A key to unlock the young Indian female consumer

Below is a summary of a study I did to find a refreshing role for brands in the lives  of young Indian female consumers by understanding their unstated motivations in today’s context.

The Illusionist

In an innovative pilot initiative in Bangalore that has got the marketing community buzzing,Levi’s India is offering its jeans with a three-month EMI option and zero interest rate. The offer is available on all jeans, and other Levi’s branded products, subject to a minimum purchase of Rs 1,500. The scheme is in a tie-up with ICICI credit cards. So if you have this card, you could purchase Levi’s jeans worth, say Rs 1,500 and ICICI will collect Rs 500 in each of your next three monthly credit card bills. The bank will be paid a service charge by Levi’s for each transaction. Fantastic isn’t it?But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

I think the biggest winner in this will be ICICI.Getting to sign up new customers,many of whom will undoubtedly be very young and thereafter reap the benefits of their customer lifetime value.

Machiavellian isn’t it?

The casteist and communal nature of money in India

Below are institutions which are flourishing in India even today thanks to the patronage of millions of customers who flock to these banks for reasons not too subtle.

Saraswat Bank

Federal Bank

the erstwhile Karur Vysya Bank

Lord Krishna Bank

Catholic Syrian Bank

Dhana Lakshmi Bank

Canara Bank

Bank of Rajasthan

J & K Bank

..and others.I rest my case.

Why an Airtel ad may be mistaken for Vodafone and the importance of brand tonality

Vodafone in India has a very distinct visual and sonic identity.Clean and uncluttered,use of soft and fresh colors and hues,shot to look like it’s been shot in neo-quaint international locales. Minimal often no use of dialogue. Simple tunes with few instruments.They all combine to speak one language. So well that you know a Vodafone commercial when you see one,yes even without the pug.

Airtel on the other hand is the antithesis to Vodafone in many ways.Starting with its business strategy of getting as many subscribers whereas Vodafone’s strategy has been based on getting more money out of it’s subscribers i.e. a VAS based strategy. Airtel as a result is the far more inclusive brand which needs to be liked by the masses. It has stayed away from the premium,international look  & feel that is so Vodafone and has concentrated on being likeably Indian and very real, like in this beautiful ad about the little boy and his toy phone.

However,the latest Airtel campaign which communicates its new scheme called ‘Special 5 ‘ lies in danger of being recalled as a Vodafone ad.Here is one of the TVC’s in the campaign :

In tonality,it looks like a Vodafone film.Minimalistic,soft and fresh colors,looks like it has been shot in a neo-quaint international school with a school teacher who could pass off as a foreigner and a simple one-instrument track which is a Vodafone signature.

I can bet my money on this campaign being misattributed to Vodafone purely because of the tonality.A thing that most big brands should keep in mind – own a tonality that is opposite to their equally big competitor.A Lifebouy should never be as scientific and direct as Dettol and likewise Dettol with it’s usually serious tonality should never be about the irrepressible vitality of kids bouncing around having fun.

 

Jack Nicholson and insights

The movie  ”The Two Jakes” is a 1990 sequel to the 1974 classic “Chinatown” starring Jack Nicholson as the private investigator embroiled in the intricate web of deceit spun by the cream of LA society. It has a soliloquy by Nicholson on how he stumbled upon clues and it struck me that somewhere in all of that monologue it was pretty much true for insights as well.Here it is…

"Memories are like that -
as unpredictable as nitro,

and you never know
what's gonna set one off.

The clues that keep you on track
are never where you look for them.

They fall out of the pocket

of somebody else's suit
you pick up at the cleaners.                

In the tune you can't stop humming,
that you never heard in your life.

They're at the wrong number you dial
in the middle of the night.

The signs are in
those old familiar places

you only think
you've never been before.

But you get used to seeing them
out of the corner of your eye,

and you end up tripping over the ones
that are right in front of you."

Delhiites are from Mars and Bangaloreans from Venus

This one really came about thanks to my wife’s astute observation and analysis while we are shopping for furniture.Since we are in between shifting cities,we have been looking for furniture in both Bangalore and Delhi.She noticed an interesting difference in both the furniture markets albeit not very surprising in hindsight.

In the Delhi furniture shops we struggled to find a bookshelf whereas in Bangalore it is very rare that you come across bar cabinets! Obviously the Bobbys and the Rockys of Dalli are more interested in showing off their booze than their books and the Murthys of Bangalore,vice-versa.

Cadbury’s – Aaj pehli taareek hai!

The latest campaign from Cadbury’s in continuing it’s efforts at reducing the ’special occasion-ness’ of chocolate in India and encouraging its consumption without any specific reason amongst the masses.

Amongst the bulk of Indian society who admittedly aren’t struggling to make ends meet but aren’t wallowing in cash either,the use of pay-day as an innocuous trigger is an incisive observation of real life.The lower-middle class Indian father or husband is fairly reticent with his wallet except perhaps on pay-day when he feels suitably rich and sheds his reticence by making small purchases for the house,the wife or the kids.

What’s also laudable is the mass look and feel of the film without appearing to be condescending.An easy trap that most “lets-target-the-masses” campaigns walk into is the aspirational value of the film.They begin to look like it is “made for them only” which is not just insensitive but fairly stupid from a marketing point of view.Cadbury and their agency have circumvented that trap quite beautifully – great art and music direction.

This really seems to be a well-thought through campaign as in evident in their media plans as well.On the 1st of July,I noticed that MTV(am guessing on other channels too) was swarmed with the campaign.

Simple strategy,sharp insight,entertaining creative,catchy song,creative media plan.This one’s a winner for sure.

Is advertising an expensive substitute for true innovation?

The above question was instigated by my friend Abhishek’s observation on an interesting blog post at Techcrunch on how Apple & RIM have garnered a disproportionate share of the mobile phone industry’s operating profits despite a small share of handset units and revenues.Abhishek credits it to product innovation and rightly so.I however want to take his observation a step further and dwell on the relationship between innovation,advertising and operating profit.

When Apple innovates and introduces the i-Phone,there is massive curiosity because it’s a product that has never been seen before.People started talking about it in wonderment,throw in a couple of blog mentions,e-mail forwards and before you know it word-of-mouth kicks in across the globe.All it takes to put the final nail in the ‘demand coffin’ is a much awaited,much hyped launch press conference by Mr Jobs to have consumers queuing up overnight for the i-Phone.On the other hand,to the best of my knowledge,in the last 2-3 years,the Nokia’s of the world haven’t had a blockbuster product.Good phones but no real innovation.So how do they create demand? MBA textbooks teach you that advertising creates or stimulates demand.So Mr.MBA-grad-turned-marketing-head-of-Nokia spends millions of dollars on advertising and in all fairness to him,sells millions of phones.But at a cost –  millions of dollars spent in advertising.

So Mr Jobs truly innovates,spends less on advertising and laughs all the way to the bank while Mr Kallasvuo,the Nokia CEO attempts to innovates,spends a lot on advertising,hears the cash register ring but doesn’t laugh as loud as Mr Jobs on his way to the bank. So the more amazing and relevant the innovation,the less your advertising costs and the more disproportionately large your operating profit.

This phenomenon really makes the point that today innovation & design is the real differentiator between companies.And that Steve Jobs is a bloody good marketeer!

Why Nokia should keep an eye on Hero Honda & Bajaj or vice-versa?

One a mobile phone company,the other two India’s largest motorcycle companies.

In 2006,Bajaj launched a 100 cc entry level bike called Platina targeting the budget buyer.The USP of the bike was it’s style.In a segment where durability was the primary need,the design of other bikes were sturdier(larger) like a CD Deluxe or a TVS Star City.At an aesthetic level,they spoke to a man whose conventional ideal of masculinity was a rugged masculinity.However the Platina defied design convention and styled a slender bike.A sparse, slender looking bike.

Bajaj Platina

The bike sold like hot cakes for a couple of years after the product design and communication hit home.

In 2008,Nokia,in it’s effort to market phones to first-time buyers at a low  price point launched the 2630 at roughly Rs 3000/-,without compromising on style however.In effect,demographically & psychographically targeting the same guy who rides a Platina.A small shop owner,field salesman who is looking for something affordable and yet stylish.A person whose expression of style is very different from a Pulsar rider or a N Series user.And this is what the Nokia 2630 looked like.

Slender,relatively uncluttered(sparse) and stylish.

Sold like hot cakes.My guess is, to the same people who would have found the Platina stylish.Because the design codes are essentially the same.Slender,uncluttered(sparse) yet not underloaded with features.The phone had a camera,was a color phone while the bike had DTS-i technology,alloy wheels.

In 2007-08, I was in Sehore ,a large village just outside Bhopal, conducting  a research with bike owners and intenders.I met a young farmer who seemed to be fairly rich.He also looked like a normal lad of 25,wearing jeans and a t-shirt.He was  quite the talker and seemed keen to show his urbaneness,his sense of style,when he took out his N-series which took me by surprise.An N-series user in an Indian village.An N-series is a chunky phone,overloaded with features and emanates a different design code altogether.

Strong,masculine and loaded.Just like the bike he rode.The Bajaj Pulsar.

The point is that the design trends of these industries reflect in each other or  even lead the other,much more deeply than just a fashionable color but in things like form factor also. Perhaps the Nokia guys should keep an eye on every new bike thats rolls out of the Bajaj/Honda factory and the Bajaj/Honda guys on every new phone.

Why do we need furniture?

Simple.To make our house look beautiful.As a status symbol. Asian Paints thinks that har ghar kuch kehta hai because a house is an expression of our personality.The same holds true for furniture as well.While the above reasons are true and the Asian Paints insight a very powerful one,perhaps there lies something deeper than that.

The answer lies in taking a step back and reinterrogating the role of furniture in a house.One of our most precious possessions is our house. Because har ghar kuch kehta hai. Be it a rented one or our own. Yet we are always dissatisfied/embarrassed by/unhappy with it. We wish for a larger house, a house with better flooring, better bathroom tiles, a house in a posh-er locality, and if we have them all then we want a house with a swimming pool….the list is endless. 

So how do we deal with this sense of embarrassment, this unhappiness, this dissatisfaction with one of our most prized possessions.

 We buy furniture. 

We buy furniture that compensates for the shortfalls we perceive our houses to have.We try to appoint the house with furniture that is much better than what the house befits.We buy furniture(furnishings) which makes the house look bigger,look classier. We buys mirrors to give a sense of more space. Carpets to make the room more beautiful but also because the flooring just isn’t what we would have liked. In many a middle-class home, the sofa is strategically placed to cover peeling paint on the wall behind.

Furniture conceals the shortcomings of a house.Of course,by making it beautiful,but we use it subconsciously to hide. To mask the ordinariness of middle-class homes,to compensate for the lack of fancy amenities in rich homes.In that sense,furniture is like make-up on a woman’s face.