BRAND MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT

Bennett Coleman and Co. Ltd.

Submitted by Rakesh Sukumar (18053) Section A

GROUP

GROWING WITH THE TIMES

The Times group, which is also known as Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd has a heritage of more than 150 years. It has a presence across categories from newspapers and other publications, media channels, Radio to diverse categories like Out-of-home advertising services, event management, property dealing, job portals etc. In most of these areas , Times group has a good market share as well. Under each category, there are several sub brands as well, but for this exercise, I would only take the major brands in each category.

SUBSIDIARIES AT A GLANCE
1. Times Innovative Media Limited & Entertainment Network India Limited 2. Times Internet Limited 3. Times of Money 4. Times Global Broadcasting Limited 5. Times Business Solutions 6. World Wide Media 7. Times Syndication service 8. Brand Capital

BRAND ARCHITECTURE
Under the levels of brand architecture, Times Group can be categorized under Individual Product Brand. Any brand decides its own architecture depending on its objective and the industries it is operating in. In this case the mother brand for all our sub brands (own or of subsidiaries) is the Times group, but the mother brand never gets advertised with the child brands. This is because it acts as a holding company under which there are several subsidiaries. These subsidiaries and the different brands managed by them are shown below and it should be noted that these subsidiaries are formed because of the categories that the sub-brands can be grouped into.

TIMES GROUP
SUBSIDERIES / CATEGORIES

ENTERTAINMENT PUBLISHING/ INTERNET

FINANCE

BROADCASTING MEDIA BUSINESS SOLUTIONS CAPITAL FUNDING MEDIA JVs

ENIL & TMIL

TIMES INTERNET LIMITED

TIMES OF MONEY

TIMES GLOBAL BROADCASTING

TIMES BUSINESS SOLUTIONS

BRAND CAPITAL

WORLD WIDE MEDIA

SUB BRANDS

Radio MIrchi

TIMES OF INDIA

REMIT2INDIA

TIMES NOW

TIMES JOBS

BRAND CAPITAL

FILMFARE

Times OOH

ECONOMIC TIMES

WINDOW2INDI A

ET NOW

SMART HIRE

MAHARASHTRA TIMES

TIMES CARD

ZOOM

SIMPLY MARRY

Michi Movies Limited

INDIATIMES DIREC PAY MOVIES NOW MAGIC BRICKS

NAVBHARAT TIMES

REMIT2HOME

TECHGIG

360 Degrees

MUMBAI MIRROR

YOLIST

TOP GEAR
ITIMES ADS2BOOK

ZIG WHEELS

PEERPOWER

SHADOW BRANDING ARCHITECTURE

Shadow branding is done by a brand when it does not want to directly gain any brand equity from its sub brands. An example of such a brand apart from the one taken here is Procter & Gamble. The communication from different brands of P&G has very little to talk about P&G. Similarly, a brand such as Radio Mirchi, which comes under Entertainment Network (India) Limited and the times group never promotes the parent company directly. Even their Flagship brands like The Times of India or The Economic times have their individual brand personalities and it is from the knowledge that they belong to BCCL (Bennett Coleman and Co. Limited) that one can connect them together. Advantages of this architecture: 1) It is easier to position these individual brands which functions across categories and also to distinguish them in the category that they are competing in. 2) If one brand is not doing well, then it would not affect the image of the other brand. E.g. The TOIHindu war where Hindu is dumbing down the times of india will not in any way affect the brand image or the sales of Economic times. 3) Since these brands belong to different holding companies under one BCCL (Times Group), hence marketing of these brands would be given individual attention. Shadow branding removes any chance of a conflict even in case of a new product launch. 4) Particularly useful during mergers and acquisitions, since the acquired brand need not change itself to be a part of the times group. Disadvantages of the architecture: 1) The brand is not able to leverage the good brand image that the media giant has in the industry. 2) A lot of money is spent in the individual branding exercise. This ends up increasing the marketing budget.

ROLE OF KEY BRANDS IN THEIR RESPECTIVE CATEGORIES AND THE SYNERGIES AMONG BRANDS

The advantage of diversifying into many categories by a company and having variety of brands under its portfolio is that the business is not dependent on the success of one category. Also, the synergies between the brands help each other. E.g. A media house saves money on advertising of its other brands. Media houses are in a better position to understand the market because of their network which helps in other industries like Property dealing and Capital funding. A few key brands that I have taken to explain this are the following: 1. The Times Of India The Times of India is positioned among the newspaper as a paper which provides as much entertainment as it does news. It believes that information and entertainment need not be separate. This resonates very well with their positioning of the mother brand Times group which is primarily in to Media and entertainment business. It also connects with other brands like Radio Mirchi,Indiatimes, Filmfare, Femina all of which targets primarily the discerning informed youth. 2. Indiatimes Indiatimes, the internet property of the Times group is sort of an aggregator where you can find all brands at one place. Indiatimes.com sorts them into categories of News, Leisure, Communities, Services, Shopping and Mobile content.

3. Navbharat Times It is the largest-circulation hindi daily in Delhi and Mumbai, and hence a leader in its category. The word Navbharat is nothing but a hindi translation of the word New India. The advertisements of Navbharat times are very similar to the times of india advertisements. i.e. on the lighter side of life. 4. Radio Mirchi Mirchi Sunne wale always khush resonates well with the image of the times of India, Indiatimes etc. The original avatar of Radio Mirchi was Times FM. The reason behind the initial name is anybodys guess, but the reason for the change is because the earlier name was not catchy enough for a radio station. Since the times group is primarily in the Media and Entertainment business, having a brand in this category helps in convergence of media. 5. Times Now Times Now, is the news channel arm of Bennett Coleman & Co. The channel started amidst horde of other news channels and so the competition was high. Times Now is probably one of the brands which has used the existing brand equity of The times of India via Bennett Coleman & Co. 6. Filmfare The most respected magazine in the Indian Cinema industry was started in 1952. It was the first magazine which understood clearly that filmfare was the need of the hour. It was supplemented by the Page 3 columns of the Times of India newspaper as well. Filmfare awards, became one of the best brand marketing exercise for the magazine. It was launched to coincide with the national awards. Till date, no other film magazine has enjoyed the same success in the category. 7. Magic Bricks Magic Bricks, is a real estate portal managed and owned by Times Business solutions limited which is a holding company under Times Group. The presence of the times group in the media industry can help Magic Bricks in more than one way especially since the property dealing industry is very volatile and depends on the market conditions.

BRAND EXTENSIONS & THEIR SEGMENTATION

The advantage of shadow brand architecture is that the brand extensions are easy to manage. I have combined some of the brands in order to try and explain the possible reasons for the brand extension: Maharashtra times & Mumbai Mirror - Regional Newspapers are revered quite often at places where the readership is good. E.g. Malayala Manorama in Kerala, Anand Bazaar Patrika in Kolkata and Maharashtra times in Mumbai. In order to capture a huge market which reads Marathi news, Times group came out with Maharashtra times. The logical extension was a newspaper in English which captures the daily life of a mumbaikar, hence Mumbai Mirror was launched. Segmentation - The latest I am Mumbai TVC from Mumbai Mirror clearly shows that the newspaper (Mumbai Mirror) is for the Educated mumbaikar who cares about his city and raises his/her voice when the need be. Filmfare, Femina and Top Gear Filmfare, Femina and Top Gear are monthly publications that cater to a segment each often having some people in common. The brand extension is simply using the existing infrastructure (for newspapers) to proper use. Segmentation Filmfare is targeting everybody who is interested in the movie industry, while Femina which had been targeting the middle-class, conservative women has moved from that to a magazine for the woman of substance who is opinionated.

Top gear, which is under World Wide Media, is a joint venture with BBC and it targets the Need for speed enthusiasts. Filmfare Awards , Femina Miss India Contest Filmfare Awards are considered to be the indian equivalent of Oscars and are the most sought after awards. It was started in 1952 to coincide with the national awards. Femina Miss India was again a concept that marketed the Femina magazine to several thousands of people watching on television. The success of the shows helped the brand in a big way. Segmentation: The Filmfare awards and the Femina Miss India contest were primarily targeted to the people who read less and watch more. The target audience were people who were interested in glitz and glamour of the industry but were either unaware or uninterested in subscribing to a magazine as such. Times Jobs, Simply Marry, ZigWheels & Magic Bricks These services from the Times group are clubbed together as this pretty much sums up our life. For an individual whos searching for a job it provides Times Jobs, then later for a life partner it has Simply Marry and after a while when he or she has started thinking about settling down, then Magic Bricks (Real estate portal) and Zigwheels (Car rental, used car/new car buying auto site) come into the picture. Segmentation: Each one of these services is segmented properly for the internet enabled person. RadioMirchi, Mirchi Movies, Movies Now, Times Music and Zoom Times group, which had entered into the entertainment industry as early as 1952 has forayed into several entertainment channels like Radio, Movie production, Music and GECs. Smart Hire, Brand Capital and PeerPower The brand extension of Times group into businesses providing them solutions for recruitment (smart hire), funding capital (Brand Capital) and finally a business networking platform (Peer Power). These extension seem perfect considering the need for expanding the online businesses. Especially for a media house which already has its fair share of presence in the online space.

MERGERS, ACQUISTIONS AND JOINT VENTURES

There are a couple of Joint venture that Times Group has entered into : 1) JV with Citibank- Times group has entered into a JV with Citibank called Times of money. The times of money has various services for remittances like remit2india, remit2home, Times Card and Direc pay and also gifting site like window2india. 2) JV with BBC- World Wide Media is a JV of BBC magazines and BCCL. These include Top Gear, BBC good Homes, Grazia , What to wear etc. 3) Acquistion of British Virgin Radio( Absolute Radio ) - In 2008, SMG sold The British Virgin Radio to TIML Radio Limited for 53.2 million. The British virgin radio was rebranded to Absolute Radio and is a direct subsidiary of BCCL (Bennett Coleman and co ltd). The brand name was changed by Virgin Radio and not by Times group. The whole rebranding exercise costed them around 15 million which was from the 53.2 that was there in the deal. The rebranding was necessary since t was being acquired by BCCL.

REFERENCES
1) Navbharat Times video commercial: http://www.viddler.com/v/9c202f1e 2) Times of India Video Commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gcrc8eNdx8 3) Times of India Chennai Edition campaign: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmjQoYvGzBQ 4) Mumbai Mirror TVC: http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/15/20111223201112231524479681aa8ef7c/I-amMumbai.html 5)Wiki Page for Times Group- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times_Group 6) Indiatimes Website http://www.indiatimes.com 7) Websites of all the sub-brands