A Study on Consumer Awareness Regarding Times Group Magazine

“A Journey of Thousands Miles Begines With One Step”

Now a days with the rapid growth of technology world becomes smaller day by day and to stand with this world it is necessary to have a practical knowledge of any subject instead of any theory.

Practical knowledge is important everywhere, like a person can‘t learn driving by reading thousands of books on it. There should be a practical driving knowledge. Similarly management student can‘t learn management without going in real business field. Then he/she can know about the business problem as well as market situation, only theoretical knowledge is not the sing of management training practical knowledge also hold an equal importance.

Summer internship is a part of complete management study and carrying out such a project work is required by the examination and evaluation department of different universities necessary at their partial fulfillment of there.

We have got a great opportunity to visit and complete our internship at The Times of India. We‘ve got sense of RMD department that how they are controlling their business and going ahead. We have taken the project title for our project work as “CONSUMER AWARENESS REGARDING TIMES GROUP MAGAZINE”. The task behind this project given as a part of summer training to find out the consumer satisfaction and awareness towards magazines of Times group target audience with the help of primary data. I.e. through the questionnaires and feedback. The data collection was done on the basis of Google docs forms.

It is a moment of pleasure to present this project report undertaken by us as the fulfillment of our summer training for our course of MBA. Having completed this project, we realized the importance of the people who have been a lot support to us. Every study requires a guidance of someone who is working in that field.

First of all, I would like to extend our gratitude to BENNETT COLEMAN & CO. LTD which has given us an opportunity to work and study in their work culture. “THE TIMES OF INDIA” division who gave us permission to commence this project and to do the necessary research work and to use departmental data.

I would further like to extend my gratitude and thanks to MR. RAJESH BHATIA, Senior Manager, RMD, under whose supervision and guidance we were able to complete this research. He was the main driving force who helped us outline the research and also guided us at each and every step. I would also like to say thank you to all the other staff members who were able to help us and who provided us with the various field information which made the practical

Aspect of our experience of working more knowledgeable.

Another person who played a pivotal role in this research, and whom we would like to extend our gratitude is MR. DHRUMAN PATEL, for helping us with the research and the help we cross the various roadblocks which we faced. Without his guidance, it would have been impossible for us to have completed this research.

We are extremely grateful to our guide DR. ANITA SUNIL lead us and solve our problems throughout the Summer Internship Programmed and all to the Faculties of LJ Institutes of management

We are also thankful to our parents, dear friends, readers and all those- who have supported motivated us to work hard and gave us an opportunity to prove ourselves throughout Summer Training. Last but not the least we would like to thank God for his mercy and grace upon us.

L J Institute Of Management Studies

The final project at “TIMES OF INDIA”, was very enlightening and well informed.

We have done Research study on the factors influencing of subscription for the magazines in “TIMES OF INDIA”. The Research Study was confined in Ahmedabad, Anand, Petlad, Khambhat City With the sample size of 200. I did primary data through questionnaire. We have also been provided the data bank which we have used as secondary data.

The report contains information regarding History, Mission, Vision, industry information, company information, product information. It also contains detail about research methodology which includes research problem, choice of research design, sources of data, designing of data, collection form, sample size, sample design, questionnaire.

It also contains brief introduction of Bennett, Coleman & CO. Ltd and Times of India. Report also includes the findings related to the reason why people do not read magazines of Times group and what motivate them to read Times of India. On the basis of information given by the respondent I have laid down findings and recommendations which can be of great help to the company to increase its market share and prove important to the BCCL (Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd ) and helpful to increase the perception and responsiveness of “TIMES GROUP” magazine.

We were given the target of 55 subscriptions per person from the new readers, present readers and Left Readers. Which we tried to fulfilled with our devotion and diligence.

Literature Review

Print media continued to improve add awareness and persuasion at high levels of exposure. when TV or online are over - used and the response from any further advertising would be reduced, better results would be obtained from under - used magazine advertising which is still on a sleep section of its response curve. Media combinations were most effective when print was part of the mix. Overall, TV + online + print was the strongest combination. I know that all campaigns using TV are also going to use online as well these days, but it is best to use print too, in moving consumers towards purchase.

Magazines were the most cost effective medium throughout the purchase funnel, looking at two related measures of ROI—cost per person and people impacted per dollar spent—from ten Cross Media Research™ studies — Based on cost per person, magazines were the most efficient medium in three out of five stages of the purchase funnel. For the non-packaged goods category (22 studies), as with overall results, magazines were the largest contributor for aided brand awareness, brand favorability, and purchase consideration/intent. Magazines contributed 33% or more at four of the five stages: aided brand awareness, ad awareness, and with significant impact in brand favorability and purchase consideration/intent.

In today’s media environment, successful campaigns must incorporate a mix of traditional and digital media. The delivery of a consistent message across a variety of channels can improve consumers’ purchase intent by 90% and brand perception by 68%.10 In the upper funnel, combining desktop and print raised campaign-aided brand awareness by 96%. In addition, polling data shows that consumers trust print over any other advertising medium. Because so many of us make purchases online, marketers can take advantage of this trust to drive sales online as well as offline. A clear, consistent and media-diverse strategy should drive any marketer’s ad placement decision.

Magazine Media 360° measures audiences across multiple platforms and formats to provide a comprehensive and accurate picture of consumer demand for magazine media brands. Nothing informs a discussion better than solid data, and the 2016/17 Magazine Media Factbook has plenty of conversation starters. The research continues to show that magazine media is the most trusted, inspiring and influential of all media, powerful ability to drive sales.

Readers’ process of selection when they choose a magazine ensures the relevance of the contents to the individual reader, and an empathy with how the magazine sees its world. A personal relationship builds up. The personal relationship between reader and magazine is a characteristic of magazines around the world. The average paid-for magazine is read for 54 minutes, picked up 5.4 times, and the average page is opened 2.5 times. In a world of growing multi-tasking, where consumers are increasingly consuming more than one medium at a time, magazines stand out as the medium which is most used on its own without the distraction of other media.

Angela McRobie has suggested that ‘in media and cultural studies, scholarship on magazines has occupied a less central and prestigious place than scholarship on other media’ and this remains the case over a decade later. However, the studies of women’s magazines that have occurred, though limited in number, have demonstrated a sense of complexity and a field fraught with debate. Disputes have arisen not only regarding the nature and importance of women’s magazines but also how exactly they should be studied. A sense of conflict arises throughout many studies wherein the female author must weigh their personal sense of self and their relationship to women’s magazines against an academic and feminist perspective.

The Cosmopolitan is an international monthly magazine for women, which was launched by Schulich and Field of New York in 1886. Published in Germany since 1980, the Cosmopolitan has a worldwide distribution in around 100 countries and has 64 editions and is published in 35 different languages. In 1886, the magazine was taken over by the Bauer Media Group, previously it belonged to Marquand Media AG. The price for particularly innovative products is chosen from around 600 products and is annually awarded by judges of experts consisting of dermatologists, editors and industry representatives. The awarded products in 15 different cosmetic categories are presented within the printed version usually in March. This presentation should be classified not as advertising but rather as editorial content of the magazine.

The study revealed that out of the 86 respondents, 47.7% do register magazines before using them and 52.3% do not. Out of the 86 respondents, 63 or 73.3% prefer to use the internet, 37 or 43% said they lack time in going to the library, 11 or 12.8% reasoned that they are not required to read materials for classroom purposes, and 7 or 8.1% unaware where to find the magazines and journals. The most popular reason for not using the magazines and journals is the preference to use the internet. Another reason for not using the magazines and journals is the lack of time to go to the library.

Aviv Shoham (Senior Lecturer, Graduate school of Business, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel) Consumer compulsive buying is an important area of inquiry in consumer behaviour research. The importance of studying compulsive buying, stems, in part, from its nature as a negative aspect of consumer behavior. Specifically, exploring negative consumption phenomena could provide modified or new perspectives for the study of positive consumption behaviours. Moreover, research on negative facets of consumption is useful because it can potentially contribute to society’s wellbeing, an important criterion for usefulness of any research. This paper builds on earlier papers to propose a model of compulsivity antecedents. Gender, consumers’ tendency to make unplanned purchases, and their tendency to buy products not on shopping lists, serve to predict compulsive tendencies in a sample of Israeli consumers. The findings suggest that these antecedents affect compulsive tendencies.

Time spent reading a newspaper has also been used. Readership Institute, North Western University, defines time spent, “The amount of time consumers spent reading or looking at their newspaper both on weekdays and Sundays. One of the three elements comprising the Readership Behavior Score, along with frequency and completeness.

Printed newspaper and magazines also make their readers aware of those other topics outside the range of their individual interests, sharing, resourceful and advertisement purpose about a wider array of events and issues in one’s community.

The Brand Builder model provides a means of studying the brand loyalty construct that includes both its attitudinal and behaviour components. It is based on the assumptions that all brands can be described behaviourally, that a series of survey questions can be employed in place of probability of purchase, and that consumer behaviours and attitudes towards brands can be linked. The predictive ability of the Brand Builder model is tested. Findings indicate that highly loyal buyers are more likely to continue purchasing a brand over the coming year that is influenced by their brand attitudes. It is found that low loyal/nonbuyers are more likely to be converted if these buyers have a positive view about the products that they have not yet bought. Finally, the results suggest that the convergence of consumer attitudes and behaviour has predictive properties.