MAM
Digital is now second important source of brand awareness after TV: Axis My India survey
Mumbai: In a reflection of the changing media consumption habit and the surge both in digital consumption & advertising, 38 per cent of consumers shared that they have majorly seen ads on digital platforms in the latest Consumer Sentiment Index (CSI) survey by Axis My India. In terms of brand advertisement placements, 44 per cent said they had seen it on television, while only 11 per cent and seven per cent of the audience believe that they have seen ads on print or outdoor respectively. This digital growth is led by the 26-35 age group audience, as per the survey.
Consumer data intelligence company Axis My India released its latest findings of the India CSI, a monthly analysis of consumer perception on a wide range of issues. 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 mobility trends. The surveys were carried out via computer-aided telephonic interviews with a sample size of 10430 people. 62 per cent belonged from Rural India while 38 per cent belonged from urban counterparts.
Reflecting the view of the majority, the survey for the month of October reveals that media consumption remains the same for 48 per cent of the families while the same has increased by 25 per cent. In addition, a combined 82 per cent said that they had seen more ads on TV and digital platforms over others.
Overall household spending has increased for 63 per cent of families which reflects a seven per cent increase from the last month. This increase is highest in Northern India.
The increase in spending on essentials like personal care & household items stands at 50 per cent reflecting a surge by five per cent. The net score which was +20 last month has increased to +27 this month. The growth in rural India is slightly higher as compared to urban markets.
Spending on non-essential & discretionary products like AC, car, refrigerator has increased for 18 per cent of families. For 73 per cent spends on non-essential purchases remain the same which reflects an uptick of three per cent from last month. The non-essentials November net score, therefore, lies at +9. The trend on spends on discretionary products reflects a fine balance between caution and indulgence.
With more exposure to outside activities, the importance of health bounced back quickly. Consumption of health-related items increased for 47 per cent of families as compared to 44 per cent last month. 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 -27.
Consumption of media remains the same for a majority of 48 per cent of families and increased for 25 per cent of the family, while mobility net score reflects a constant improvement over the last four months.
88 per cent of families said that they are going out the same or more on getaways/staycations /malls/restaurants, with travel bans being lifted and double vaccination providing easier movement opportunities. The overall mobility score is at -4 which is an improvement over last month which was at -5. This reflects slow but consistent progress in people’s sentiments for engaging in out of home activities
Gauging views around the Diwali festivities, Axis My India, further discovered that 36 per cent of the consumers are planning to go beyond small-ticket purchases this festive season. While 24 per cent are looking to spend on household or personal items like White Goods (AC, TV, Washing Machine, Refrigerator, etc.), furniture, electronics, and jewellery; Nine per cent are looking to buy a four-wheeler or a two-wheeler. Further from a purely sentimental outlook, 59 per cent of the consumers reflect the view of a more hopeful and cheerful Diwali this year!
The November net CSI score, calculated by percentage increase minus percentage decrease in sentiment, was recorded at +9, up from +7 last month and rising at a constant pace over the last three months, indicative of a positive shift in consumer consumption metrics.
“With the festivities at its peak, one can easily witness consumer’s excitement in terms of loosening their purse strings for varied expenses and experiences. While Diwali has triggered spending on products of personal indulgence (like 2-wheeler/4-wheelers or jewellery) and household items, the upcoming festivities and enthusiastic consumer sentiment will further set the momentum for the last half of this year,” said Axis My India CMD Pradeep Gupta, commenting on the October report.
“In addition, one can also witness a transition in terms of preferences amongst consumers’ like opting for EVs or cheering for privatisation of loss-making companies. The growth of digital as a medium of advertising overtaking print & just after TV reflects the change in media consumption habits which was triggered by the pandemic. Lastly, our survey shows that a vast majority of India is still not investing in this age of cryptocurrencies, it would be interesting to see how financial players beyond traditional banks can capture and convert their interests for investments using varied instruments,” he added.
This month, Axis My India’s Sentiment Index also delved deeper to understand consumers’ views on varied issues of national interest. These include privatisation of loss-making public-sector companies like that of Air India, views on economic recovery by 2022, alternatives to rising fuel prices, investment preferences, sentiments around Diwali, and on brand advertisement placements.
While the long-awaited sale of Air India to the Tata group reflected a hopeful future for the airline. Axis My India further gauged consumer’s sentiment on whether or not the government should privatise other loss-making public sector companies. 46 per cent are in agreement with privatisation of such companies while 36 per cent disagreed with this view.
When asked if economy/livelihood and business is expected to bounce back by January 2022, 41 per cent believe that the same is possible and Southern India being more optimistic with 54 per cent agreeing to this. With rising fuel prices being a concern, 48 per cent are optimistic about shifting to electric vehicles wherein 33 per cent and 15 per cent said that they will consider buying a 2-wheeler and 4-wheeler respectively in this segment. The younger age group of 18-35 have a more likelihood, with 53 per cent in agreement to an EV shift.
Sharing their views on financial planning, a majority of 23 per cent still prefers to park their money in savings accounts, while a combined 12 per cent prefers to invest in fixed deposits, shares/stock market, and mutual funds. Gold is still seen as a reliable investment option for four per cent of the consumers. 40 per cent of the audience still don’t invest and interestingly two per cent still save their money in post offices.
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.
