Milestone Brandcom innovates Dainik Bhaskar's No Negative Monday

A common grouse against print media is that nowadays, the newspapers are full of negative news like crime, corruption, scams etc. Every morning we wake up to horrifying stories splashed all across the newspaper. This creates a very negative mindset early morning. All of this negative news is quite in contrast to general wave of optimism sweeping the country.

Taking this current positive outlook forward, Dainik Bhaskar’s 20 million readers will now wake up to a No Negative News Monday - with positive stories of courage, resilience and solutions. Dainik Bhaskar is pioneering a change that has never been witnessed in the history of media anywhere in the world- No Negative Monday. In all 58 editions in 14 states on Monday, all the positive, utility, optimistic success stories and relevant news is now spread out in the entire paper in each section of Front Page, Desh Videsh, State Page and City.

“We are at the cusp of change. This is to show India the true story and bring out the larger picture. Taking our value and change driven philosophy forward, No Negative News Monday focuses on positivity, solutions and impact on everyday life. Being the readers’ voice, we not only want to reflect this change but also shape and impact it at a fundamental level” says Senior VP, Brand Marketing and SMD – Vinay Maheshwari.

Vikas Singh, AVP Brand Marketing adds, “Monday is the first day of the week and the day when people plan their week ahead. We want them to do so, on a positive and confident note. However, being a responsible newspaper, we will cover all the relevant yet negative news in a separate header under Negative News. So the reader has an option of reading the negative news or skipping it altogether. The No Negative Mondays will give a new meaning and direction to journalism”

Milestone Brandcom has built this movement through on ground engagements & out-of-home media. Social Media also played an active role in promotions. Milestone Brandcom executed a differentiated OOH campaign for the brand. The campaign was full of creativity and zing. A number of innovations were executed as part of the campaign, 2 adjoining billboards were joined together by the Dainik Bhaskar logo. The logo was a backlit unit that emerged from the billboard, it created excellent impact and visibility. The two billboards symbolize the negative and positive news with negative news on black flex while a positive news on white colored flex. The DB logo perfectly joining the two aspects of news effectively communicating the core communication idea - to transpose the way we think and migrate from a negative approach towards a positive one.

The second innovation was executed at the entry for select shopping malls . A special gate arch was created, branded with Dainik Bhaskar’s message ‘No Negative News’. Furthermore, the steps leading up to the mall were also branded to convey ‘No Negative News’. From a distance DB quite literally ‘owned’ the mall entrance space. It was an idea that was visibly distinguished from conventional branding.

A third innovation included putting up innovative signboards at busy traffic junctions of Indore, Bhopal and Jaipur with the message “No accident day”. “For an initiative like this, the need of the hour was a riveting mass media campaign. And we at Milestone did just that. Over 100 OOH media touch points were deployed for the campaign. The 15 day campaign began on the 18th of Feb & was executed across 9 cities namely Bhopal, Indore, Raipur, Aurangabad, Patna, Ranchi, Ludhiana, Ahmedabad and Jaipur. The media mix was an assortment of large format billboards, high impact mall media & other conventional mediums to reach out to the masses. We created differentiated branding through innovative gate arches, branded staircases & creatively lit billboards. Simple mediums were used to effectively grasp maximum audience attention. We are grateful to have been a part of this new revolutionary phase in journalism” said Nabendu Bhattacharyya, CEO & Managing Director, Milestone Brandcom.

So its bye bye Monday blues. Here’s to powerful stories of the good riding over bad, courage winning over hardship and success beating all odds - just what you were looking for to set the week’s pace.  Stories of the guy next door, someone real, and someone just like you and me.