The growing phenomena of fake news and partisan journalism was making people distrust news all together. In such dire times of trust deficit, the need of the hour was to remind readers of the credible, fact-checked, brave and consistently path-breaking journalism of the Times of India. All this with an eye on helping people navigate through the clutter and reach out for news they could trust.

The creative idea is best encapsulated in the line ‘The Trust of India’. It was not mere wordplay with the brand name The Times of India, but a powerful reminder of what the brand stands for. We used the ‘Common Man’ – an iconic protagonist of a daily cartoon that used to appear in the paper for decades. The execution idea was to present the ‘Common Man’ as an observer of the key events covered by TOI over the years. The humour added freshness while re-visiting some of the marquee stories that showcased the best of the brand’s journalism. Impact:

• The campaign helped trigger conversations and debates – positives, negatives on different trust stories and even the campaign as a whole. The campaign delivered a positive polarity of 95% which is quite high when benchmarked across industries/brands.
• Impressions: 505 Mn+, Visits: 4.28 Mn+, Page views: 9.06 Mn+, Engagements: 3.4 Mn+, Conversations (# shares): 0.15 Mn+
• Conversations increased from an average of 554 per day in the first week of the campaign and peaking to 1435 per day in September 2021.