Brand Wars spilling Ink

Lots of blogs have written about this and everyone seems to have two cents to spare. So here I go, two pennies.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, and two pens are war, there is bound to be blotches all over.
To put things in perspective. The Times of India came up with campaign directly hitting at The Hindu

Wake up to the Times of India:


And as a reply to that The Hindu came up with an ad campaign and lots of mudslinging.

Stay ahead of the Times:

To which yet again Times of India replied with the following print ad.

The funny thing is that all the ads are telling you the same thing.

The Times of India wants to position itself as a very fun newspaper with all its interesting news bites and attracts the young to stay young.
The Hindu wants to position itself as a very serious newspaper that encourages the young to stay informed about current affairs.

Living in the south, even as a schoolgirl I knew The Hindu's perspective was serious while that of other newspapers like The New Indian Express. And TOI has entered the latter space. The target markets are different. I am surprised to see the The Hindu would react in a manner so direct. However, it was a reaction.  And TOI waiting for the right moment came out with the witty ad about competition waking up as well.

What puts the balance out of focus is the latest print ad by TOI:

Right. So true, that Aishwarya's baby is no less important than the Vice-President of India, (or me?) . However, information is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom. True as well, so no matter how much information The Hindu provides the reader with, (s)he will not be knowledgeable and even if (s)he were (s)he would not be any wiser than if (s)he read the TOI. In other words, TOI agrees, their readers are unwise but disagrees that reading The Hindu instead can make them any wiser, however, anyone who reads the TOI can feel more human.

Err... calling your reader stupid is not really smart is it ?