 Hello and welcome to an exclusive chat with Mr. Varghese Chandy, Vice President, Marketing and Advertising Sales, Malayala Manorama is here with us to talk about the changing dynamics of print media in the Kerala market and Malayala Manorama's growth story. Welcome Mr. Chandy, thank you so much for joining us in the chat here today. So coming to the first question directly, you know 2020 was a completely different kind of a year where print like most other businesses suffered huge losses. Fortunately for Kerala, a print market, the market saw the quickest recovery to help us understand how this happened and how Malayala Manorama managed to get not just the readers back but also the advertisers back on board. Thank you Dasnai. I must also thank exchange for media for this opportunity to communicate to you about Kerala and the how the various media are doing and specifically Malayala Manorama. I would say in a way Kerala was better prepared to meet with this kind of pandemic. The reason being if you look at the last two years 2018-2019 we had very devastating floods and we also had Nipah virus and the state managed it quite well. So when you know you will probably remember that the even the COVID virus first was detected in Kerala. Imagine that we are able to identify it first because of our advanced healthcare facilities and coming to again to the COVID situation, right from the beginning the Senate government directives and which was translated by the state government about wearing of masks, using of sanitizers, social distancing, etc were very strictly adhered to by the population. With a result if you look at the zero prevalence study which has been done across the country you will find that nationally the population that was exposed or population that actually got the virus was around 21% and in Delhi you would know that it was more than 50%. But in Kerala it was only 10.7% and the second part how the newspapers managed, how the media managed, you know again our chief minister sent out communication to the entire population that newspaper never spreads the virus. Okay even INS Indian Newspapers Society also brought out communication through various media and through ads that newspapers do not spread virus. And the other thing is that if you look at our case we have more than 15,000 newspaper agents. During the pandemic even micro containment areas were reached by the newspapers. Okay because of this fantastic network of dealers and agents that we are able to reach and therefore the copies right from the beginning we were saying that it never got affected. You know when other states especially in the metros you know it was affected to the extent of more than 50% in Kerala it has never affected the distribution. So the other question that you asked about advertisers, what was the recovery? The recovery of advertisers again it's an easier part. If readers are or if you are able to reach the population, the consumers then the advertisers will follow. Okay so that's exactly what happened. So you'll find that the recovery was much sooner than any other place in the country as far as Kerala is concerned. Right and also you know as it turns out as we all know that Kerala is a consumer state. Right so what is your message to brands that are looking at Kerala? Yeah you're right Kerala is a consuming state. Okay it has got a history because you will find that one of the most dispersed population is in Kerala. I mean it is said that after the Jews Malayalis are the ones who are the most dispersed. You know you go to any part of the world you will find Malayalis. So the NRIs you know outside Kerala, the NRKs and also the other ones in Gulf and Europe and the US. So what they also bring back is a rich consumer culture into the state and exposure to the brands. The other thing is that if you look at the NCCAB, the higher end of the consumer classification, in Kerala 68 percent of the population fall into that category whereas you know if you look at the rest of the country or the national average is only 39 percent. Why if you look at any product category you will find that the penetration of the products are very high. For instance the highest per capita of automobiles or formulas you will find in Kerala. You know close to 20 percent of the population have four wheelers and about 60 percent have you know two wheelers. If come to refrigerators it would be 85 percent. Television will be 85 percent, refrigerators will be around 72 percent. So if you look at the national averages it would be less than half of this. Kerala is a consuming state and is a mature consumer state. Any mature consumer state, people have to spend more because the proliferation of brands are very high and therefore you need to fight for success and to increase your market share. Right, absolutely. You know so picking up from all the interesting data that you just gave us, you know Kerala in many ways has always been known for setting trends nationally and interestingly for print as well Kerala boasts of the highest reach across any medium more than CNS homes and the internet. So what is your take on it Mr. Chandi? See it is a traditionally literate state. You know when you say Kerala is the highest literate state in the country you know it didn't happen yesterday again you know it has been traditionally literate and secondly the print medium has been extremely strong because of the literacy and you know Malala Manorama has started a legacy of more than 130 years. Okay so the literacy is being very high, the print being a very credible medium you know any research you will find across you will find that print has been the most credible medium. So that's the reason why perhaps one of the few states where print is more than television or CNS in terms of reach because it's 87 percent of the population can be reached with print against television which is around 81 percent and internet is around 56 percent. So print is definitely definitely you know much higher reach than any other medium. So I told you the reason we have established a fantastic distribution network and typically newspaper is distributed delivered between five and six in Kerala and it is the primary source of information for a large part of the population of Kerala especially during a pandemic where a lot of fake news comes out people actually depended on print to get their share of the right news and you know we also have but TV and internet etc with us and of course you know that the legacy media brands of television or whether it is digital also you know have equally good credibility attached to that. Now because of all these media we are able to go into the in-depth analysis of what is going on in the state and be able to put across to the population on the next day morning in a fantastic manner. Interestingly Malayalam dailies are read by close to 82 percent of the population in the state compared to the five-person reach of English dailies. Second question here is that you know at Malayalam Manorama how do you keep your readers engaged? You know why do you think that English newspapers are less preferred in Kerala or virtually a non-Indian Kerala? You know it is 82 percent of the print versus five percent of English. The reason being I also said about 130 years of legacy and it has been you know because of the professional management and the professional way in which we have run the newspaper business. So look at our editorial network across the country and you know and the world you will find that we have some of the best editors working with us and the you know giving information to the people. Okay so if you if you take a Malayalam newspaper and if you take an English newspaper side by side you will hardly find any difference in the international news or in the national news. Of course the difference you will find in the hyper local news which Malayalam newspapers and specifically Malayalam Manorama does. You know we have more than about 100 local editions and the kind of news that you get through these local editions no other medium is in a position to give. So I also said about just a five percent is the only you know population that reads English newspapers and they also read a Malayalam newspaper which actually means you know the incremental reach in English newspaper you know gives to an advertiser is virtually zero. So so how do we keep engage the our readers readership? Editorial content is keeping with the times and changing interest all the time. You know so so so that is one other thing and you know we also do a lot of research among our readership readers to find out their preferences and the changing behaviors and then you know change I mean our newspaper keeps on changing to to reach or to cater to the requirement of the readers. So that is how we keep our readers engaged. Wow great. Also Kaila has many shopping seasons you have Vishu, you have Eid, Onam, Christmas etc but as we understand a lot has changed in the market behavior since the floods two years back. So if you can tell us a little bit about you know and help us understand about the changing trends. So traditionally you know Onam has been the most sought after period and this Onam window is actually falls between Chingum first which normally is on August 17 and the Onam day and Onam day could be anytime between 25th of August and it could be sometime in September. Okay so this window is the most you know appropriate time for the advertisers and appropriate time for the marketers to sell the products. So that's called the Onam window. So the longer the window you know the more work you have to do the lesser the window even more work you have to do because the sale has to happen within that period. This year actually it falls on 25th of August so there is only eight days between that Onam window. Now there used to be a time 50 to 60% of the consumer durable sales happened during that window. Okay now these floods happened during the Onam period okay 2018 and 19 the floods happened and I think that actually gave a reminder to the marketers that do not put all eggs in one basket you need to spread your market across the periods okay and in India you know always the market is associated with festivals and having said that I will also say that you know what are the changes what are the trends that you asked for I mean you also see that you know large supermarket chains are opening up in Kerala. Yes you would have visited Lulu in Kutchin which is supposedly the largest mall in Kerala and Lulu is opening across the state in Calicut in Trivandrum and Trichur Natia they already opened up and they are opening up across the state it's a large supermarket so a similar supermarket chains are opening up across the state and also you will also find large electronic supermarkets are opening up okay. You know you would have heard of Maiji, Oxygen, Nandileth, Bisni you know all of them you know are having multiple outlets and these outlets are large you know they are now seeking more and more larger outlets 12,000 square feet 15,000 square feet kind of outlets they are looking at I'm talking about you know there are 14 districts in Kerala ideally they would you know be present in all those 14 districts sooner or later which actually shows that many things one we started with the consumer state the second thing we talked about the new trends and the third thing I would say is the recovery from the Covid situation is right here you know the greatest example that recovery is happened or happening is when the retail is lying okay so what you see is the retail is quite live out there and you would also know that these are the brick and mortar shops that compete with the amazons and the flipkarts of the world but still people these shops are they are doing exceedingly well and to talk about newspaper you know how newspaper fits in there is that when they when they have a special sale just as amazon puts up a jacket takes a jacket or a flipkart takes a jacket these retail kings in Kerala survive on the jackets in Malayalam and other newspapers that's right you know you know I'm coming to trends since we spoke so much about trends you know Malayalam and Oroma has been inspiring newspapers and also other brands you know how to popularize the essence of local and also in the process make the offering profitable so you know if you could tell us a little bit about your growth story and how do you plan to keep it going and lastly about 2021 your big plans for the year and how do you plan to make it bigger and better yeah well I told you the first part of the story you know about our professional editorial network and also the research that we keep doing to understand the needs and the requirements of the population and if you notice you know the the biggest growth for Malayalam and Oroma has come in the last 10 years okay and that is when we had to survive with you know or coexist with the digital and the television okay so so when the newspaper story across the world I'm not very encouraging I would say that Kerala story is very positive very encouraging and I would say that it will continue to grow for many years to come okay that's that's because of the investment that we are doing to take care of the needs of the readers we also do a lot of exercise with the school students and we have pages you know basically we have pages for the students okay which they look forward to so so we are we are we are also hoping that the readership service would throw light on these exercises that even the younger population are not actually going away from the newspapers so so that is that is what we do to engage the readers can ensure that there is a steady growth and continuous growth and 2021 is definitely a year of hope definitely a year of hope there is no doubt at all because we are talking about okay 1920 was sorry 2021 was a year where everybody lost okay so we are only then talking about recovery you know there were many kinds of v-shaped recovery new shape recovery yesterday somebody was talking about k-shaped recovery and all of that okay so so I would say that we have you know if you come to march of 2021 we have almost reached the recovery stage which means that we have almost reached closer to 1920 figures okay so we can only go up from here because we hit the rock bottom and only we can go up from here and definitely 2020 2021 2022 is a year of hope and I also gave you the stories about how the retail is spreading the wings in Kerala so obviously this will help and see you also find that a whole lot of people have returned from Gulf and they also are looking for houses and you know to settle down and look for some work etc so all that will actually kick start the economy and I think the retail will benefit and retail is a barometer for the the growth in the business and the economy yeah right right that was so much of data so much of relevant information so much to know from learn from so to sum it up Mr Chandee anything that you would want to share with your readers or our viewers here any message to the readers any message to our viewers anything that you would want to add to sum it up well I would say that I mean your readers are also you know my advertisers and the media planners and all of them I would only tell them to not to club Kerala with the rest of the country you know or you know what you see in the rest of the country and do not come to conclusions you know and do not say that you know this is what we do in Delhi therefore we'll you know replicate the same in Kerala that doesn't work you go to actually look at each market and look at its trend sets nuances and that is why you are the media planner okay and therefore you know advise the advertisers and that Kerala is different and today I bet I said friends I'm telling you know my advice is you know as the same look at Kerala differently I keep hearing that you fall in terms of priority very low I would always say that you know you look at your market share in the place and see how you can improve your market share in that state that should be the the the priority and if you know other states had a problem with the newspaper distribution during the pandemic please do not you know say that Kerala also I have fallen into that so my request is I mean not even an advice my request is look Kerala differently for its strengths and for its nuances and you will only benefit out of it great great thank you so much mr chandy for joining us in this chat it was great having you here in this session thank you so much thank you very much