With a paper this beautiful, marketing is a breeze: Azfar Nizami

Express Publications Executive Director Marketing and Sales Azfar M Nizami says he knew paper would click with people

KARACHI: Express Publications Executive Director Marketing and Sales Azfar M Nizami said when they decided to launch the broadsheet, they first studied the market.

“Do we have a market for something new? Is there any space beside Dawn and The News which had English readers?” he recalled some of the questions which he had asked five years ago. They were answered after he went through the differentials, of which two were most compelling: The layout and the affiliation with an international brand.

“There was no turning back when I saw the dummy of the paper.” Nizami added, “I knew it would click with people; the number boxes, sky quotes and highlights compelled readers to pick up the Tribune instead of any other papers.”

Jucek Utko, a Polish designer, was behind The Express Tribune design as people know it today. “It’s a good sign other leading newspapers today have taken inspiration and changed their layout and online story sense,” he said, citing these examples as measure of success for the paper.



A huge selling point, something that set The Express Tribune apart, was its affiliation with the global edition of the New York Times – International New York Times. Nonetheless, to sell a new product, one needs local credibility. According to Nizami, “We had been around for more than a decade with Roznama Express, Express News and our channels. The market believed in us and our audience found us trustworthy; I have yet to see any English newspaper in Pakistan which achieved similar success in the span of five years.”

Credibility alone doesn’t keep the reader’s interest. “We came up with a different strategy from other leading newspapers; each section of our paper has a different feel,” Nizami explained.

Praising the editorial team, he said, “We have challenged many things; we have a reporting team which does outstanding work.”

His own involvement with the paper focuses on telling advertisers and clients what The Express Tribune is about, and guiding his team to market and sell the product. “It has been a great team effort from marketing and sales to compete with papers which have been here for decades.” Nizami added, “Special thanks to associate directors Kamran Ahmed, Muneer Hussain, Shirmeen Khurram, Saiful Azam and the team and clients and agencies for supporting us.”

Published in The Express Tribune, April 12^th, 2015.