MAM
47 per cent plan to watch 2023 ODI World Cup on TV – Axis My India CSI survey
Mumbai: Axis My India, a pioneer in consumer data intelligence, has unveiled the latest insights from the India consumer sentiment index (CSI), shedding light on significant media consumption trends. The report highlights a one per cent decrease in media consumption from the previous month, with 19 per cent of families indicating increased media engagement. The survey also delves into consumer behaviour during festive sales, where 23 per cent of participants express continuity in their engagement with e-commerce platforms, with an additional 11 per cent intending to do first-time online shopping this year. Furthermore, the anticipation surrounding the 2023 ODI World Cup is reflected in the diverse choices of viewing platforms, with 47 per cent opting for traditional television and 27 per cent embracing digital channels.
The September net CSI score, calculated by percentage increase minus percentage decrease in sentiment, is at +8, which is the same as last month (+8). However, the score reflects a dip of -2 from last year September 2022 (+10)
The sentiment analysis delves into five relevant sub-indices – Overall household spending, spending on essential and non-essential items, spending on healthcare, media consumption habits, and entertainment & tourism trends.
The survey used Computer-Aided Telephonic Interviews and included 5048 participants from 35 states and UTs. Among them, 68 per cent were from rural areas and 32 per cent from urban areas. In terms of regions, 22 per cent were from the North, 24 per cent from the East, 28 per cent from the West, and 26 per cent from the South of India. Among the participants, 62 per cent were male and 38 per cent were female. Looking at the largest groups, 29 per cent were aged between 36 and 50 years old, while 27 per cent were aged between 26 and 35 years old
Commenting on the CSI report, Axis My India chairman & MD Pradeep Gupta said, “As we stand on the threshold of the much-anticipated 2023 ODI World Cup on our home turf, we are poised to witness how brands strategically align themselves with this grand event. The widespread recognition and enthusiasm surrounding the tournament offer an ideal backdrop for brands to forge impactful connections with diverse audiences. With media consumption trends diversifying across linear television, digital platforms, and live stadium experiences, this global spectacle will beckon marketers to seize the opportunity and become a part of the cricketing fervour, with this spectacle happening during the peak festive season it will be an added advantage for brands.”
Key findings
● Consumption of media (TV, Internet, Radio, etc.) has increased for 19 per cent of families, depicting a decrease in media consumption percentage by one per cent from last month. The net score, which was -7 last month is at -4 this month. Media consumption remains the same for 58 per cent of families
● Overall household spending has increased for 55% of the families, which is a decrease of three per cent from last month. Consumption remains the same for 35 per cent of families. The net score, which was +46 last month is +45 this month.
● Spends on essentials like personal care & household items have increased for 41 per cent of families, which marks a decrease of three per cent from last month. Consumption remains the same for 40 per cent of families. The net score, which was at +23 last month has dipped to +22 this month.
● Spends on non-essential & discretionary products like AC, Car, and Refrigerators have increased for six per cent of families, which is the same as last month. Consumption remains the same for 87 per cent of families. The net score, which was zero last month is at -1 this month.
● Expenses towards health-related items such as vitamins, tests, and healthy food have surged for 34 per cent of families. This reflects an increase in consumption by one per cent from last month. Consumption remains the same for 47 per cent of families. The health score which has a negative connotation i.e., the lesser the spends on health items the better the sentiments, has a net score value of -15 this month.
Mobility has increased for nine per cent of the families, which is an increase of two per cent from last month. The net score, which was -2 last month has improved to -1 this month. Mobility remains the same for 81 per cent of the families.
On topics of current national interest
● The survey inquired about respondents’ awareness of the forthcoming 2023 ODI World Cup being hosted in India. Encouragingly, 70 per cent of participants confirmed their awareness of this prestigious sporting event taking place in the country. It highlights the fact that a substantial majority of respondents are cognizant of the global cricket event’s occurrence on Indian soil, reinforcing the event’s prominence and reach among the surveyed audience.
● The survey sought to ascertain respondents’ preferences regarding their anticipated viewing platforms for the upcoming 2023 ODI World Cup set to unfold in India. The findings reflect a diverse array of choices. Notably, 47 per cent of respondents expressed their intention to tune in via traditional television, utilising DTH or cable services. Demonstrating the increasing influence of digital trends, 27 per cent indicated their inclination to follow the event on their mobile devices. A notable nine per cent exhibited enthusiasm to experience the tournament live by planning to attend matches at the stadium. These preferences underscore the multi-faceted avenues through which individuals are gearing up to engage with the international cricket spectacle, embracing both traditional and contemporary viewing modes.
● The survey delved into consumers’ intentions regarding their shopping preferences for the upcoming festive season. Notably, 23 per cent of respondents plan to shop more during the festive period as compared to last year. Additionally, 28 per cent of participants revealed their intention to maintain their spending habits at the same level as before, hinting at a stable consumer sentiment. These responses highlight the potential shifts in consumer behaviour and their possible impact on the market.
● The survey explored respondents’ prior and potential involvement in festive sales organized by e-commerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart. Significantly, a notable 23 per cent of participants confirmed their past participation in such events and expressed their intent to maintain this pattern this year as well. Additionally, 11 per cent of those who had not engaged in festive online sales before expressed their interest in participating this year. Conversely, seven per cent acknowledged their previous engagement but revealed their decision not to partake this year.
● Of 23 per cent of those who intend to maintain the pattern this year, 44 per cent said they will be shopping more through e-commerce mediums as compared to last year. These insights provide a comprehensive understanding of consumers’ past and evolving attitudes towards e-commerce festive sales, shaping strategies for these platforms.
● The survey explored participants’ inclinations towards investment in the Indian stock market or other financial assets in the upcoming months. Notably, a mere six per cent expressed an intention to invest more, while ten per cent indicated plans to invest less. Meanwhile, five per cent are projected to maintain their investment levels. These insights provide a snapshot of the current sentiment towards financial market investments, emphasizing the diverse attitudes among the surveyed individuals. Notably, a significant 79 per cent still don’t invest in stocks.
● The survey inquired about participants’ perceptions regarding the potential movement of the stock exchange (SENSEX) beyond the threshold of 70,000 before the festive period of Dussherra/Diwali this year. Encouragingly, 46 per cent of respondents who invested expressed optimism that such a milestone could be achieved. Furthermore, eight per cent were uncertain about the market’s trajectory. These findings underscore the diverse range of opinions prevalent among respondents, reflecting the complex and multifaceted nature of stock market predictions.
● The survey delved into participants’ perspectives on the government’s economic policies and their perceived influence on the nation’s growth. Impressively, 64 per cent of respondents expressed confidence in the effectiveness of policies such as Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana.
Digital
GUEST COLUMN: How AI is restructuring distributor and retailer motivation models
From incentives to intelligence, AI is redefining how brands engage channel partners
MUMBAI: Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming how brands engage with their most critical yet often overlooked stakeholders: distributors, retailers, and last-mile influencers. For Abhinav Jain, co-founder and CEO of Almonds Ai, this shift marks a fundamental departure from traditional, transaction-led incentive models toward behaviour-driven, data-intelligent ecosystems. In this piece, Jain examines how AI is enabling brands to decode partner motivations, predict engagement patterns, and deliver personalised, scalable experiences—ultimately redefining channel relationships from transactional exchanges to long-term growth partnerships.
Across many sectors, there is increasing recognition that motivating those who bring products to market (distributors, retailers, last-mile influencers) poses a growing challenge.
Brands continue to invest significant marketing and digital resources to consumers, yet in many countries and the vast majority of emerging economies, these types of consumer-focused investment areas have had little impact on ultimate product delivery. Rather, it is still the case that traditional retail continues to make up most products sold.
So why is it that the systems built around motivating these channels have yet to evolve?
For decades, distributor and retailer engagement revolved around static schemes – quarterly targets, volume-based rewards, and occasional trade promotions. These programs were designed around transactions, not behaviour. The assumption was simple: if incentives increase, performance will follow.
Now, with the advent of artificial intelligence, the definition of performance is being challenged.
With the development of artificial intelligence, businesses can move beyond simply creating loyalty based on transactional-based models and toward models built on behaviours, the behaviours of channel partners that are intrinsic to their motivations in engaging with particular brands. As a result, the means by which businesses develop relationships within their distribution network are starting to evolve; thus, ultimately changing how brands interact with those within their distribution network.
Assessing engagement: Transitioning from transactional- to behavioural intelligence
Traditional loyalty systems refer to transactional activity (sales data). Although this data is valuable and important, it only provides a partial view of engagement across the channel partner.
For example, a retailer may have a high frequency of sales of a product, but their lack of engagement with the manufacturer would not reflect that they have true loyalty toward that brand. Conversely, a retailer who actively participates in training programmes, acts as brand advocates, and is engaged in learning with the supplier would exhibit more profound levels of loyalty but would have been invisible based on historical incentive programmes.
Artificial intelligence allows for the identification of behaviours that help to address this gap. Brands are able to use a variety of engagement data points, participate in learning programs, respond to communications, redeem behaviour and track platform use behaviour in order to identify motivation through behaviour.
McKinsey has stated that companies that leverage advanced analytics for their sales and distribution functions can achieve as much as a 15-20 per cent increase in productivity due to increased awareness of their behavioural trends throughout their networks.
This visibility of behavioural patterns within channel ecosystems can be transformational to brands as they can now view how partners engage on their path to purchasing products, instead of just measuring the sales revenue generated by those purchases.
Predicting motivations, not just measuring performance
Possibly, the largest contribution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to helping brands engage with partners via channel ecosystems is its ability to predict future engagement versus simply measuring past performance.
Traditionally, brands only realised that a partner was disengaged (not likely to purchase products) once their sales performance had already declined. By then, the brand would have to use significant amounts of incentives or aggressive promotional activities to recovery their partner’s engagement level.
AI models can help organisations to detect early signs that a partner is becoming disengaged, such as declining participation in learning modules, declining interaction via the platform, or slower reward redemption rates. These indicators can help organisations to proactively engage with their partners before their sales performance begins to decline.
The practical application of AI and predictive analytics gives brands the ability to re-engage with their partners prior to their sales performance declines. For example, instead of developing and implementing broad-reaching incentive programs that provide a “one size fits all” incentive to all partners in an ecosystem, brands are able to develop targeted, engaging re-engagement programmes. This is how personalisation can be done on a large scale, such as across global distribution and retail networks.
The vast majority of distributor and retailer channels have thousands, if not millions, of individual channel partners. Historically, providing personalisation to such a large number of businesses has not been feasible.
However, with the advent of AI, personalisation at scale is becoming a reality.
Brands can now create tailored engagement journeys for all their partners, based on their partner profiles, through some combination of machine learning models and behavioural segmentation. For example, high-performing distributors might receive higher levels of leadership-based recognition and greater incentives to continue to grow. Emerging retailers, on the other hand, might be supported with training, onboarding rewards, and measurable performance milestones.
The shift towards personalisation of partner engagement echoes the direction that consumer marketing is already moving towards.
According to Salesforce’s report, over 70 per cent of customers expect personalisation in the way that brands engage with them. As such, there is a growing expectation for B2B ecosystems to have these same types of expectations from their channel partners.
Gamification and continuous engagement
AI is also radically changing how brands will engage with their channel partners through the use of gamification.
Many traditional incentive-based contests and leaderboards would spark temporary engagement among their participants, but they struggled to sustain engagement over time. With the use of AI, gamification mechanics are evolving dynamically based on historical and evolving participation patterns by their channel partners.
Challenges, rewards, and recognition structures can be modified continuously in order to sustain engagement with all of a brand’s partner segments. This will provide a greater opportunity to move away from episodic campaigns towards ongoing, continuous engagement experiences.
When channel partners receive motivation as part of their daily business activities through recognition, learning, and tracking their performance, long-term loyalty will be achieved.
Aligning motivation to broader impact
There is a growing trend within the channel ecosystem to integrate sustainability and socially responsible behaviours into the channel partner programmes of brands.
Increasingly, brands are motivating their partners to use sustainable practices in their operations, participate in sustainable practices like sustainability-related knowledge programmes, or promote products that are in line with their sustainability objectives.
Brands can use AI to monitor and measure these types of behaviours and incorporate them into their incentive frameworks so that brands can align their commercial objectives with broader social and environmental outcomes.
A shift in the way brands view their channel partners
AI is having the most significant impact on the way that brands are now viewing their channel partners, as it relates to the underlying philosophy of those fundamental relationships.
For the past several decades, many brands have viewed their channel partners as intermediaries in the supply chain. More and more brands are now beginning to view their channel partners as key ‘partners-in-growth,’ and their actions can have a direct impact on market performance.
In fact, all the channel ecosystems are using behavioural engagement platforms to design new models that reward not just transactional behaviour, but also create continuous engagement journeys for their partners, where their partners can receive recognition for their participation, learning, and continued engagement, thereby reinforcing long-term loyalty to the brand.
The future: Intelligent channel ecosystems
As we consider what the next phase of channel engagement may look like, many believe that it will be based on intelligent ecosystems, using AI to continuously monitor and adjust the engagement strategies used to engage their channel partners, in real time and based on the behaviours of those partners.
For brands operating in complex distribution networks, the ability to perform well will be determined both by whether products are available to their customers, as well as by the enthusiasm, expertise, and loyalty shown from each channel partner that represents the brand each and every day that they are working on behalf of the brand.
While AI clearly does not eliminate the human aspect of a brand’s relationship with its channel partners, it does allow brands to better understand and nurture that relationship.
In markets where the last mile will determine whether a sale is made, how one leverages the intelligence gained by using AI will ultimately be the difference between gaining a new, sustainable competitive advantage versus losing one.
