Since the objective was to demonstrate the power of print, we ran a print only ATL campaign in The Times of India (general newspaper), The Economic Times (business newspaper) and Brand Equity (advertising & marketing supplement) publications calling for entries. We also did an agency outreach program by connecting with creative leaders and putting up communication in communication agencies to spread the awareness about this initiative to the relevant TG.

We ran a month long national print campaign in the Times of India and Economic Times publications. The campaign was promoted through outdoors in Mumbai airport and awareness at the ground level in advertising agencies

This campaign was further amplified through our social media pages and our website - Times Power of Print where all the information regarding the contest was provided.

The Times Group got an unprecedented response that beat all estimates. We got an overwhelming participation from 417 agencies with an astounding 823 entries - possibly the highest number ever for a single award in the country beating all other established awards.

In addition, Times of India got positioned as the thought leader driving the industry agenda to improve creativity and effectiveness of print advertising and earned an additional revenue of Rs. 2.1 crore through this initiative.

The number of entries and the quality of work is a testimony to the stupendous success of the Power of Print. While the intention was to award only one team, given the huge response, we decided to recognize three teams on stage at the Kyoorius Creative Awards and recognize them in our newspapers.

First-of-its-kind idea to bring back creativity to newspapers, which otherwise sees dull advertising in India. An idea to rekindle the romance with print media by motivating creative teams to work on compelling newspaper campaigns on a real brief from a real client.

Additionally, Times of India got positioned as the thought leader driving the industry agenda to improve creativity and effectiveness of print advertising and earned an additional revenue of Rs. 21 million through this initiative.

Target Audience: The young creative talent of the communication agencies

We ran a ATL campaign in the Times of India and Economic Times publications and created a website which hosted information about this initiative and the competition FAQs etc. Nestle came on board as our partner in this first year with a real brief that was to “Educate the girl child”.

Along with the print campaign, we used social media and our portal TimesPowerofPrint.com to provide all information regarding the brief, jury, timelines etc.

Creative teams in India are keen to do great creative work for television and digital mediums because of the audio-visual aspect of the mediums and the ensuing talkability. While young creatives respected the print medium, they were not excited by it. Not enough time was being spent on crafting a good print ad.

The challenge was to get digital natives excited about print advertising and get creative teams engaged with the print medium. To ensure that their work is genuinely published and recognized, thereby resulting in talkability. At the same time get a company/brand to use the print medium effectively.

Power of Print was created by the Times of India to address the above challenges and to rekindle the romance with print advertising. The idea here was to get creative teams to develop a compelling newspaper campaign to a real brief ; Nestle India came on board as a partner.