MUMBAI: Engage in some ngage. Media major Times Group's makeover No 3 of its travel tabloid caters to a far larger spread of the upwardly mobile than its earlier avatars.

ngage, a fortnightly color tabloid, aims at providing wholesome entertainment, fun-info and interactive content for people on the move. The intent being: an exciting companion to people who are traveling; through an ambience providing interactivity and surprise.

Interestingly, ngage first launched as Rajdhani Times on 11 December 2001. As the name suggests, RT was distributed among passengers of India's best known superfast train. On 23 October 2002, it was repackaged as Times on Wheels. The title alteration was due to the restrictive nature of title itself and it was a move to extend distribution onto other train services.

Applying a similar philosophy, Times on Wheels was re-christened ngage on 3 July 2004 to extend the readership across all mobile platforms; the content refurbished in terms of editing and presentation.

ngage's TG is primarily the upwardly mobile person, the official traveller who is a guzzler of premium branded products; a person who exerts his choices in lifestyle and consumption decisions. As a Times representative explains, "It will be wrong to put age limits since this tabloid aims at 'people on the move'."

He further adds, "We are in the business of audience aggregation. We identified an opportunity in the large number of captive audience, which are the people who are traveling by air or rail. Any travel results in absence of activity leading to minimal attention fragmentation. This publication plugs in that gap in a person's schedule when he is traveling and detached for a couple of hours or longer from the rigmaroles of life."

Fifty-seven thousand copies what Times claims is the current circulation figure; the 2005 goal being to touch the 100,000 mark. Its distribution pattern looks at capturing premium audiences scattered across travel modes. Over 20,000 copies are distributed currently at the Domestic Airport in Mumbai and onboard AC buses in Mumbai. Nearly 25,000 copies are distributed onboard premium trains such as Rajdhani and August Kranti plying in the Mumbai-Delhi route.

ngage initially anticipated food and beverages and travel and tourism to have a strong presence in the advertising ranks but surprisingly after two and half years of its existence under different labels, corporate ads seem to have formed a major chunk. This is attributed to the relaxed mindset of readers which forms a favorable environment of communication.

Therefore "whole genre of product categories can use ngage to communicate". The readership is near complete Sec A and above, predominantly in the age group of 20-50, he says.

Progressing to the promotional stint ngage has in mind, Times executives feel that the brand will speak for itself through the buzz it will create by the readers' experience with the brand and they do not see the need to go in for a big promotional activity.

Although, after the relaunch, there was an interactive sessions carried out with AC buses in Mumbai where commuters were engaged in some fun-filled quizzes and on the spot prizes were given out to increase visibilty. The same is being planned for local trains.