Brand Loyalty-A Study of Select Newspapers

The Indian print industry is growing strongly, fuelled by robust economic growth and demand from an emerging urban and literate middle class that is enjoying higher incomes and rising standards of living. The buoyancy has attracted competition. With more than 94,000 registered newspapers in India, the need to differentiate from competitors is of strategic importance. This calls for a thorough understanding of the reader, the all important entity who is not only a valued subscriber but is also the prospective customer of the advertiser whose spending runs the newspaper business. The newspaper brand is both an expectation and validation to the reader. The author attempts to understand the factors that influence loyalty towards the newspaper brand. The antecedents and consequences of brand loyalty is tested using the PLS modelling technique in SmartPLS to arrive at a model of brand loyalty towards newspapers .This model will be of immense help to newspaper publishing companies to retain and maintain readers in the highly competitive business environment, where there is a continuous surge in new and advanced media that may pose a threat to the traditional newspaper.