Amar Ujala appoints D&H Blurb as its creative partner

Rahul Kapoor - Televisionpoint.com | New Delhi
Amar Ujala, a Hindi news daily, has appointed D&H Blurb Communications as its new creative partner. The incumbent agency is Oxygen Advertising, which worked with the brand for about four months. Prior to Oxygen, BEI Confluence handled the creative duties.

Confirming the development to Televisionpoint.com, Vandana Pant, brand head, Amar Ujala, says, "D&H Blurb will partner us through a creative route to strengthen the brand further. We have certain marketing strategies for the festive season ahead and the coming year, for which we require an agency that would be able to carry out those plans."

D&H Blurb, known as Serum Marketing and Communication Services earlier, was christened so in April this year. The agency is the result of an amalgamation between Abhinav Dhar and Ajit Hoon of Dhar & Hoon; and Chetan Marwah.

Pant says that Future Brands, which has a 60 per cent stake in D&H Blurb, was a prompter for Amar Ujala to swing the decision in the favour of D&H Blurb. The dynamics shown by the agency helped make the final decision, she says.

Pant also reveals Amar Ujala's plans to launch an BTL (below-the-line) agency by next month. Christened Amar Ujala Impact, the agency will seek to provide not only event based solutions to its clients but will also roll out on-ground brand solutions to build brands.

Pant says, "Amar Ujala Impact will establish long term relationships with its clients, instead of getting into short term commitments with brands. The agency will not bundle our print services along with the activation offerings, but we shall treat our print vehicle as a separate organisation."

Amar Ujala, as a brand, has been spending less in terms of advertising, but desires to explore the marketing tool to build up its performance. Among other things, an new campaign and a different positioning statement is on the cards. The present tag line is, 'Josh sach ka' (Power of truth).

Amar Ujala has been associated with Serum in the past, when it was commissioned to do qualitative market research for the newspaper. Serum had conducted market analysis to find out what's working and what's not for the 61-year-old brand.

After four months of research, Amar Ujala was better equipped to carry out the Lucknow launch of the daily. The research pointed out areas in which Amar Ujala was connecting with its readers, and those in which the readers want more. The result was a proposition created by Serum, which worked to optimise the brand personality.

For the record, Amar Ujala was started in Agra in 1948; it has a circulation of around 17 lakh copies. Amar Ujala also enjoys good readership in Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir.