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LEAD FEATURE Lokmat Connects with Rural Lok Lokmat Connect, which is the experiential marketing division of the Lokmat Group, creates marketing and activation solutions for brands, products and services. The division is one of the largest solution providers across Maharashtra with fully functional and professional inhouse client servicing, operations and creative teams at 12 centers including Goa. Lokmat Connect is proficient in activation, MICE and intellectual properties. Lokmat Connect has three major activation platforms – Yuva Nxt, Bal Vikas and Sakhi Manch – through which it connects to target audiences for any brand specific activity. Lokmat Connect has various large format intellectual properties targeting various audiences. In the recognition platform, Lokmat Connect has awards like Maharashtrian of the Year and Sakhi Gaurav. Its sports platform includes Aurangabad Premier League, Nagpur Premier League, and Kolhapur Premier League. Lokmat Connect also runs school contact programs in Maharashtra called Sanskarache Moti and Jungle Book. On the rural level, Lokmat Connect has Grameen Khel, a rural sports meet, and Krishi Exhibition, an exhibition for farmers. “We engage our readers and communities in Maharashtra as a whole through such initiatives and engagement programs. Our initiatives generate participation in the range of 500 to 50,000 individuals per location. Also, it is their experience at these events/initiatives that bring them back year after year,” Jitendra Mirwani, Business Head, Lokmat Community Initiative (Lokmat Connect), said in an exclusive interview with ExM. Mirwani spoke to the magazine about Lokmat Connect and its intellectual properties that allow it to reach out to small towns and rural areas. 4 September 2011, EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING 24 What are the Intellectual Properties that Lokmat has for rural areas and how successful have they been in engaging the rural audience? In the rural space, we have the Grameen Khel property which provides a unique mix of largely sports and cultural programs to engage the public, as well as encourages local sportsmen from interior regions to come forward and showcase their skills and talents. Our rural sports fraternity has some bright stars, but no recognition or encouragement. We have taken it upon ourselves to create these unique games meet to recognise and award our rural sports stars through Maharashtra Grameen Khel. Also, we will encourage them to come and participate at the state level. We recently had the first edition of the property. We have plans to develop it into an annual event and organise it across all major districts of Maharashtra, with Aurangabad being the first step towards it. The event covered 75 villages in and around Aurangabad. Around 3,000 participants registered for various games and it was attended by minimum 20,000 to 30,000 people a day from villages. Through our promotions, we have engaged over 5,000 villages in Maharashtra through this initiative. The promotions for the event were done through a 360 degree campaign, which included extensive coverage on newspapers, television, radio, outdoor and print. There were several road shows and personal contact programmes organised for promotions. Pre-event van promotions were done for two days prior to the event to make people aware about the ground event. The encouragement for rural sports will bring in a new of wave of recognition and encouragement to our budding stars in villages. Krishi Exhibition – All State Farmers Exhibition is another intellectual property which is a joint venture between Lokmat Group and the Department of Agriculture. The exhibition had been organized at a grand state level two years ago in Amravati. On this occasion, various companies from every corner of the state had their stalls setup. There were about 85 stalls and 3 lakh to 3.5 lakh people had visited the exhibition from the entire Vidharbha region, gaining information about products of various companies. One of the achievements of the exhibition was that many people from Amravati received employment. The District of Amravati in Vidharbha region is dominated by farmers’ societies. We ensured that through this joint agricultural exhibition, farmers gained information about various agricultural products, seeds, machinery etc. In order to bring farmers in the main stream and to make their views positive, we organized talks by experts on new technologies, irrigation methods, market knowledge, micro
LEAD FEATURE finance options etc. It has been a tradition to organize this exhibition every alternate year and make it larger. What was the idea behind creating intellectual properties for small towns/rural areas and have there been any corporate brands associating with the rural properties? I read somewhere that traditional advertising is an animal that should have died 100 years ago. Brand managers and marketers have outgrown the lure of celebrity endorsements, television and print medium spends that take away over 90 per cent of their budgets. They have woken up to new media. Platforms such as OOH, digital, and social media offer options to the marketers today. Having said that let me reiterate that none of them work in exclusivity. The offer or a solution has to be inclusive. Therefore, an integrated media cum activity/engagement idea that we offer to a brand in a particular geography or a target profile is a ‘solution’. Brand solutions designed for mass market, rural areas or targeting specific groups like farmers or households in the interiors are rural intellectual properties. Some of the brands that have participated in our rural properties are Lifebuoy, Parle G, Videocon, Airtel etc. The level of participation is the highest since these brands co-own the initiative namely, Lifebuoy presents Lokmat Sanskarache Moti or Parle G presents Lokmat Grameen Khel etc. We take great care in creating an integrated campaign which projects the brand proposition seamlessly into the execution. Brand managers see value in these intellectual properties since Lokmat puts their might behind it, and the fact that we create these properties for the long term, gives them the opportunity to meet various brand objectives namely new launch, new schemes, positioning, recall etc., over a sustained period of time. Here, I would not shy away from saying that the encouragement from our participating brands have really helped us push the envelope and we believe we create some path breaking inroads with our initiatives. Do you have plans for creating further Intellectual Properties that seek to tap small towns and villages? Creating intellectual properties is not difficult, but giving them a long life is a challenge. We have tasted some success with our properties in the last couple of years, but we have not always been able to sustain our intellectual properties given some constraints of relevance over a period of time. I have realized that there are risks much larger than only financial connected with creating intellectual properties. Inherently, intellectual properties are created with our learnings or insights that are our starting point. Before we embark on any new venture, we have to go through the litmus test of involving our research experts, our editorial team, the management, and the Lokmat Connect seniors. 4 September 2011, EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING 25 Usually one of ten ideas is taken for discussion further so the answer to the question is yes, albeit very selectively. We believe if we are able to sustain 5 to 6 large format and 2 to 3 small format intellectual properties over a period of 4 to 5 years we would have met our goal. If we create relevant solutions that can marry the aspirations of small town consumers or customers with the needs or objectives of the brands, the future of intellectual properties is secure. Grameen Khel Grameen Khel Maharashtrian of the Year awards Maharashtrian of the Year awards
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