisements from the local market of Ahmedabad so
that they could understand and communicate with the Amdavadi households better. The team was trained to
1Souce: IRS-2011 Q4
reach out to 8 lakh households in Ahmedabad and 4 lakh households in adjoining districts, in a time span of 40
days. The newspaper was launched in Ahmedabad on 23 June 2003, under the name Divya Bhaskar, as No. 1
with 452,000 copies (a world record). It was such a huge step in the competition of otherwise stable Gujarati
print media that the age old leaders Gujarat Samachar and Sandesh’s confidence dwindled. The leading
Gujarati newspapers came up with color pages, price reductions and several high-value customer offers. But did
this actually keep the readers attracted enough to forget their habit of Gujarat Samachar and Sandesh? It indeed
did. Divya Bhaskar is the leading newspaper in Ahmedabad today with a readership base of 11.59 lac readers.
But do the Advertisers trust this 9 year old baby and make space for Divya Bhaskar in their marketing budgets?
Or Gujarat Samachar is still perceived as the number one newspaper in the minds of readers and the advertisers?
This paper includes a study to gauge the perceptual mapping of the minds of a Gujarati Newspaper reader.
Along with the IRS reports, a Multi- dimensional scaling technique is used to conclude that Divya Bhaskar is
indeed a leader in the minds of readers. Though, Gujarat Samachar has also been able to face the competition
with an equal flair and even at the second position, it seems to enjoy the persona and power of a leader along
with Divya Bhaskar. As expected the numbers have decreased for Sandesh in all these years. But when it comes
to Advertisements, the market share is held strongly by Sandesh as well, showing a complete mismatch between
the reader’s choice and an advertiser’s choice. When it comes to marketing, no brand affords to skip print
media, but it is for these publications to see how effectively and efficiently have they carried out their brand
marketing. Lastly, the strategic implications of the results and consecutive recommendations have been
discussed for Divya Bhaskar.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Perceptual Mapping
Multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) or Perceptual mapping is a class of procedures for representing perceptions of
respondents spatially by means of a visual display. Perceived or psychological relationships among stimuli are
represented as geometric relationships among points in a multidimensional space. These geometric relationships
are called perceptual maps. The axes of the perceptual map are assumed to denote the psychological bases or
underlying dimensions respondents use to form perceptions and preferences for stimuli. The technique is used
in marketing to identify:
1. The number & nature of dimensions consumers use to perceive brands in market place.
2. The positioning of current brands on these dimensions.
3. The positioning of consumers’ ideal brand on these dimensions.
Information provided by MDS is used for a variety of marketing applications using image measurement, market
segmentation, new product development, assessing advertising effectiveness, pricing analysis, channel
decisions, attitude scale construction. However, the most common and useful application of MDS is in brand
positioning which is essentially concerned with mapping a consumer’s mind and placing all the competing
brands appropriate slots or ‘positions’ on it.
Dillon et al (1985) have used perceptual mapping to understand decisions that face consumer researchers as
they implement a perceptual product space analysis based on multi-attribute rating data. Bijmolt and Wedel
(1999) have shown the comparison of multidimensional methods for perceptual mapping and their applications
to marketing. Hauser and Koppel man (1979) have shown the use of factor analysis and discriminant analysis as
alternative methods to perceptual mapping and made a comparison between the two methods. Wong and Teas
(2002) have used multi-entity scaling(a multi-attribute measurement) procedure that obtains ratings of two or
more entities from a single respondent at the same time to examine experimentally the stability of perceptual
maps of retail stores based upon two types of multi-entity scaling data — data produced by attribute and entity-
based scaling procedure. Droge and Darmon (1987) have compared attribute versus similarity approaches for
finding out associative positioning through comparative advertising.
Current Position of Vernacular dailies- Divya Bhaskar, Gujarat Samachar and Sandesh
The Indian Print Industry, worth Rs. 16,000 cr., uses IRS, Indian Readership Survey findings as its bible to
decide why and where of print advertising. IRS is an independent and the only readership survey being
conducted by MRUC (Media Research Users Council), a non-profit body whose members are drawn from
major Advertisers, Advertising agencies, Publishers and Broadcast/ other media.
The members as board of governors of MRUC are from elite organizations like Tata Teleservices Ltd., Bennet
Coleman & Co. Ltd., Lintas Media Group, Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd., etc.
IRS provides a great insight into readership consumption and penetration patterns for all publications across the
nation, thus making it easier for the advertisers to pick up the right publication for advertising.
According to the IRS figures, Quarter 4, 2011; months of October, November and December; a major market
share has been grabbed by Divya Bhaskar with a readership of 11.59 lac readers. The closest competition is held
by Gujarat Samachar with the readership base of 9.01 lac readers, Divya Bhaskar leading the race by 22%.
Divya Bhaskar leads ahead of the oldest newspaper in town by 2.3 times the readership of Sandesh just a
meagre 4.93 lac readers.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Objective
The basic objective of this research is to draw a perceptual map using attribute based perceptual