MxMIndia

Tag: Vikatan Group

  • AIM collaborates with Indian Post to launch ‘Magazine Post’

    By Our Staff

     

    The Association of India Magazines (AIM) in collaboration with the Indian Post, the Government of India’s postal service, has launched the Magazine Post, specifically tailored to bring greater efficiencies for magazine deliveries.

     

    Speaking about the launch, B Srinivasan, President of AIM and MD of Vikatan Group said: “For years magazines in India have faced chronic problems in subscription deliveries as copies were either late or in many cases undelivered. We are immensely thankful to Indian Post for introducing this new tech enabled product to resolve all our delivery problems, and with a promise to ensure near 100% success rate.”

     

    Added Anant Nath, General Secretary of AIM and Executive publisher of Delhi Press: “In most evolved magazine markets, subscriptions account for upto 80% of magazine sales, whereas in India it has been other way round. The subscription ecosystem in India has been historically underserviced on account of lack of trust amongst readers with respect to deliveries. We feel that there is a scope of at least ten-fold increase in subscription numbers if we are able to guarantee delivery. We are confident that with the launch of this new product, publishers can realise the untapped potential of subscriptions.”

     

    Said Manoj Sharma, CEO of India Today and AIM treasurer: “Multiple reader surveys have highlighted that there is immense appetite for reading print copies if deliveries are guaranteed. With the launch of Magazine Post, which offers superfast deliveries at economical rate, we hope to fulfil much of this underlying reader demand.”

     

    Added DVS Rama Rao, General Manager of AIM and a circulation veteran: “Over the past year and half, we at AIM have put in motion multiple initiatives to improve magazine sales and to even cross pre-pandemic numbers. These include creating a WhatsApp platform for joint subscription marketing, a common accredited agency network, and a tech enabled platform for subscription sales through morning centre vendors. With the launch of Magazine Post, we have confidence that we will be able to fulfil all the subscription orders with great efficiency and thereby bring about a paradigm shift in magazine publishing.”

     

  • Srinivasan, who was Vice President earlier, has taken over from R Rajmohan, who was the President since November 2016

    B Srinivasan is new President of Association of Indian Magazines

    By A Correspondent

     

    The Association of Indian Magazines (AIM) has elected B Srinivasan, MD, Vikatan Group as its President. This happened at the AGM held on Thursday. Srinivasan, who was Vice President earlier, has taken over from R Rajmohan, who was the President since November 2016.

     

    Indranil Roy, CEO, Outlook Group, who was General Secretary earlier, is Vice President. Anant Nath, Executive Publisher, Delhi Press is General Secretary and Manoj Sharma, COO, India Today Group the Treasurer. Pradeep Gupta, CMD, CyberMedia is the outgoing Treasurer. The AGM has also elected the following to the governing body: Annurag Batra (Exchange4media); Amit Seth (Network 18 Publishing); Deepak Lamba (Worldwide Media); Dhaval Gupta (Cyber Media); Hoshang Billimoria (Next Gen Publishing); Mahesh Peri (Pathfinder Publishing); Maneck Davar (Spenta MulGmedia Pvt Ltd); Manan Kotak, (Chitralekha Group; Paresh Nath (Delhi Press); Pradeep Gupta (CyberMedia) and R Rajmohan (Malayala Manorama)

     

     

  • Triggerbridge with initiate internal and external initiatives to ensure the Vikatan group's teams are better equipped and our clients see us in the right light

    Ananda Vikatan consults Trigger bridge on marketing & customer connect

    By A Correspondent

     

    Triggerbridge, the marketing service consulting firm co-founded by S Yesudas has announced its  appointment as marketing and customer connect transformation consultants to Vikatan Group.

     

    Speaking of the appointment, B Srinivasan, Managing Director, Vikatan Group said: “With the magazines having 90 years of heritage, our foray into the digital space, our TV and film production and the events and activation space, we are a diverse media group that has a unique capacity to deliver audiences across platforms at scale. Since most of these are best kept secrets from the marketing community at large, we realised we needed to embark on certain internal and external initiatives to ensure our teams are better equipped and our clients see us in the right light. In triggerbridge, we found the right partners to embark on this journey of change with.”

     

    Commenting on the assignment, S Yesudas, Managing Director and Co-founder, of triggerbridge (the “unagency”, as he calls it):  “We are thankful to Srini(B Srinivasan) and his team for this partnership.  The work has already begun and as one team, people at both ends are extremely excited about the potential ahead.  Our ambition is to have the Vikatan group known as “The gateway to TN”. Let our work speak the rest.”

     

  • B Srinivasan is the new Vice President, Indranil Roy is General Secretary and Pradeep Gupta has been re-elected Treasurer

    R Rajmohan is President of Assoc of Indian Magazines

    By A Correspondent

     

    R Rajmohan has been elected as the President of Association of Indian Magazines (AIM) at the AGM held in Mumbai. Rajmohan, Chief Marketing Officer ( North) & Head- Special Projects, Malayala Manorama Group, is a veteran in the print media having worked with The Times of India, India Today, Hindustan Times, Outlook, Open Media Network etc and has been a Governing Council member of AIM since its inception. B Srinivasan, Managing Director, Vikatan Group, is the new Vice President.

     

    Indranil Roy, Executive Director & Publisher, Outlook Group has been elected as the General Secretary. Pradeep Gupta, Chairman & Managing Director, CyberMedia, who is a former president of AIM, has been re-elected as Treasurer.

  • Vikatan Group which publishes nine titles in Tamil is gearing up to launch its tenth title – Timepass. As the name suggests, the magazine will focus on entertainment and will cater to those young at hear

    Vikatan group to launch weekly mag Timepass

    By Tuhina Anand

     

    Vikatan Group which publishes nine titles in Tamil is gearing up to launch its tenth title – Timepass. As the name suggests, the magazine will focus on entertainment and will cater to those young at heart. The offering is an aberration from Vikatan’s usual tone and tenor which is seen as a serious player and stays away from relying on any kind of controversy that magazines today rely on.

     

    The magazine is a weekly and will be available every Saturday starting October 6, 2012. Priced at mere Rs 5, it will have 64 pages plus 4 pages of cover and will be A5 size. Initial plan is to have a print run of 5 lac copies which will include both sample copies as well as sold ones. In 3-4 months’ time the idea is to consolidate this number to 2.5 to 3 lakh sold copies. It will be sold predominantly in Tamil Nadu.

     

    Explaining the idea behind the new magazine, Pravin Menon, National Head, Ad Sales, Vikatan Media Services, said, “This is entirely people driven product. At Vikatan, we have introduced a concept called Hello Vikatan where people can call and listen to few tips that is addressed in our magazines. Since its launch around 7 months back, the concept has become highly popular and we have 1.5 lac calls per month. Since we already had involved readers based on the info from the calls, we did a sample of six thousand people asking them what they would want from Vikatan. The response that we got was that they would like to read something irreverent and purely entertainer from us.”

     

    The content of the magazine and even the pricing is all decided by the readers. However, the low pricing raises few questions as print industry is already pressed with low pricing and pressure on margins plus the debate is whether even our daily newspapers should be charged more as the case in many countries.

     

    Mr Menon said, “At Vikatan we don’t rely only on advertising as source of revenue and we have various innovative ways to generate revenues.” The group’s publications also has a strong digital presence.

     

    The group plans to go all out to promote the product and will be spending approximately Rs 2.5 crore to market it taking television, print, OOH, mall activation, radio and even cinema theater. The tone of the advertising campaign will be irreverent in keeping with the tone of the magazine.

     

    Vikatan Group publishes Tamil titles including AnandVikatan, Aval Vikatan, Doctor Vikatan, Junior Vikatan, Chutti Vikatan, Shakti Vikatan, Pasumai Vikatan, Motor Vikatan, Naanayam Vikatan.