“Relationships and financial independence are key factors impacting youth”, reveals UTV Bindass and Synovate's study

 UTV Bindass and Synovate's youth study reveals that relationships with the opposite sex and their friends in the short terms and financial independence in the mid to long term are the key factors impacting today's youth. Titled 'Jigsaw', the study also won the best qualitative paper of the year - 2011 at the second MRSI (Market Research Society of India) seminar.

On the thought behind this round of study, Ravi Dixit, vice president – research and strategic planning, UTV Broadcasting said, “We wanted to understand what our core audience youth is tuned into. At UTV, we always listen to our audience and undertake studies before we roll out any major initiatives. Continuing with that tradition, we wanted to learn what are the changes that has come up amongst our audience following a similar study done in 2007 prior to the launch of the channel.”

He added, “The objective of the research was to understand everything about the Indian youth in a quirky manner and go beyond the conventional and to identify lifestyle, motivations, aspirations, attitudes, brand interactions, icons and stars that truly resonate with the youth of India.” For the research, the channel and the agency used secret Facebook groups, blogs, digital slam books, home visits and video diaries.

Elaborating on some of the findings and changes observed since the last study, Dixit said, “The amount of connectivity among the audience has gone up considerably over 2007, as a result content is consumed through online, TV and the information spread is more prevalent across several mediums at the same time. We term it as 'Social TV', where today's youth are consuming television and sharing their opinions about it on social media channels like Twitter and Facebook. Moreover, with these social media channels, youth have become more open about airing their personal opinions than ever before.”

Some of the findings from the study included: “Girls found body odor as the biggest put off, followed by a paunch followed by baldness; Girls are also taught to abuse in Hindi to keep eve teasers at bay especially in Hindi heartland towns - Girls are still discriminated in terms of freedom and evening curfew even in metros and even more so in mini metros. Another manifestation of breaking free for girls owns their own commute and Scooty came across as owning this feeling. College going girls even from conservative joint families provide for a two wheeler and girls simply love it.”

“Mobile has become a body part and the most important feature that they look for in their next phone is touch. Blackberry is the mass status symbol whereas iPhone is the top most status symbol but out of budget for the most. They prefer to keep two phones but dual-SIM phone fail to find favour with the class of 2011 for very practical reasons. Internet on mobile, is strongly preferred in free wi-fi zones a la Café coffee day, college campus and Nehru Place in Delhi (lots of offices).”

“Corruption was a big issue with smaller metro youth as they felt that their future will get impacted by it hugely as their ability to negotiate their lives in a world full of corruption will be compromised.”

Coca-Cola launches Coke Studio in India, in collaboration with MTV

Coca-Cola in partnership with MTV India has announced the India edition of Coca-Cola’s international music property - Coke Studio. Coke Studio@MTV is said to be "a first of its kind music project in India, will bring together diverse artists of different genres to create an extraordinary series of medleys, giving music lovers across the country a unique opportunity to enjoy Coke Studio’s signature fusion music". Coke Studio@MTV will premiere in India on June 17, 2011, Friday 7pm on MTV.
Speaking about the music property, Wasim Basir, director, integrated marketing communications, Coca-Cola India, said, “We are delighted that the news of Coke Studio’s arrival in India has been received with immense eagerness and enthusiasm by the hugely talented and distinctive Indian music fraternity. Music has the power to transcend barriers and bind people together and we believe that the ‘happy’ energy of Coca-Cola will help teenagers and young people in India come together to find their voice and share it with the world through music. We are sure that Coke Studio will help further strengthen our relationship with consumers, while giving audiences an unforgettable experience of fusion music created by a unique ensemble of artists.”
Commenting on the announcement, Aditya Swamy - channel head, MTV India, said, “Coke Studio@ MTV expresses the diversity of India through the language of music. People today want to experience music in its RAW form and a live recording is just that. An opportunity to do something so special comes around once in a lifetime and we at MTV are excited about leading a musical revolution.”

Brand strategy: Making Coke's brand fizz

As Coca-Cola celebrates its 125th anniversary, can the brand's marketers find inspiration in past glories as they seek to ensure the success story continues, asks Alex Brownsell.

'Retailer-Developer partnership is the way forward'

Every industry aims at growth and expansion and the same applies to the shopping centre industry. The fourth year of The India Shopping Centre Forum (ISCF), the mega congregation of Shopping Centre Developers & Retailers, opened with an in-depth deliberation amongst industry leaders on the key challenges faced by the sector and the way forward for retail industry especially shopping centres.

The ISCF is an annual feature held with a vision of bringing together leading retailers, shopping centre developers, consultants, financial institutions and support professionals and companies. The year the theme is challenges before shopping centres. The need to cover more ground - to lay the right foundation for the future of retail in India.

The fourth edition of ISCF began with a silent tribute to the icon of Indian retail – Raghu Pillai who passed away in April this year. The congregation remembered the man who pioneered the concept of modern retail in India as early as the 1990s.

Moving ahead the inaugural session saw industry luminaries like BS Nagesh, vice chairman, Shoppers Stop, speak on the changing retailer-developer relationship status, while Raj Singh Gehlot, chairman, Ambience Group of Companies, highlighted the key elements in building successful malls in the future. Thomas Varghese, CEO, Aditya Birla Retail, chairman CII, National Committee on retail, and S Raghunandhan, chairman SCAI & CEO, Prestige Retail Group again touched upon the changing retailer-developer relationship and how both can create a win-win situation through a mutually beneficial partnership.

The panel agreed that shopping centres are an integral part of economic growth. They symbolize the civilization and lifestyle development of the economy.

Raj Singh Gehlot highlighted the key elements for building successful malls in the future. He said that a shopping centre needs to create an experience for its customers. It should have a clear positioning depending upon the attitude and lifestyle of the catchments area. He further added, “This sector has high growth trajectory as the consumer behaviour and preferences are changing. Today we have entered the new era of 'Experiential Economy'. A mall visit should provide a customer a memorable and 'emotions evoking' experience. Mall developers should readily adapt to the changes as per the consumer requirements and emerging social and psychological trends.”

BS Nagesh spoke about the changing scenario in the retail sector. The industry has gone through multiple stages starting from bullish optimism six years ago to a pessimistic bent and then back to positive optimism last year. Today it is at the stage of Truism. This is possible because of the “Revenue sharing model” adopted by the mall developers. This model has brought trust factor in the partnership between the retailers and the mall developers.

Insisting on developing a partnership not limited to the retailers and mall developers Nagesh emphasised on the need to involve the entire eco-system including the customers, the mall employees and the society as a whole.

Varghese highlighting the positive development in the retail sector stated that the Indian organized retail market will grow from USD 170 billion to USD 260 billion by 2020 which will generate around 13 million jobs. He highlighted the importance of organised retail in driving economic growth as the industry has the ability to serve
producers (farmers and manufacturers), employees, consumers and the government.

Later on in a session titled ‘Shopping Centres as catalysts in urbanisation of India’ anchored by Anuj Puri, chairman & country head, JLL, Manish Kalani, MD, EWDPL, stressed on the fact that shopping centres are an integral part of modern living, as much as schools, offices, hospitals and banks. However they do not figure on the agenda of the government and town planners as important part of India’s
infrastructure development plans. The Municipal Corporations don't have a bylaw for shopping centres. Pallavi More, president, Growel Group opined that to build a community, shopping centres are important and the authorities should consider the same while preparing the master plan. They should earmark facilities for shopping centres. It was agreed upon to highlight the outcome of this session to the national press. The organisers will further pursue the matter with the regulatory authorities.

WPP and IMG Worldwide announce global licensing collaboration

WPP and IMG Worldwide has announced a worldwide partnership to collaborate in offering consumer products licensing and merchandising services. 

 

As part of the multi-year agreement, WPP and IMG will establish a joint team and share resources to offer and provide licensing services to clients from WPP’s portfolio of agencies.  

 

Martin Sorrell, chief executive officer, WPP said, "More than ever, licensing is emerging as one of the new creative ways of developing brands and sales.  It is a capability we see as increasingly important to our clients.  We wanted to offer this important discipline in a global execution and with the market leader - that is IMG.  In our view, there could be no better partner to help us achieve our goals in this area."

 

George Pyne, president of IMG’s Sports and Entertainment Group added, “WPP’s agencies have an impressive roster of clients coupled with the brand knowledge and consumer insights that come from years of experience working with them. We believe that our global execution capability and specialized expertise in the licensing business coupled with their deep-rooted knowledge and relationships with certain client companies can yield some very beneficial and successful partnerships.  This is a really natural collaboration that was waiting to happen.”

 

A note from IMG stated that executives from the WPP-IMG partnership will be meeting with advertisers who have expressed interest in developing brand licensing programs or who have potential to do so.

 

It also noted that the new WPP venture is an additive unit to IMG Licensing's existing operations and the latter will continue to serve existing and new clients without change.

MPG launches mobile marketing arm Mobext in India

MPG, the flagship brand of Havas Media, has announced the launch of mobile marketing brand Mobext in Asia with India being chosen one of the first markets for the roll out.  Within this year, the brand is slated to be launched in China, Indonesia and Philippines. Mobext, a network brand of Havas Media specialising in Mobile Marketing, is currently present in eight markets globally. The new brand is expected to strengthen the digital offerings of Havas Media, which currently has a strong digital media agency brand in Media Contacts.
Commenting on the launch of Mobext, Vishnu Mohan, chief executive officer, MPG and Havas Media, Asia Pacific said: “Asia presents an enormous potential in the mobile space with high levels of penetration, installed base and growth rates. All our clients have needs in this space and we want to ensure that as a media agency we are not neglecting such an important medium and one that will gain even more prominence in the future. Mobext brand has been doing very well in other markets and we have been waiting for the right time and the right people to launch it in Asia. What better market to launch than India, which has whopping 790 million mobile users currently and is also a key market for the group in Asia Pacific region.”
On their future plans, he added, “Mobile offers advertisers an interesting media to reach their audience on a more engaged basis and the launch of Mobext will fulfil this need. We are looking launch the brand in China, Indonesia and Philippines within the year and will look at both greenfield as well as partnership entry strategies.”
The agency has made senior appointments as part of the launch with Arnav Neel Ghosh appointed as the general manager for South Asia. The team in India, which brings substantial mobile marketing experience, is likely to be expanded in the next few months.
Anita Nayyar, chief executive officer, MPG and Havas Media, South Asia, said, "We want to be ahead of the curve in tapping the medium of the future. Mobile marketing is gathering steam and it is the right time for us to offer specialised mobile marketing expertise to help our clients leverage this platform. Investments in mobile will pay off in the long run.”
Mobext will offer comprehensive services which includes messaging services like sms and download; mobile internet services like WAP consulting and development, mobile display, mobile search; proximity based services including LBS and mapping. It will also offer integration through reporting and analytics by Havas Digital’s campaign management platform.
Ghosh was most recently the executive vice-president of Digital at Iris Nation and has previously worked in senior roles at Publicis Modem and Active Media Technology, a UK based mobile marketing company. Ashutosh was most recently the associate director of mobile marketing at ACL Wireless and has had stints at Mobile2Win and ConnectTurf.

Marketers’ 3Ps mantra to tackle inflation

Despite an inflationary environment, India’s consumer spending on fast moving consumer goods (FMCGs) has been stimulated with the triple-play of aggressive promotional offers, smaller pack sizes and price discounts across categories. The organised FMCG market’s resultant value growth of 13 per cent is attributed to this and has outpaced the underlying volume growth of 8.2 per cent. This indicates a steady and stable demand for branded, packaged fast moving goods.

Impact on branded, packaged foods – Essentials Vs Impulse
Rising commodity prices have, however, impacted food categories much more than non-food categories. This is evident from the fact that food categories have grown faster in value terms while volume growth has been relatively slower. In non-food categories, however, both value and volume growth has moved in lockstep at around 8 per cent over the last year.

Within foods, two types of categories were more affected by price increases than others. Non-essential categories like jam/ jellies and squash/ cordials saw high value but low volume growth, and a slowdown in consumption during 2010 due to steady price increases. They were accompanied by milk-based categories like butter/ margarine and milk powder, which saw manufacturers step up prices to protect margins against rising input costs. These early signs indicate that if inflationary pressures don’t ease, discretionary spending on these categories is likely to shrink further.

Surprisingly, even essential milk-based categories like baby cereals and infant formula saw volumes stagnate as prices gained momentum. An increased reliance on solid foods and an earlier shift to liquid milk from specially formulated milk/ cereals are typical substitutes to combat inflationary pressures.

Other essential categories were not entirely immune to inflation either. Categories like packaged atta (wheat flour) and packaged rice, etc., also experienced sluggish volume growth as consumers temporarily resorted to unbranded alternatives.

Impulse takes on inflation
Small treats continued to be important to the Indian consumer at a time when inflation cut into bigger items of discretionary expenditure like eating out, out of home entertainment, etc. Impulse categories like biscuits, namkeens (salty snacks), and chocolates continued to attract consumer purchases. Manufacturer initiatives for these categories drove growth via small packs (small per transaction cost), product innovations (baked alternatives, new consumption occasions, and attractive promotions) and increased availability. This bodes well at a time when economic optimism and inflationary pressures appear to be colliding.

Non-food categories hold their ground
Amongst the top non-food categories like washing powder, shampoo, and toilet soap there seems to be no evidence of inflation’s adverse affect as robust topline growth continued unabated. These items have long become a part of the ‘must-buys’ in the consumer basket and remained unaffected overall with possible selective purchase of more cost-effective branded alternatives as well as greater responsiveness to promo offers. The lead players in these categories have also stepped up price activation by using value promotions and re-launching at new price points.

Interestingly, lifestyle/ personal grooming categories like hair conditioners, hair dyes, hair remover, liquid soap, etc., don’t seem to have been as affected by inflation. Like impulse foods, these too serve as a cost-effective indulgence. Baby diapers and sanitary napkins, too, stayed unaffected with help from the increased availability of small pack sizes and cheaper brand variants for consumers unwilling to compromise their health and well-being.

Interestingly, more ‘external’ manifestations of indulgence and aesthetic expenditure like nail enamel, lipsticks, etc., slowed down, indicating a temporary adjustment in the purchase basket to accommodate items that have witnessed stronger price growth. Clearly, consumers seem to be differentiating between products that represent ‘caring’, for example conditioners, and those that are purely cosmetic.

The year 2011 is set to see a surge in the number of new launches and the brands that innovate in terms of price, pack size and promotional efficacy will garner a greater share of the growth opportunity that India’s consumer markets presents.