As one of three newspapers in Gujarat, India, Divya Bhaskar was in an unenviable position: It was neither the legacy player nor the budget-priced alternative, which left it with an unclear identity for advertisers. Oftentimes seen as the second option behind the market’s leading paper, Gujarat Samachar, Divya Bhaskar was looking for a unique way to define its value to advertisers and carve out its own niche.

In June 2019, it rolled out a campaign to change that. The mission of the campaign was to emphasise the paper’s unique role as a solutions provider and illustrate to advertisers how it could provide them with great value. As part of developing a campaign, it outlined three main objectives:

• Become the one-stop destination for advertisers seeking a solution-centric approach.
• Increase advertising revenue.
• Increase engagement with advertisers.

To reach these objectives, Divya Bhaskar needed to come up with an innovative way to present its solutions, attract the attention of advertisers, and then convince those advertisers that it could help them reach their brand KPIs. That led to the creation of Unlock Gujarat: The Solutions Toolkit, a unique pop-up book that provided visual examples of Divya Bhaskar’s offerings.

Innovation on display

The book itself was a brightly coloured product that was designed to immediately catch the eye. It was filled with case studies of solutions that Divya Bhaskar had provided to advertisers, but the presentation didn’t just tell potential customers about the company’s innovation; it showed them.

When the book was completed, Divya Bhaskar developed a targeted list of potential customers that would be good candidates for receiving the book. It also provided internal training for the sales team — specific to the Gujarat Toolkit — that would help them emphasise the company’s solution-centric approach. The sales team also was provided with support material that would help provide additional answers to questions from potential advertisers.

Building a new identity

The innovative toolkit had the desired results and helped reshape Divya Bhaskar’s identity for many advertisers. The unique approach increased engagement time with clients, going from an average of 10 minutes of interaction to 45 minutes. It helped establish Divya Bhaskar as a solution provider, and it was commissioned to deliver 84 new pieces of content.

Advertisers then sought Divya Bhaskar’s expertise to provide solutions in a variety of approaches, from native content to research to branded content to event coverage. The initiative also led to two grand multimedia partnerships in addition to having a positive impact on revenue overall — as well as helping Divya Bhaskar stand out in the minds of advertisers as an innovator.

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