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Tag: Mumbai Mirror

  • Times Group shuts down Pune Mirror, turns Mumbai Mirror to a weekly

    Times Group shuts down Pune Mirror, turns Mumbai Mirror to a weekly

    New Delhi: The pandemic, lockdown and unprecedented economic crisis have massively impacted the media industry. It has hit the distribution, circulation, and advertising revenues of these companies.

    The latest victim of this unprecedented crisis is the Times Group, which has decided to cease the publishing of Pune Mirror and relaunch Mumbai Mirror as a weekly newspaper. Both these products will continue to have a strong digital presence.

    In a statement issued, the Times Group said, “Following months of discussions and deliberations, we have made this extremely difficult and painful decision to recalibrate our portfolio of publications. We truly value the contribution of our journalists and other staff towards building such a strong brand in a relatively short time, and thank them for their hard work and great effort.”

    It further said that not only has the newspaper industry been among the hardest-hit in terms of revenues, but it has also been weighed down by an import duty that has added to newsprint costs. With the long-held hope of a stimulus not materializing and the Indian economy is now officially in recession.

    Mumbai Mirror was launched 15 years ago. Feisty and fearless, energetic and enthusiastic, playful yet punchy, the paper lived up to its name from the day it was born, mirroring Mumbai in all its myriad moods. It was as local as Mumbai’s locals – the lifeblood that keeps the city on track and moving. The paper became such an integral part of the reader’s life, driving the narrative of the city, that it was decided to extend the experience to Bengaluru, Pune and Ahmedabad.

    Mumbai Mirror had also released several successful brand campaigns that went on to be appreciated by the industry and the audiences.

  • Mumbai Mirror launches the 2nd leg to the city-wide campaign ‘Operation Khataara’

    Mumbai Mirror launches the 2nd leg to the city-wide campaign ‘Operation Khataara’

    MUMBAI: Mumbai Mirror, the city’s favorite daily, takes its civic campaign ‘Operation Khataara’ to the next level by launching a multimedia campaign. Since the last 4 months, the city newspaper has been waging a war against these abandoned cars, with a series of investigations on the intensity of the problem of ‘Khataaras’ left on the streets of Mumbai. The newly launched communication talks to the residents of Mumbai to report the location of these Khataaras, so that the menace can be quantified and presented to the civic bodies for suitable action.

    The campaign ‘Operation Khataara’ identifies the abandoned vehicles that are left to rot on the streets as the most-wanted abettors of crime in the city, that the residents need to report. In addition to being an eye-sore and a prime reason for traffic congestion in many parts of Mumbai’s busy streets, these dead-cars also foster criminal activities on the road. They are a breeding ground for mosquitoes that spread life-threatening diseases like dengue and malaria. Mumbai Mirror calls attention to this menace and urges the concerned authorities, encouraging them to take corrective actions to tackle the challenge.

    Besides a series of articles, investigations and videos, the campaign intends to empower Mumbaikars to create an information network via a WhatsApp number 9372772277, where readers can share details about any abandoned vehicles in their vicinity along with photographs. In a city that grapples with space issues, abandoned cars raise the burden on the city by adding to parking issues. With the participation of citizens and authorities, Mumbai Mirror hopes to create a ‘Khataara’ free city and effectively serve the people of the city. The campaign will be communicated across media platforms including print, radio and digital media via engaging content formats and innovative ad-elements.

    Speaking about the civic awareness campaign, Sanjeev Bhargava, Director, Brand TOI & Mirror said, “We at Mumbai Mirror consistently strive to dig below the surface and bring those issues to the notice of our readers that have not been addressed by anyone else and yet are important to the society we live in. And #OperationKhataara is an extension of our brand promise that focuses on the betterment of the city and its citizens. We believe in making a difference in the society and through this campaign we hope to encourage authorities in Mumbai as well as other cities to undertake similar initiatives.”

    Through years, Mumbai Mirror has launched several impactful campaigns to make the city stronger and better. Campaigns like ‘I Am Mumbai’ brings forth the spirit of Mumbai and properties like ‘Mumbai Heroes’ felicitates the strong men and women who are changing the city for better. The journey to highlight the pressing issue of abandoned cars in the city began with an incident in Kandivali, which sparked into a city-wide movement reaching out to Ghatkopar, Juhu and Bandra leading to the full-fledged campaign – ‘Operation Khataara’ by Mumbai Mirror. Join the campaign and lend a helping hand to create a better Mumbai. Drop a line at operationkhataara@timesgroup.com

  • Race 2 collects Rs 509.8 mn in opening weekend

    Race 2 collects Rs 509.8 mn in opening weekend

    MUMBAI: Race 2 makes the most of its brand equity and an extended weekend of three holidays to take an impressive three-day box office. The mixed appreciation notwithstanding, the film has gone on to collect Rs 509.8 million for its opening weekend.

    The film showed its best performance on Saturday, the 26 January national holiday, with a jump of over 35 per cent over its opening day collections.

    Inkaar, a modern day work place love versus politics drama, fails to make a mark. The film opened with poor collections and failed to earn any footfalls thereafter to end its first week with a figure of Rs 77.5 million.

    Mumbai Mirror collected about Rs 15 million in its first week.

    Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola remained on the lower side even in its second week despite weak oppositions and collected Rs 71.5 million taking its tally to Rs 385 million.

    Table No 21 added Rs 8 million in its third week to take its total to Rs 120.7 million.

    Dabangg2 added Rs 5.5 million in its fifth week, taking its total to Rs 1.45 billion.

    An assorted lot of films is due for release on February 1. These include Mai, David, Listen Amaya, Pyar Ka Jalwa and, probably, Vishwaroopam. The trade, especially the exhibitors, however, are looking forward to 8 February for the release of Special 26 coming from A Wednesday! director Neeraj Pandey and; ABCD- Any Body Can Dance, India‘s first 3-D dance film, directed by choreographer Remo D‘Souza and starring ace dancer Prabhudheva.

  • Inkaar fizzles at box office

    Inkaar fizzles at box office

    MUMBAI: Of the three movies released on Friday, the multiplexes had pegged their hopes on Inkaar. Sadly, the Sudhir Mishra-directed movie did not live up to the expectations. The film opened to weak response and failed to improve over the weekend and had Rs 52.5 million to show for its first three days.

    The other two releases – Mumbai Mirror and Bandook failed to find audience.

    Vishal Bhardwaj‘s Matru Ki Bijla Ka Mandola did not succeed in selling its hackneyed story which built a film around a character artiste leaving little for the lead pair to do. Having opened to a tepid response, it could not improve through its first week run and ended its first week with figures of Rs 313.5 million. The film showed a massive drop over its second weekend and will go down as the first notable flop of 2013.

    Paresh Rawal and Rajeev Khandelwal starrer Table No 21 survived week two and added Rs 17.5 million for the week taking its total collection to Rs 112.7 million.

    Salman Khan‘s Dabangg 2 collected Rs 27.5 million in its fourth week taking its total to Rs 1.45 billion. The number of screens and the opening week indicated a Rs 1.50 million business but the film may fall short of that mark by few million.

  • Inkaar: A love story badly told

    Inkaar: A love story badly told

    MUMBAI: Inkaar has been widely promoted as a film on sexual harassment at work place. Ideally, the work place here is an ad agency. Ad agencies are generally identified with glamour because that is what they cater through their ads and are thought to be full of people with open and free minds. It helps the cause of the film because, otherwise, ad agencies are not the only place where romances, affairs or molestations happen. Whatever the perceptions created, Inkaar, in a nutshell, is just another love story.

     

    Producers: Tipping Point Films, Viacom 18.
    Director: Sudhir Mishra.
    Cast: Arjun Rampal, Chitrangada Singh, Deepti Naval, Vipin Sharma, Gaurav Dwivedi, Mohan Kapoor, Rehana Sultan.

    Arjun Rampal is a high flying ad executive, the CEO of a happening agency with a US tie-up. Since ad agencies are generally identified with their leaders, Rampal is a legend in his own right in the ad world. Like all good leaders he encourages and grooms his team. One such person he has chosen to groom and hone talent of is Chitrangada Singh, a sensuous, sharp and ambitious girl from a small town, Solan in HP. Even before she can prove herself, Rampal is struck by her poise and beauty; if you count his ogling her at all meetings and briefings that happen in any office, he is obsessed with her!

     

    Rampal takes Singh under his wings, she shows sparks and soon her talent and contribution make her the blue eyed girl of the agency. The proximity leads to a romance between Rampal and Singh. The job creates many opportunities to travel and spend time together and soon the relationship becomes physical.

     

    Singh has also impressed the owners, especially the American partner, and she is soon delegated to the American partner agency. On her return, before the romance can rekindle, a management move to make her the creative head of the agency leads to parallel powers in the agency. After all, she is an ambitious woman and has no reason to say no despite Rampal‘s suggestion not to accept as he thinks she was not yet ready for the responsibilities.

     

    In the egos clash, romance is sacrificed, and this being a creative field, also sacrificed are some client accounts. Every time Singh needs Rampal‘s help, there are hurdles, or so she feels. Due to their past liaison, she smells a demand for sex whenever she encounters him. Exasperated, she decides to complain of harassment against her CEO, Rampal. You would expect a horde of woman activists to descend on him and newspaper headlines all over. But, no, here it is all hush, hush, no media and no activists, only one social worker; Deepti Naval sits on an inquest.

     

    As both the parties are called to testify in turns, the film‘s narrative comes in flashbacks because the inquest hears a particular incident told by Singh, Rampal follows with an explanation. This leads to unfolding of the film in various flashbacks. This does not help the cause of gripping the viewer with a taut telling of the story and fails to involve him. Other colleagues also tell their part in the events over the years. While a bias is evident against Singh from most colleagues, Naval also thinks that with two attractive persons working closely, sex is bound to happen! When the matter is not clear, Naval asks the panel sitting with her to vote on guilty or not guilty!

     

    When there is no inquest in progress, the ad world seems busy in revelry, drinking and generally having fun.

     

    Rampal has decided enough is enough and SMSs his resignation and heads home to Shahranpur to meet his father of various flashbacks in the film, Kanwaljeet Singh. Before that, he has had a confrontation with Singh in the washroom. When asked by Singh about his attitude, his response is ‘Because he was angry and because he loved her‘. Singh remembers it and its time for her also to pick up her car keys and follow Rampal to Shahranpur!

     

    Due to the piecemeal style of the script, the direction never gets a handle on the proceedings. Music lacks appeal.

     

    Rampal, as a lover in flashbacks and an annoyed accused in present is good in latter part. Singh is mainly glamour. Rest have no definite roles to play.

     

    Inkaar, has opened with poor response with little chance of improving.

     

    Mumbai Mirror: Lacks face value

     

    Producer: Raina S Joshi.
    Director: Ankush Bhatt.
    Cast: Sachin Joshi, Gihana Khan, Prakash Raj, Vimala Raman, Mahesh Manjrekar, Aditya Pancholi, Prashant Narayanan, Ra

    A guy wanting to be the clone of Salman Khan is understandable. After all, Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan have had hundreds of them. But the hero here, Sachin Joshi, in his self financed film, also wants to clone a Salman Khan film! So, Mumbai Mirror is to be watched with Joshi as its hero but while imagining you are watching Salman Khan on screen.

     

    Joshi, in his pretence of playing Salman Khan, brings along the same actor, Prakash Raj to play the villain. What lets him down is his thin voice.

     

    Joshi is a police inspector in a station headed by his maternal uncle, Mahesh Manjrekar. He drinks, womanises, gambles on cricket matches and finally, also takes to snorting drugs. However, when it comes to action, he is never found wanting. Worst crime a man can commit, according to him, is raise a hand on woman of which he is unforgiving. Typically, he had a thing going with a bar dancer, Gihana Khan, who is now the don Raj‘s mole.

     

    Raj is the biggest don of Mumbai owning almost 70 per cent dance bars in the city, a man whom no policeman can touch. Joshi and Raj are soon to be pitted as the latter wants to open a dance bar in Joshi‘s precinct which Joshi would allow as long as there are no dance girls involved. Joshi also learns that dance bars are just a front and the real business behind this façade is that of drugs.

     

    The war between Raj and Joshi peaks and game of chess laid out in Raj‘s den now becomes real as both try to outwit the other. As a result, Joshi is suspended from the force. He continues his fight and, in the process, also meets a TV reporter, Vimala Raman, to add a mild romantic angle to the proceedings. Joshi adds another bad man, Aditya Pancholi, to the fight, turns Raj and Pancholi against each other. He is surprised to trace the source of drugs supply, and carries out the final elimination. Also eliminated is the corrupt CBI man and Raj‘s puppet, Sudesh Berry.

     

    To fill up the screen and make the film watchable, there is a line up of some known talent in the cast. There is always some action on screen but the problem is that there is nothing new. Dialogue by Ghalib Asad Bhopali is good when not remixing old Salman Khan lines. Music is out of sync. With a seasoned supporting cast, the performances are good. Joshi, Gihana and Raman are okay.

     

    Mumbai Mirror, lacking face value, finds no takers and is faced with no show situation.

  • Xrbia’s teaser campaign sells destination

    MUMBAI: Real estate company XRBIA Developers has launched the teaser campaign for its upcoming project by the same name.

    The campaign has been conceptualised by creative agency Ideas@work and the objective of the campaign is to promote ‘XRBIA as a country.’ The strategic marketing consultancy on the campaign was GroupM’s agency mConsult.

    As part of the concept to further this objective, the teaser campaign is made to look like a tourism advertising/promotion, inviting people to explore a new destination. To make it seem authentic and pique the audience’s curiosity, the campaign also uses the line ‘Visa on Arrival’ as a finishing touch.

    The idea draws inspiration from the etymology of the word Xrbia. The name of the project is derived from the word ‘exurb’ which denotes a location on the outskirts of a city. In keeping with the name’s origin, Xrbia Developers plans to focus the current and future projects at locales on the outskirts of the bustling cities.

    The campaign consists of a 360 degree campaign to reach the target audience and create maximum retention of the brand name and associations. For this purpose, the agency created content across TV, print, radio and digital medium in order to promote the brand and position XRBIA as an idyllic country.

    As part of the print leg of the campaign, the brand issued ads in publications like The Economic Times, Mumbai Mirror, Pune Times and Gujarat Samachar. On the online front, Xrbia featured on travel portals like Make my trip and Yatra apart from the usual mass reach portals like Yahoo, Google, YouTube and Facebook.

    The TVC was created to highlight a new place where people can lead a peaceful, laughter filled and stress free life and have a community of their own wherein they welcome their guests with warmth and affection.

    In case of radio, the campaign took the interactive route and held contests running for three days on different aspects of the Xrbian Life like food, music, nightlife etc. where people participated to win vouchers if they could guess correctly amongst the options given.

    The campaign received an encouraging response with 27,000 Facebook likes and enquires about the project. “Many of the Interactions were about people asking where the new country was, some asking if it was a rebranding campaign by Serbia, some even applying for a job in the country. The high amount of interaction with the page content just helped reinforce the success of the campaign,” said an official statement.