HT urges consumers to 'pause, think and change'

After recently re-engineering its content, rebranding and donning a new avatar, Hindustan Times has rolled out its new TV-led advertising campaign. Conceptualised by Lowe Lintas, the campaign portrays everyday situations which make people pause, sit up and think afresh.

According to Neelanjan Shome, chief marketing officer, HT Media, “There is a need for change. As a media house, we are taking the lead and the onus of mobilizing youth to participate in an emerging change process."

He adds, "The decision to revamp HT’s content – supported by layout and design - to a contemporary format was taken so that there would be a newfound appeal to its young readers, while simultaneously retaining the editorial integrity that is synonymous with Hindustan Times."

Watch the TVCs here:

Hindustan Times from Campaign India on Vimeo.

The campaign consists of a series of commercials, which urges people to be less cynical about their own country, stop panicking about epidemics like Swine Flu, change their outlook towards homosexuals and look forward to more sensitive journalism.

The campaign aims to be in keeping with the newspaper's new positioning, where it aims to present today's youth with a newspaper that they can identify with, and which delivers content that would help them move forward. This was the communication objective, as well.

Said Sanjoy Narayan, editor-in-chief, Hindustan Times, “By doing what we have done, not only have we laid the foundation for future growth in our existing and future markets, we have also raised the entry barrier for any future aspirant.”

Commenting about the new campaign, R. Balki, chief creative officer, Lowe Lintas said, "Hindustan Times was conceptualized as an “instrument of change” intended to make people “pause, think and change”. The realization that it was imperative to change “now” was the underlying thought behind “It is time” relaunch campaign."

Narayan says, that the key challenge was to direct young readers to try the new version of Hindustan Times and convey to them that it would give them news they could relate to and identify with.

The campaign has been created by the creative team at Lowe Lintas. The film has been shot by Nikhil Rao of Chrome Pictures.