MARKETING MANAGEMENT

NATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY: MARKETING OF

CHILDREN’S FORTNIGHTLY MAGAZINE

Submitted To :
Prof. Pratik Modi

By: The Usual Suspects

Animesh Das (P40007)
Hemang Chauhan (P40015)
Sunil Kumar (P40044)
Surya Bharti (P40045)
Tuhin Mohanta (P40048)
Yash Mevasi (P40053)
Situation Analysis:
National Publishing Company is a printing and publishing company with several years of
experience. Some of the publications were market leaders in its product category. Titli is one
such product. Titli is a market leader in the children’s periodical segment. It is issued
fortnightly and has a market share of 45%. It caters to children with age groups of 5 to12
years but it has been seen that the product extends to the age of 14 years. The selling of the
product is done as a door to door delivery. It has more than 3000 agents and sub-agents
covering all parts of the state. Also periodical was sold through different shops.These shops
also carried different magazines.The periodical is assortment of short stories, long stories,
cartoons, serialized stories,quiz etc. Short stories cater to age groups of 12-14 years They
have moderate approval ratings averaging 28%. Long stories are serialized in continuous as
well as stand-alone formats. Regular cartoons including 2-3 serialized cartoons had highest
approval ratings amongst all segments. Friendly Ghost had 80% preference shares amongst
all ages.
The product is at the 3rd stage of maturity. The industry is oversized and weaker competitors
have withdrawn from the market. Though it is declining Titli is still the market leader with a
market share of 47%. Hence, it is trying to create a stable hold of the market and hence is at
the maturity stage. So, now Mr R Saxena needs to take the decision of what role to play to
regain the market segment and how Titli repositions itself.

Problem Statement:
Titli has as of late observed a descending winding despite having a considerable number of
promotional schemes in the market. Mr. R Saxena has to make modifications to the existing
system so that Titli gets more subscriptions with better longevity.

Objectives:
 To increase the number of magazine subscriptions.
 To include age-specific content.

Decision Criteria:
 The existing subscriber base must not be compromised.
 Sales must increase.

Course Of Action:
The current market size of Titli is around 47% so we need to increase the number of
subscribers so that more number of copies are sold, This can be done in two ways:
1) A separate edition for older children: We would be launching a new edition for the
students of the age group 11-14. We will add contents such as quizzes related to their
core subjects, introduction of news related to science and technology this is because
most of the millennial in this age group are inclined towards studies, because they
have to study more they are unable to spend their time reading titli, so we need to
make a separate magazine specifically targeted to these children. We are adding news
because this would make their magazine reading more useful as they would not have
to something extra and their purpose of informative reading would be solved and the
company’s market would also expand to a greater extent. Due to the introduction of

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 this section in the magazine parents would also allow their children to study these
magazines and even they themselves would recommend their child to purchase this
edition. One of the major concerns of these students is that the appearance of titli
appeared to them more childish as the magazine was very colorful and the contents
present included child stories which did not appear very convincing to them so we
would make the magazine more attractive and not too colorful because this would not
give them the feel of a small child. And once we include more mature content like
quizzes, news this would make them more interested and hence our subscriptions
would increase.

2) Induce Trials: We can increase the sales by partnering with sister products because
this would help us know the feedback of these children as if they like our product the
demand would also increase and we would come to know that by the subscriptions
they would take, also we would launch it for sale on local shops because most of the
parents come to local shops to purchase products, if they come to know about the
inclusion of informative contents, they themselves would buy the magazine for their
child and this could be a good strategic move by titli. We can also advertise our
magazine through templates which would be distributed through daily newspapers
where we would highlight the inclusion of these mature contents so that this becomes
an eye-catcher for our potential customers. We would also advertise our product on
television too because the percentage of television viewers is increasing at a good
pace, doing such a move would make our product more appealing and would also
make a need for these students to buy it.

Contingency Plan:
The magazine will introduce tokens that will be contained within the magazine. These will
then act as collectibles, rewarding the readers for their loyalty. Each token will be different
and after collecting a certain amount of them will grant them eligible for a prize at the end.
This contest can be advertised on other National Publishing Company media as well as
television. Since there will be no major changes in the content of the magazine itself, the cost
will be less and the reader expectations towards the magazine would not be hampered.

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