Times Network intends roping in SMEs & start-ups as advertisers

A study by Times of India group has shown that the biggest perception barrier amongst the SME and start-ups is that national television is expensive and beyond their reach. Hence, the launch of Ascend Now, 2015 by Times Network.

It is conducting a week-long workshop in the top three markets of India: Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore for SMEs and Start-ups to educate them, create awareness and provide cost-effective advertising opportunities on television. The Network has seen the highest number of registrations for Ascend Now 2015 from Delhi followed by Bangalore and Mumbai.

MK Anand, CEO and MD, Times Network says, “It is a training initiative. We have a more daunting challenge and higher target for ourselves than the average market which is growing at 15%, whereas, we want to grow at 26%. Besides doing improvement in product, we also needed to do improvements in our sales team. The endeavour is to become the best sales team in the country. We are giving a chance to the small business to come on the television platform and to make their presence felt in the market.”

The entire sales team for the last three months has been going under a lot of training program plus two weeks of database building, correcting, talking, and processing. They were trained by a company named NRS media in Sydney, who apparently partner News scope, Fox in Australia and are aggressive and have a good sales lineage.

MK Anand explains, “We did a lot of changes in the structure starting from moving some senior people from one team to another. We completely integrated the sales effort as eventually we want to sell as a network. Secondly, we launched the Times Network brand. We want people to sell Times Network. As a whole there is a story, which I don’t think was there before. To deliver that story we needed people who were aware of the Indian market.”

As the workshops end on September 23, Times Network is expecting to reach out to over 1000 SMEs and start-ups which are prospective advertisers. The trend shows that the conversion of the prospects to the real advertisers will be about 150 companies. This initiative will possibly give a 10 per cent increase in the number of advertisers on Times Network, annually.

Anand says, “We are really looking at democratizing market, looking at promoting SME’S and the success that we are looking at right now is  promising. Through this endeavour, we have contacted 5000 clients and we expect to meet close to 500 clients across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. We would help the guys who come on board become larger because when they become larger we too would become larger.”

Anand insists that Ascend is different from other such programmes undertaken by media companies, “I have heard that something on the same line has been done by two-three other media companies but those are not training programmes. This is different as this is part of an endeavour to take the sales team to a completely different level. It has brought a difference in sales team’s approach. They have always done a good job but now they have learned the skills to bring in people who are not TV advertisers and to convert them into one.”

The packages that are being offered are specially created for SMEs and range from Rs 22 lakhs to Rs 66 lakhs. The offers are valid for a 12 month period and are only available on the day of the seminar. Times Network is hoping for Ascend 2015 to become a successful initiative and intend repeating the program after six months.

Ascend Now 2015 before already being concluded has seen a good response from advertisers. Some of the advertisers who have come on board are Faaso's, Clarity Gold, Euro Kids, pavitravivah.com, Jumbo King etc. 

On the activity’s performance till date Anand says “Yesterday we had some 85 business people came in, out of which 20% of people have walked in, heard us out, sat with us and closed and done the deal and walked out. The registrations for Delhi too look promising. We are hoping for the best.”

While praising this new endeavour Sunil Awatramani, MD, Diat Foods, a packaged food and export company manufacturing sugar free Indian sweets, Mumbai, says, “It was a very informative session. It is a good platform for new advertisers like me to understand the potential of television as a medium of advertising and promotion.”

Echoing the sentiment, Mayur Pawar, Mirador Builders and Developers, adds, “We are one of the leaders in affordable housings in Gujarat. Partnering with Times Network through this endeavour will give us a national platform to reach out to our target audience and expand our presence in all India- market.”