From Print Roots to Integrated Strategy: Riyo Advertising’s Evolution

Riyo Advertising started with all prints. The most relied on advertising medium in India used to be newspapers, the place where organizations announced their debut, companies sought new hires, lawmakers announced their initiatives, and companies published legal notices in newspapers.

Riyo founded its fledgling reputation, on a single fact, that of doing print better than anybody.

That implied bargaining on better rates. Developing personal contacts with the ad directors of large publications. I would have liked to know the finesse of edition choice, which edition of TOI sold in Maharashtra, which local language newspaper sold to the right market in Andhra Pradesh, which Gujarati newspaper provided the best ROI to a Surat-based MSME.

This proficiency in print would be the foundation of all the Riyo would create. The art of fitting a message to the medium, audience to issue, budget to positioning, these essentials never became out of fashion. They merely broadened their horizons.

When the economy of India opened up and consumption shifted out of the metros, Riyo got a chance that most agencies had overlooked, the power of the vernacular media.

Half a story was told in English dailies. The other half was in the provincial newspapers - those that are read at chai stalls at Lucknow, in the barber-shops of Coimbatore, and in the farm houses of Maharashtra country. These papers were authentic and close to their readers in a way that no national English dailies could achieve.

Riyo had invested much in establishing a 150 plus vernacular publication system- Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Gujarati etc. The publisher relations were not only developed in Mumbai, but in all the major regional media centres in the country.

To clients, it signified something new: now a single agency could provide a coordinated campaign in 200+ publications in a variety of languages, out of one desk in Ghatkopar West.

It came before the era of the so-called integrated thinking when the word has become a buzzword.

The following evolution was associated with a geographical change. Competitors were still obsessed with the metro, but Riyo started building profound knowledge in tier-2 and tier-3 markets- Jaipur, Nagpur, Coimbatore, Bhubaneswar, and Lucknow that were slowly becoming the real consumption engine in India.

The local newspapers in these markets were more than mere alternatives to national papers which were cheaper. They were the main sources of trust in the sense that they were the media that was usually read by the whole community. Display advertisements in a regional daily of Rajasthan had access to audiences that could not be effectively approached with the help of any digital platform of that time.

The field intelligence that Riyo had in these markets of what papers had credibility of circulation, which editions yielded results, which districts were high-growth became a proprietary advantage that could not be duplicated by the clients themselves.

By the time the industry began discussing tier-2/3 opportunities, Riyo had been doing so for a long time.

There was a print campaign that stimulated brand awareness that had to be reinforced. The most effective recruitment advertisement that appeared in a newspaper was accompanied by a highway hoarding in the same area. One of the contexts that rendered a legal notice to be important was when the display ad was placed alongside.

The history behind Riyo being developed into OOH advertising agency Mumbai and OOH (Out-of-Home) advertisement was a logical development of its media intelligence, it was not a pivot but a logical extension of the same principle: meet the audience where they are, with the right message, at the right moment.

Highway hoardings, transit advertising, local market OOH - they were now complementary in campaigns that were literally multi touch point via outdoor media buying services. A beverage brand entering rural Maharashtra has not only placed vernacular print ads but their advertisement program included a well-planned roll-out of local display ads in newspapers and placing hoardings along highways with sustained messages across all the touchpoints in the daily life of a rural consumer.

It was a combination plan on the ground - not a Powerpoint slide, but a live campaign with quantifiable outcomes.

None of the evolutionary stories of contemporary advertising overlooks digital. The association of Riyo with digital media serves the same precept that has been the staple of all the chapters in its growth, that is to implement that which truly serves the client and add it with a well thought-out approach.

Everything was rushed faster by the COVID years. Print campaigns which previously existed independently had to be amplified digitally. WhatsApp was turned into a client communication platform. Digital classifieds was a complement of print classifieds. Vernacular online news outlets expanded at a high rate - and the current regional publisher ties at Riyo became a source of access to digital inventory in the same markets.

Instead of giving up on print and going digital, as many agencies did, only to revert to their old ways, Riyo created a hybrid media business with print and digital enhancing each other: