How DT Next's sampling innovation made Levista the newspaper companion

Drinking coffee, especially, with the morning newspaper is an intrinsic part of the culture and ritual in South India, particularly in Tamil Nadu. Taking this insight forward, DT Next – the English newspaper from the Daily Thanthi Group – undertook an innovative sampling route for the coffee brand Levista Coffee.

Explaining the insights behind the campaign, Ninan Thariyan, CEO, DT Next says, “We wanted to make use of the strong association, between coffee drinking and newspapers, for Levista coffee to enter DT Next homes through a sampling of their instant coffee variant.

The broad objectives of the sampling exercise were the following:  To provide the advertiser with an experiential marketing opportunity and induce trials among DT Next readers and to enhance reader experience by providing complimentary coffee powder worth Rs. 4/- with DT Next and enhance reader delight. Levista is a non-print advertiser and through this sampling exercise, we wanted to drive home the efficacy and the power of print media.” 

While the Covid-19 crisis impacted many brands, Levista Coffee saw this as an opportunity since many people were confined to their homes with either WFH or partial / full loss of jobs.

According to Shriram Sanjeevi, Vice President, Levista Coffee, “I felt that this could be a great opportunity to acquire new users for Levista, especially with stocks of most brands out of stock on retail store shelves. As a seeding activity, we wanted to distribute samples of our coffee sachets along with milk and the morning newspaper during the first complete lockdown in April. However, most apartment complexes were not allowing milk vendors to enter the compound and many other households shunned newspapers due to a dubious claim which was floating around that they could be carriers of the coronavirus. We finally executed the activity much later in September, perhaps for the better.” 

Levista is associated with Chennai Super Kings as their beverage partner and the sampling exercise was timed with the inaugural match of the current IPL season when Chennai Super Kings were playing against Mumbai Indians. September 20 was chosen for the sampling since being a Sunday it would enable better engagement with the readers. The sampling exercise was carried out in 72,000 copies of DT Next in Chennai, Kanchipuram and Tiruvallur markets.

Says Thariyan, “As opposed to regular display advertising messages, sampling with the morning newspaper enabled Levista coffee to cut short the various stages of the advertising process - Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action. The sampling exercise helped bypass the process and directly induced trial among the audience.”

Executing The Innovation

Sampling is normally carried out with cold products such as supplements or magazines. Levista sampling, on the contrary, was carried out in the main issue which is a hot product.  With deadlines being sacrosanct in the newspaper industry, any delay of firing the pages can upset the distribution process. The task at hand was to adhere to distribution timings and to ensure the samples reach the reader intact.

Explaining how DT Next executed the sampling, Thariyan says, “We conducted a stress test to make sure the sachets containing the samples were not damaged while bundling and transportation of copies. We closed the edition 2 hours ahead of the normal deadline. Arrangements were also made to stick 2 samples together, using a self-adhesive sticker one day in advance for pasting on the newspaper as soon as it was printed. We had also arranged sufficient manpower to complete the task of sticking the samples on the pre-assigned space in the advertisement of Levista on the front page of the newspaper. In order to create hype and awareness we had carried one advertisement each in Daily Thanthi and DT Next on the previous day, informing the readers about the sampling exercise.”

On his part Sanjeevi says, “Sampling with newspapers is not new but what we achieved with DT Next was an industry-first. The samples were laced along with our advertisement on the front page. This idea was mooted by Ninan and the entire credit goes to DT Next Team which worked in reverse order and coordinated with our team so well to ensure the print was ready ahead of time so it could be distributed on a Sunday morning.”

Sanjeevi further said, “I believe this methodology was the innovation and not sampling by itself. Our objective was met with the fact that there was a huge buzz among newspaper lovers that a steaming cup of coffee (literally) was served along with the newspaper. That the product was an instant coffee, perhaps added instant joy to readers and coffee lovers.”

Commenting on the response from DT Next’s readers Thariyan says, “Readers were delighted to receive two complimentary sachets of Levista coffee powder along with their favourite newspaper, DT Next. Incidentally, it is the first time that coffee powder was sampled with a newspaper in Chennai market. Many readers informed us that they used the samples on the same day and some of them are considering to purchase Levista coffee from the market and adopt the brand.”

The brand has received positive feedback from consumers as well as avid readers and patrons of printed newspapers, Sanjeevi said. “Those from the media industry, especially former and present executives from the Print industry have been delighted to see such a massive exercise carried out by the both of us. I see this as a marketing promotion and not a sales promotion, so the response has been as expected - that we received the much needed attention from notable households in the city of Chennai. I am sure, Levista will now be high on the consideration set for many thousands after sampling our coffee. This, along with many of our other initiatives will make the brand more preferred to coffee connoisseurs in times to come.”