The time has come for you to own a piece of ThePrint. Do you want a bit of Cut the Clutter in your daily life? Would you like to be Politically Correct? Or do you fancy carrying around some Great Speeches?
Well, now you can have all three. In its latest initiative, ThePrint has launched a merchandise website where you can buy branded products from popular editorial properties like CTC.
Before writing this piece, I visited the site—and honestly? I wanted to buy a bit of ThePrint myself. But don’t go by what I say, just visit…and see for yourselves.
A funny thing happened to me on the way to the site. It led me to take a detour to ThePrint’s Great Speeches section. And I’m glad I did because there are some gems here that I didn’t know about.
The Great Speeches section has been around for over a year and I’m guessing that many of you would have read some memorable speeches we have shared—if you haven’t, please look out for a new one each Sunday.
From Sardar Patel and C Rajagopalachari, BR Ambedkar to Jawaharlal Nehru and Shanmukham Chetty, the first finance minister of independent India, to Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, IK Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Salman Rushdie, Great Speeches revisits some of the most important speeches in independent India’s history that have shaped “idea” of India.
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Hoodies to tote bags
Back to shopping. To begin with, ThePrint’s online store offers four products: goodies such as hoodies (sorry, couldn’t resist the temptation of a silly rhyme), T-shirts, mugs and tote bags. Plans are afoot to offer more mementoes, soon.
“The idea behind merchandising is branding. The effort here is to offer editorial products which promote and define ThePrint,” said Tanushree Singh, Lead, Digital Marketing who oversees the initiative, “The editorial properties we have chosen are reflective of brand ThePrint.”
Two of these properties are ‘Cut the Clutter’; the video explainer by Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta and ‘Politically Correct’; the weekly opinion column by Political Editor DK Singh. There are also mugs with the statement, ‘Because Politics Matter’—a slogan we coined several years ago, which still reflects one of ThePrint’s major focus areas.
“The idea to include Great Speeches happened while we were brainstorming,” added Singh, “It is different and appealing.”
It’s a weekly property curated by the Opinion section headed by Rama Lakshmi, Editor, Opinion and Ground Reports. Notable quotes from Great Speeches appear on the tote bags.
“We pulled out speeches from well-known great people and chose important quotes from one of their speeches,’’ said Priyanjali Mitra, Lead (Editorial Engagement).
Five tote bags with quotations from five political figures are on offer: BR Ambedkar, Sardar Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. “This gives the people an option to choose what resonates with them,” said Singh.
‘Cut the Clutter’ and ‘Politically Correct’ are emblazoned on sweatshirts, T-shirts and mugs.
The aim was to be “curious” and “compelling”.
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Carefully produced
None of the individuals who worked on the merchandising project had any prior experience in the field. So there was a great deal of to and fro before each step forward. There were products to choose, branding, packaging and a website to be designed.
For instance, what products should be included as merchandise? Pens? Diaries? Calendars? ThePrint opted for other, more personalised choices: “We wanted products that were unisex, and attractive to all ages,” explained Tanushree Singh.
Hoodies, T-shirts, tote bags and mugs were perfect. ThePrint’s design team set to work. Shruti Naithani, graphic designer, had some background in merchandising which helped when she sat down with the products.
Then came the selection of material: It helped that Sangeeta Malhotra, Senior Manager, Administration, had vendors who had worked with ThePrint on earlier products.
“The focus was on quality,” said Singh, “Everything had to be top-notch – not cutting corners.” I have been assured that all the products have been very carefully produced for the best results.
Why don’t you buy and let us know? We would also appreciate feedback on the website. The aim was to be clean to look at—without clutter— and easy to use.
Everyone who worked on the merchandising said it was a lot of fun. “We had no experience but we were all very involved—it was very enjoyable,” said Singh.
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What makes a speech great?
Prashant and Zoya also enjoy working on Great Speeches.
“It’s been fun,” said Prashant, “You browse through the Parliament Library, looking for something and discover something entirely different. It takes time, though, you have to justify the tag of ‘great’ for the speech you choose.”
Zoya said the work is “intensive” but with her background in history, it is “very interesting”.
The aim here is to find speeches from 1947 onward that are still relevant today. “The topic should be in the current news cycle,” said Prashant. Most political speeches have been discovered in the parliament library, or in books.
The day after the Budget was presented on 1 February, the first budget speech by Shanmukham Chetty was published in the Great Speeches section.
Soon after Uttarakhand became the first state to roll out the Uniform Civil Code, Great Speeches carried former prime minister IK Gujral’s address where he spoke of the need to retain diversity.
Similarly, after Salman Rushdie’s novel, Satanic Verses appeared in at least one Delhi bookshop last December, a Rushdie speech was published by ThePrint.
Topicality isn’t always possible. In that case, “we look for truly great speeches,” said Zoya.
Most of the speeches belong to the period 1947-2005—with speeches by Nehru, Sardar Patel and Indira Gandhi often the most popular with readers. The speeches are not published in their entirety—1,500 words is the usual limit.
The speeches are also available on YouTube. Prashant said videos of the original speeches are watched the most. However, original video versions of speeches are seldom available—that’s where Zoya comes in. She gives us the highlights of the speech with extracts, on video.
Shailaja Bajpai is ThePrint’s Readers’ Editor. Please write in with your views and complaints to readers.editor@theprint.in
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)