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But he pointed out that India and China are both "growing
younger" compared to the US or Europe, and their attitudes
are changing and marketers need to understand that. "Studying
the young purchasers' attitudes, and also regional and regional
variations is a must," Dr Neelamegham said.
He gave the example of Coca Cola being able to make a real dent
into the Indian market, especially rural market, from the moment
it went desi: "Thanda matlab Coca Cola". He said rural
markets are not a problem, so long as the companies understand the
needs of the intelligent rural buyer, just as Pepsi went to villages
the moment they reduced the price by decreasing the size and changing
the shape of the bottle, he argued.
Dr Neelamegham, however, pointed to one bane of the media here:
the companies have done a lot of heir own research and changed and
adapted their strategies, but do not share their experiences to
be made into research papers that can become case studies.
Dr Sharad Sarin from XLRI, didn't quite agree with Dr Neelamegham,
pointing out that while Indian media is rich in context, it is poor
in concept, and that there was nothing unique being offered by the
country in terms of original research that could be quoted globally.
Dr Sarin said that US influence is ubiquitous and that it is and
will remain the foremost global knowledge powerhouse, and the rest
of the world will be a borrower.
On a more positive note, Dr Sarin said: "Indian companies
have a tremendous capacity of managing their own affairs successfully,
something that a 100 Bill Gates perhaps would not be able to do,
given the mind-boggling diversity in the country and the corruption.
But then, lets bring out what they have done and how they have done
this." Sarin concluded by calling for developing an inventory
bank of all of Indian intellectual property.
In the post-lunch session, on "Brand contact points multiplying
geometrically: are brands keeping pace, Santosh Desai, till recently
McCann Erickson India's president and now slated to join as marketing
head of Pantaloons, talked about whether with the tremendous proliferation
of contact points, should we try and address all of them?
Desai basically held that the proliferation of contact points of
touch points (newspaper ads of yore, TV, Internet, mobile phones,
and so forth) has not changed the basics. "They have merely
increased the bandwidth of possibilities. But that has not changed
anything fundamental.
He criticised the approach of brand managers for treating customers
as an entity distinct from the brand, and treating the brand as
real estate that belonged to the companies.
"Brand and life have got separated. Brand managers hate conversation,
in fact, they hate people. They are scared to talk, which is why
they use surveyors as an intermediary between themselves and the
people."
But those practices would have to change, he averred, especially
in the age of Internet and blogs, which have given tremendous democracy,
real democracy, not the notional political democracy of voting once
in five years, Desai said.
There has been the paradigm shift because of two developments:
the emergence of the trained customer and the plethora of new public
platforms of conversation. "With that, the difference of the
two worlds, brands and people, have been eradicated. This is the
age of democracy of desire, the world of transient pleasures. There
is the new democratic relationship, with a community of shared interests
aligned around axis of interests of individuals."
In this changed environ, Desai said brands have to promote conversation,
even with the rabidly critical segments, and stop fearing criticism.
Brands have become organic parts of society, and "They have
to listen visibly," he suggested.
Dr Amitabha Chattopaddhyay L'Oreal Chaired Professor of Marketing
Innovation and Creativity, from INSEAD, France, talked about the
problem of minimising costs and yet, finding out indexes for expenditure-benefit
ratio.
What marketers are doing is counting the CPM, or cost (of a particular
promotional activity) per million persons. "But this assumes
that all contacts are equal," He critiqued and said talked
of the 'fragmented manner of functioning of brands'.
Not only has the contact landscape changed, but the people have
also changed. This is the new customer, with whom the old rule-of-thumb
does not works as a strategy.
Those marketing exercises survive that are informative, attractive
and credible, Chattopaddhyay stated.
"What drives the market is the consumer's brand perception
driven by marketing activities. Certain brands own certain contacts,"
he held, adding that today, the customer has t be asked how he would
like to be reached.
Chattopaddhyay spoke of the formula of Brand Experience Point,
which gives the 'share of voice'. Stating that there is a high correlation
between this Brand Experience Share, BES and market share.
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