The self-proclaimed “masthead of the nation”, The Times of India, has allowed marketers to play around with its masthead once again. This time, for the German automaker Volkswagen.
Besides the “blue” in the masthead, all the headlines in the March 31 issue of “The Blue Times of India” were in blue. Although the same campaign ran in The Hindu, the Madras newspaper didn’t allow its masthead to be touched.
Last year, ToI had sold its masthead to two telecom players.
First to Uninor:
And then to MTS:
Volkswagen, which has made “roadblocks”—absorbing all the advertising to make a statement—its hallmark in its India campaigns, had taken out “talking ads” in ToI and Hindu.
Also read: Selling the soul or sustaining the business?
IJR 
There are something’s that people fail to notice, even though they are glaringly obvious. So we need wonderful blogs like Sans Serif to let people have new insights into what should have been obvious.
Well, when people are ready to sell their soul for a few dollars, then why should the sale of masthead be a problem? I am not saying this in context of TOI; personally I like this “privately owned” newspaper, I am only saying this in general sense.
Indians have this tendency of conferring the status of Great Soul to one and everyone. It is time we grew up and realised that there are no Great Souls or Great Entities. Everyone hides warts on their bottom.
This is a cruel world. Everyone and everything has a price or a passion… Mastheads can get distorted for a price, and so can be the structure of the soul…
The Hindu also went with all headlines in Blue color. no difference with TOI