In a country with a young demography, which is increasingly digital native, it was crucial for TOI to engage this young audience of potential readers – to reflect their contemporary sense of nationalism, their attitude, and in a language they could identify with. Thus, The Times of a Better India – launched in India’s 75th year of Independence – aimed at cutting through negative news and cynicism by reminding young people of India’s tremendous progress, with every generation building upon the work done by the previous one and emphasizing that Right Now was the best time to be an Indian.

The Times of a Better India recognized the need to connect with a young, digital-native audience, cutting through the negativity and leaving them with a sense of optimism - giving them a reason to engage with the newspaper brand.

The initiative, thus, moved away from the chest-thumping patriotism and focused on the continuum of real progress that every generation of Indians had contributed to, showcasing the opportunities the current period held for young Indians. The insight was not to talk about past glory but about tangible success young people could leverage to take their dreams ahead, thus driving pride in the nation – utilizing youth-centric language, bold imagery, and digital platforms.

This was also the first concerted effort to move beyond individual success stories and showcase the larger building blocks that led to those successes – the education system, technology tools, policies, and institutional encouragement of ideas.

The core thought was to showcase young people as being at the heart and soul of an Unstoppable India, two key ideas that were worked upon were:

1. Print advertising to grab eyeballs: Print ads depicted young faces with interesting expressions and talked in a tone that a young audience could identify with. They used the young reader’s own lingo, encouraging them to begin a conversation with the brand and co-own the campaign, showcasing it in their circles.

2. The Big Picture Contest: Brought alive the ethos of the editorial content showcasing Indian success stories. The contest format involving prizes gave readers a reason to pick up the newspaper each day – drawing in an audience of hitherto non-readers too.

With the target audience being young readers, while the communication of the ideas was rooted in print, the reader engagement was platform agnostic with digital media being fully leveraged to drive awareness to users who draw most of their information from their mobile devices.

1. Print advertising: The ads were released in The Times of India main paper, its city-centric supplements with youth-centric content, in owned publications in various regional languages other than English, and also in the country’s leading business daily, which is widely read in B-schools.

2. The Big Picture Contest: The contest pointers, which acted as picture-driven visual clues to the contest, were released in The Times of India newspaper. Readers were asked to participate in the contest on the programme website.

Print ads and contest picture clues were also promoted on digital platforms across social media and on relevant websites.

Print ad messaging:

‘Imagine’ summarized India’s achievements across areas – from food deficit to food exporter; from bullock carts to space satellites, underlining the aspect that no dream is now out of reach for an Indian.

‘Not in your footsteps’ was irreverent, and spoke that in the India of today, young people could find success even in unconventional careers.

‘What’s up, obstacles’ was a bold message by an unstoppable nation ready to overcome any challenge.

Print ad format: Rather than rely on a traditional form horizontal half-page creative, the first two insertions were vertical half-pages with editorial content comprising the other half, ensuring the ads became unmissable.

Big Picture Contest: A picture clue involving an Indian success story appeared in the newspaper daily. Readers answered online, where the ‘bigger picture’ of the success story with background was revealed next day. A leaderboard with cumulative prizes ensured stickiness and repeat visits.

The programme received an overall digital reach of 369 million and within that, its polarity scores stood at 41.6 % positive, 58.1% neutral. A negative polarity of below 1% for a newspaper programme talking about a nation’s achievements – in these polarizing times – is exceptional.

Print ads: Won wide applause online and were shared by numerous members of the desired young audience on their social platforms. In many cases, the inspiring text of the ads was quoted verbatim.

Big Picture Contest: Became the most valued active engagement platform for the initiative, with:

• Earned media results: 220,000 entries in The Big Picture contest.

• Time spent with the brand: The explanations for the picture clues (revealed a day later) saw time spent on the website increase from 15 secs/user to 36 secs/user.

• Consumer loyalty: Average repeat participation per user was 7.

This work is highly relevant to the use of print as it effectively leverages the strengths of the print medium to convey a powerful message of optimism, progress, and national pride. By featuring captivating stories, and clutter-breaking print ads with youth appeal, the campaign maximized the impact of print's ability to deliver engaging, in-depth content. Print's enduring credibility, familiarity, and cultural significance in India play a crucial role in reaching a wide and diverse audience, making it an ideal channel for a campaign focused on inspiring hope, unity, and pride in the nation's accomplishments.

In India, each generation aspires to do better than its predecessor. Usually, that change is both economic as well as cultural. One man moves from a village or a small town to a larger city, seeking better employment. Consequently, his son/daughter is better educated and aspires for superior wages and a social milieu that fits better than the one the father belonged to. Growing aspirations may trigger the third generation to seek higher education abroad and this person would become a globally mobile citizen. Our communication fits a young audience that connects best with the third generation.

And this change has been made possible by an Indian ecosystem encompassing its education system, inherent stability in policy-making, technological changes, growing economy, and more. The Times of a Better India brought out this via its print initiatives, enabling a seamless connect with young readers.