Urban Bharat's reaction to the Maggi ban

Let’s face it, the Maggi Story has captivated us, all marketing and brand types, and a story in this week’s Times Of India caught my imagination. It’s about how the farmers of Pauri district in Uttarakhand (about 170 kms from Dehradun) are trying to hoard up Maggi. During harvest time these farmers, with families are in the field from the break of dawn and have hardly any time for cooking. So they cook Maggi saag where in all leafy vegetables are cooked with Maggi in minutes. This is their staple lunch. Imagine, farmers hooked on to Maggi!

And not to forget the Maggi Points all along the char dham (pilgrimage routes) roads in Uttarakhand. Maggi has become ubiquitous with food.

Plus the youngsters. Their idea of fast food starts with Maggi. Their idea of cooking ends with Maggi and their idea of a midnight snack is Maggi.

So I decided to do a bit of digging. What does the consumer and the customer of Maggi feel? The customer in this case is the mom who buys and cooks it for the children and the consumer were the youngsters. Let me clarify, this is not a proper research with adequate sample size. I just wanted to get a feel of what the end customer and consumer feel about this controversy.

Let me also confess, I went in with a bias. I expected the mothers to be supporting the ban and the students to be opposing it.

I spoke to a few mothers at my daughter’s tennis academy and in my building complex. To my amazement I found the mother’s having an ambivalent view. While they were categorical that anything dangerous should be banned, they insisted that Maggi was not harmful. And the proof of the pudding lay in their experience. Almost all claimed that they had Maggi when they were young and all of them were healthy with no issues ( Indians concept of healthy is slightly warped, but that is for a different forum!) and same was the case with their children. So why this problem now?

But it was the youth who surprised me the most. I met some at the gym and others at a management institute admission process. They were categorical in supporting the ban. Yes, they would be affected the most by the ban but isn’t it better to be a bit inconvenienced than to eat something poisonous (zehereela was the word used) and chemically bad, was the simple response.

And boy, were they opinionated! They had their facts right. And the knowledge. They knew that the problem is with the taste maker but that does not absolve the noodles. They knew that lead is bad and that anyways our water is polluted with lead. Maybe that’s not in their control but what they eat, is definitely. Some even ventured to say that such a product will never be allowed in the west and Maggi has different formulation there.

Mind you these were regular Maggi consumers. But since the lead content story broke, they have tried to change their diet. Replaced Maggi with eggs and banana and sandwiches. Their conclusion is very simple. Will not eat food which could be poisonous. Not unhealthy, but poisonous. So they are ok with the street food or other fast food but lead, MSG was a definite no. What amazed me was the distinction between unhealthy and poisonous. And how did they get so worldly wise? We are in a digital age, even in Urban Bharat, and though, as I wrote in my previous blog, the youngster rations his digital time, for news and information like this he does log in, extensively.

I did cross check with a few retailers and they verified this. It’s the mothers who are still trying to buy Maggi, but the young Urban Bharat youth is not too keen.

Did this surprise you? Do you have a different experience to narrate? What does the Urban Indian (metro town) youth think? Please do chip in.

Is Digital happeneing with the Urban Bharat youth?

My father’s household help’s daughter, in Dehradun, passed her board examinations with flying colours, scoring a distinction. She is dreaming of being a software professional and last year she was eyeing a second hand basic laptop so that she could get familiar with the world of computers.

We were half expecting her to ask for a laptop but were quite surprised when she decided instead to buy a Rs 5000 branded smart phone. Her reason was very simple, the future as she saw is in mobiles  and she would like to be proficient with one.

To me this was a generation change. No computers or laptops but your initiation to internet or digital is through smart phones. Broadband had been bypassed directly for 2G and 3G and in the immediate future, 4G.

When I look around me at the youth of Urban Bharat (non metro towns), I see the ubiquitous presence of smart phones. It is no more an aspiration, it has already arrived.

Yet traditional media consumption habits do not show any major decline. The cricket world cup viewership on TV or the readership of Dainik Jagran and Amar Ujala in Dehradun show no fall. So what gives?

The answer is, nothing. I do not have figures with me, but as I was reading a global report by ZenithOptimedia on global media consumptions it hit me that digital has actually grown the total media consumption. Because of smart phones more people are tuning in more to media, and more to new media. India at the last count had 110 mn social media users. Last year it was estimated that Facebook in India was adding one new user every second!

And Urban Bharat has also benefitted from the same. The Urban Bharat youth today is more informed, more global and therefore more world ready. Compared to our generation he or she is miles ahead. He may be watching the world cup on TV, but he learnt about the Phil Hughes tragedy and its aftermath via Facebook and Twitter. She watches Anoushka’s latest film in the multiplex but follows her involvement with Kohli through social media and the Daily Jagran mobile app. They knew about the board exam results via the website but spread it around through whatsapp. And some of their shopping has also started on Flipkart.

But all is not honky dory. The intent is there but the means are lacking. The Urban Bharat youth finds 3G expensive and 2G limiting. They have limited budget and cannot afford the current 3G packages.  The cheapest unlimited 3G pack goes for around Rs 250 for 1 GB use at 4 Mbps. For a youngster in Urban Bharat Rs 250 is a lots of money. For many, it is their monthly two wheeler petrol expense. And 1 GB does not last long specially if you are on Facebook or Twitter or watching You tube. Actually this explains the widespread use of whatsapp. Its compressed technology enables the youngster to exchange videos and photos with 2G, whose rates are cheaper. And with groups, you keep it within your own universe.

Data service providers like Idea, who have a strong non metro presence have some interesting prepaid packages. Sample these. Rs 11 for 50 MB whatsapp only, Rs 22 for 150 MB data for Facebook only, Rs 29 for 500 MB data for one night only, Rs 49 for 1 GB data for one night only, Rs 39 for 200 MB data for whatsapp only…… These are the equivalent to “One paise for one minute mobile call” which changed the face of mobile telephony in India.

And these schemes have paved the way for an increase in the use of whatsapp and Facebook apps. Plus also some interesting habits. Some students take the one night data and get active on social media once a week (usually on Saturday nights), some use it during exam times to download exam material and some even buy these schemes at the same time to interact on a limited basis.  

In my mind therefore the price equation for mobile data has still not hit the sweet spot. And I do not agree with those who mention the speed issue. Not for Urban Bharat. The lack of good speeds have actually helped in lowering the consumer expectation. The average internet speed in India is around 1.7Mbps which is half the global average. So to an average Indian and more so in Urban Bharat a speed of 2-3 Mbps is good. What they want is an affordable price.

So while Star may release the Hotstar app and show major sports tournaments live on mobile or release films on the same or show live events, it is mostly an Urban Indian phenomena. Till the Urban Bharat youth gets it’s “One paisa, one minute call” moment in reality, digital medium will still remain an add on. The T20 world cup next year or the Olympics may well be available live on the mobile but the Urban Bharat youth will be happy seeing it on the TV.

The fact is that digital is used sparingly. Everytime a typical Urban Bharat youth logs on to the net, he or she debates and decides if it’s worth it. There is no spontaneity to it. There is rigidity. And till the medium is treated with rigidity it will not be a standalone media.

Anyone out there who feels the same way? Or anyone with a different experience? I would love to have your views.

Urban Bharat youngster versus the Urban Indian youngster- The difference

After my last blog on Urban Bharat (small towns), one of the feedback I received reflected that the Urban Bharat youngster has caught up with his Indian counterpart in the metro. So what is the difference, if any between them?

In my mind the difference exist but these are not necessarily in the mindset of the youngsters. It is in the circumstances, the geography and the socio economic condition that many a times makes us realise that differences exist.

Let me take a small example to illustrate. While in the metros, most schools and private companies, at least the big ones have a five day a week work culture, in Urban bharat it is still a six day a week culture. What this means is that Sunday is the only day when a youngster or even his parents have the time to indulge in some relaxation or some outing or some social occasion or even do household chores. Thus Sunday becomes a day which is rationed off in a haphazard manner. Unlike in Urban India when Saturday is the day for household chores and maybe some extra time at work and Sunday is the relaxing day.

The upside of this, of course is that the young urban bhartiya is more hard working. He is accustomed to six days a week and has the mindset to cope with it. Not only that the one squeezed holiday in a week makes him appreciate his personal time much more and he doesn’t waste it often.

Strangely, Sunday is also the day when some markets are closed and of course all banks and other commercial institutions are closed too. So as it turns out many household chores, bank, government work etc have to be squeezed in on a weekday. Now imagine if in Urban Bharat, banks offer some branches to be open on Sunday for a limited time. Or they are open till late evening on a working day. Same goes for government and municipal corporation offices.

As compared to Urban India, Urban Bharat see government officials and their workings as more  incompetent and more corrupt. The reason is simple. While in Urban India, lot of government working is automated and online in Urban Bharat it is not yet the case. The Urban Bharat youngster is more frequently in touch with government officials. The corruption, inefficiency is more seen and experienced. So a youngster from Urban Bharat still stands in lines to pay electricity bills and every month sees how the cashier is wasting time, or making excuses for not being on his seat while people are patiently waiting in a queue.

Then there are infrastructural problems. Urban Bharat is plagued much more with power cuts and irregular power voltage. In Dehradun at the advent of small rain or thunder the electricity department cuts off electricity as they are worried about electricity poles falling or trees falling on them! And since in these towns flats are still rare and society back up concept does not exist, each residential unit has its own back up inverters. So ACs cannot work, internet is irregular and as such many a times things do not go according to plan or schedules.

This results in people, specially youngsters averse to planning. This in turn results in non professional and an indisciplined approach to life and work. In the long run it reflects in the Urban Bharat youngsters attitude.

A similar problem exists due to the non existent public transport in Urban Bharat. The best bet is shared autos, without meters or shared Vikrams which are larger autos at a slower speed. These are very economical but totally unappealing for the contemporary youngster. He or she gets a two wheeler as soon as possible. With congested roads, not much policing and lack of traffic rules the youngsters acquires more of the same indisciplined attitude.

I am actually convinced that jugaad is now a more of an Urban Bharat concept, all for the above reasons.

Then there is this problem of lack of trust in authority. This leads to conclusions like, no one in government can get us justice, or everyone in power is corrupt. This exists in metro India too. But in metro India there is a lots happening that proves that not everyone is corrupt or inefficient. It’s like dealing in property. In urban India one can buy a flat with certain builders without any black component, but in Urban Bharat it is still difficult to do so. More importantly it is difficult to believe that one can buy property in all cheque.

This leads to a total contempt and disregard for authority. So not paying tax or trying to bribe officials is a given thing. Even for students. At the gym the conversations of youngsters usually veer around to boasts of how they faked a project or how they paid a clerk some money to get the exam papers. Or how the cop was happy to let them go without a helmet for just 50 bucks.

What has added to this state of affairs is that in all small towns the one industry which has boomed is property. Unfortunately this industry is a tainted one and many youngsters who break their teeth as part of the workforce in this industry, get to experience first hand, the contempt and disregard for any rules and the ease with which builders get away with flouting all norms .

And this mistrust in authority has bigger repercussions for a brand. A bad experience with a brand is not reported. They do not expect that customer service will help them. The concept of service is still not seen as a customer or consumer benefit. If a new cell phone goes bad they take it as their fate. Or if the new TV is not delivered on time, it’s just shrugged off.  And the mistrust also makes the younger bharatiya more cash saavy than credit or debit card saavy. That’s a sentiment they inherit from their parents too.

And finally the issue of functional versus aspirational. We know what happened to Nokia vs a Micromax. In fact even Samsung is in a spot of bother versus Micromax and Karbonn. These brands have realised how the functionality of small towns need larger battery life due to load shedding, dual sims so as to not waste money on official calls from personal sims. Yes, Samsung is more aspirational but then in Urban Bharat functionality still scores.

Look at what LG is doing. Like a typical durable brand its TV campaigns and press in Urban India focuses on technology and show case premium exclusive models. But then LG AC has a feature which drives away mosquitoes. And in Urban Bharat LG ACs are being driven by this feature. Yes, I know mosquitoes are a pan india phenomena. But do you think a youngster in Urban India will want an AC which drives away mosquito or will want an AC that delivers the coolest cool because of the inverter technology?

As I had mentioned in my last post, the young Urban Bhartiya is still steeped in tradition. Festivals are celebrated with gusto. Religious affairs are taken seriously and family is still important. Yes, nuclear families are happening but at a slower rate. And given the small geography in smaller towns, the distance between families is not too great. This makes the youngster more social and less selfish.

And yes, Digital is the common factor between the Urban India and Urban Bharat. But here too the differences are interesting.

To know more on the same, keep any eye on my next blog.

The game changer in the emerging Bharat

People like Dhoni, Raina, Mary Kom or Sushil Singh who have made a name for themselves in sports, towns like Kota which have churned out toppers for IIT entrance, actors and artists like Irfaan Khan or Anurag Kashyap have already propelled small towns of India into the limelight. But today these towns are in the forefront of delivering much more than just sporadic gifted individuals. They are now changing the socio economic structure of Bharat while contributing to a deluge of talent to corporate world too. And don't forget these younsters are also tomorrow's consumers.

According to a report released by NSSO, self employment, which traditionally was the bulwark of earnings in non metro towns or Urban Bharat, is showing a decline. For me both the facts were interesting and I did a bit of my own investigation to find out the veracity of the above statement, in Dehradun.

Traditionally, Dehradun was a town with hardly any industry, some government and public sector undertakings and a decent tourism sector. Over the years it also acquired the reputation of being a good education hub, in school education and training institutions of national importance and of late also in graduation and post graduation.

Till a decade ago, to earn a living one had to be either a government employee in public sectors like ONGC, Survey of India, Forest Research Institute, or be associated with the likes of IMA, Indian Institute of Petroleum, or be self employed. And getting a public sector job was the biggest dream of the youth. It promised a life time of employment, good perks and better retirement perks too.

Since the above jobs were limited self employment played an important role in the commerce of Dehradun. People were self employed in tourism, in retail, in servicing the likes of ONGC or the educational institutes or the IMA's and the FRI's. And many of these self employed carved interesting niches. They had bookshops which became a melting pot of the intellegentia, or food joints like bakeries and restaurants that became a must for the tourists. With educational institutes abounding, hostels, tiffin service, small eateries, sprung up aplenty.

But the abundance of educational institutes also changed the job scene. Many of the self employed passed on their business to their children, who till not too long ago, were pretty content in accepting this. But now with education at their door steps they started thinking differently. And this has happened across socio economic classes. A maid in the household would earlier be content if her daughter took up similar jobs. Or a taxi driver's son would take up the same job from his father. A small time kirana shop owner would let his son take over his shop and a restaurant owner would pass on the restaurant to his progeny and his employees would pass on their jobs to their children.

The arrival of education, across all levels, has changed the game. Ask a housewife and she will complain how it is not easy to find household help. Ask a retailer and he will bemoan the fact that his son does not want to run the shop. Ask a small time plumber and he will tell you with pride that his son is doing engineering. Ask a tailor and he will be proud to say that his daughter wants to pursue fashion designing. Ask a teacher in a school and she will wax eloquently about her daughter doing a computer course.

Here I will give the example of my parent's household help. Twenty three years ago when my parents shifted to Dehradun after retirement, they had a household help whose husband was a daily wage earner labourer and who had three sons and one daughter. Her initial outlook in life was that the sons will get into being labourers as soon as they hit the teens and the daughter will be married off and would continue her tradition. But then with my parent's encouragement she sent all her children to a local small time private school with my parents funding part of the education. Today, one son is a front desk manager in a four star hotel in Bhopal after doing a two year course in Dehradun from a Hotel Management Institute, another one is a cashier with a retail chain having done a diploma in cost accountancy, the third one has started his own repair shop after getting a technical degree from a private college and the daughter has studied till class twelve to be married off to a better family where she takes some private tution for primary government school children. That to me is the difference in education, even in a small town of Bharat. In another Bharat, without education this would never have happened.

And talking to the youth today, it is clear they are ambitious. Their dreams are not about a job in Public sector undertaking. They want a job that will expose them to the world. They want to move to a bigger city and also abroad. And those who have the independent streak, its not about opening a small restaurant or having his own taxi. It's about having a chain of restaurants or a fleet of taxis. For a teenage girl, marriage, though still important is no longer a driving force. She wants to have some education so that she too can contribute to the household. And she is not limiting her ambition to just be a teacher.

The arrival of education has shifted the benchmarks. Small towns offer all types of education. Dehradun has engineering colleges, management institutes, pharmacy courses, merchant navy colleges, fashion design institutes, air hostess training institutes, institutes teaching various dances, institutes churning out trained actors, institutes offering retail courses, architecture courses, english speaking courses, courses training you for a BPO job and of course institutes who train you to get admission into all these institutes. I am not even talking about the normal graduate courses and the ITI's, which is a given. And of course, for primary education Dehradun has more than 300 private non aided schools.

Many of these institutes are charting their own unique courses. They are offering dual specialisations, credit based trimester system, industry oriented certifications like SAP or NIIT Swift or even Art of Living. Many flaunt the number of patents their students have registered or the inventions that have merited international recognition.

And I am sure this phenomena is being replicated in Raipur, Ranchi, Kochi, Guwahati, Sangli, Mangalore etc. May not be at the same scale but definitely across the spectrum. Dehradun has a classified weekly newspaper. It is a big hit with each week edition running into 60-70 pages. I see ads for everything in it. Last week it had almost 25 pages of ads for educational institutes and teachers and other administrative posts. The interesting thing was that the ads were not just for Dehradun or its surroundings but for places as far as Jaipur, Bhopal, Varanasi.....And tell me how many metro cities even have such an amazing, classified only, newspaper?

The purpose of this blog is not to talk about the quality of education. But the very fact that such diverse education is available in a small town. And it is also changing the cultural identity of the youngsters. It's not uncommon to see teenaged girls in Dehradun wearing short skirts, hair tied back in a bun, speaking English walking out of air hostess training institute. Nor is it uncommon to see young men in suits whizzing around on scooters, bending down to touch the feet of elders. Last two months the Doon Times has carried enough articles about international DJ's and Bollywood stars performing at College festivals.

The small town youngster has also become confident. Me and my wife walked into a showroom of a global brand in a prestigious mall in Dehradun. We were discussing, in English, the merits of a Tshirt which seemed to be priced on the higher side. To my shock, which later turned into genuine surprise the sales girl politely intervened and explained the premium on the Tshirt. I asked her about her good English and she explained to me that she had done her PGDBM from an institute in Dehradun itself and had joined the MNC as a trainee. Her first six months would be on shop floor for her to understand the consumer and the market dynamics.

I was intrigued. Here was a small time girl from Bharat. She was comfortable in conversing in English, with strangers, in a shop. She had no qualms or stigma associated being a sales girl, that too after doing a PGDBM! I spent five minutes quizzing her and I realised that the youth of Bharat has arrived. Not only is she confident and articulate but she is also contemporary. Not modern, but contemporary.

She is with the times. Even though she is from a typical middle class household with father being a petty trader and mother a housewife, she wants to set her own course. Mind you she is not a rebel and neither has she given up on tradition. She had mehndi on her hands and the one holiday she never misses is Rakhee. She works from 10:30 to 7:30 every day, six days of a week. Her parents live in another small town 60 kms north of Dehradun and she visits them once a month. She would not admit that she has a boy friend, but had some good male friends. She will marry a bit late after she is sure of her job or career. She will not mind a proposal that her parents get but she needs to accept the person too. And she was not interested in just a job but a career.

What is surprising was not that she was ready to speak to an unknown male (of course my wife's presence helped) but that she was willing to speak on some subjects which I thought were sensitive.

That is why I think that now is the time for the youngster in small town. And their numbers are undeniable. This is the true Bharat. This is where the future lies. Ignore them at your own peril.

 

My Bharat

Let's start with some facts and figures.

India has 42 cities with a population of a million plus, 46 cities having population of half a million to 1 million and 88 cities with a population between half a million and quarter million. At the turn of the century these numbers were less than half of now.

The urban population is going to expand to 38% up from 31% in 2010.

The six states of Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Goa and two union territories of Delhi and Chandigarh will have 55% urban population by 2025.

The non metro cities of Amravati, Dehradun, Kota, Jullundher, Thiruvanthapuram, Jamshedpur, all have population between half a million to 1 million and by 2025 all of these will be plus 1 million population towns.

While industrial activity is declining in big cities, smaller cities and towns are picking up the slack.

Historically tier 2 cities have shown robust growth despite receiving little funding support.

Self employment which till now was a domain of smaller cities is showing a decline in the smaller towns

50% of Amazon.com sales come from non metro towns

57% OF Honda 4 wheeler sales comes from non metro town

Amazon gets orders for food products for birds, turtles from towns like Guntur, Vizag, Nadiad and orders for flowering tea from Bhatinda, Hoshiarpur and Khelmati

The above clearly illustrate that India is going through rapid urbanisation, While that by itself is not surprising, the fact is that the urbanisation story is now being played out in the non metros.

Once the economic liberalisation was unleashed in mid nineties, the last twenty years or so has seen metros gaining the most from it. But the trickle down effect on non metro cities is now becoming a deluge.

Non metro towns are on the cusp of the second liberalisation boom.

The point is, are brands and its communication ready for the same?

For the last twenty years, it was easy for marketeers to understand and market to metro consumers. A handful of cities, its aspiring population were the low hanging fruit for marketeers. And its trickle down effect on smaller towns was good enough to feed the frenzy.

And when the hype started to diminish the same marketeers started talking about the other end of the spectrum; rural India. In between the great "Non metro India" was left to fend off on the crumbs of the metros.

But this cannot continue for long. There is a distinct non metro market which exists today. It is not the same as metro and neither a rural upgrade. It has it's own distinct identity. It has its own thinking and it has it's own agenda.

And I am not talking about the Meeruts and the Dombivilis and the Howrahs. These are extensions of metro towns. As I drive the 60 kms from Delhi to Meerut I never get a feeling that I have left Delhi. The whole journey seems to be an extension of Delhi.

What matters are towns like Raipur, Dehradun, Jullundher, Vadodra, Kochi, Nagpur.... the non satellite half a million to one million population towns.

In my mind this is the Bharat where marketeers and brands have to focus. Crack this Bharat and you crack the next growth wave.

I am not claiming to be an expert on Bharat but living in a non metro has given me a fair idea of how life is different yet same from a metro city like Delhi and how life is same yet aspirational from rural India.

And the best pulse of this is the youth in these towns. These are tomorrows spenders. They are the decision makers of yore and their calling is what the brands are aspiring for. Having spent some of of my time teaching these youngsters at management institutes in Dehradun, interacting with them at gyms and cafes and watching them come alive at cultural events, I do claim to have a better pulse on Bharat, than what I had from Mumbai or Gurgaon.

So in the subsequent blogs I am going to touch upon the youth of Bharat. How they have changed? What have they retained? How they are different from their metro counterparts and what is their outlook towards brands?

Stay tuned in.

 

Idea Generation: The Bharat Way

As I was reading a blog on the importance of "idea"in cracking a communication problem, my mind went back to the days when I used to face the same issue while at work in agencies.

We would all, including the client agree that the most important thing was to crack an idea and not just an ad. We would all want to use the idea across communication platforms be it press, TV, PR or even digital. We would all agree to approve an idea only if it worked 360 degrees across media.

But in reality that hardly happened. Most of the times we ended up having a TV script which would be approved first and then work backwards trying to crack an idea out of the same which could be then used 360 degrees. In fact I think 360 degrees became quite an abused term in industry parlance with everyone paying eloquent respect to its meaning but doing nothing to bring it alive.

In hindsight the problem was simple. It was the way a whole generation of communication professionals in India, across creative, servicing, planning and clients were trained and brought up on the staple diet of TV commercials. Right from the time "Lalitaji" entered into our consciousness to even now with "Aur dikhao" a good TV commercial was the solution to all communication issues.

We tried to embrace new mediums like PR or CRM or internet by trying to hide behind the "idea". But the idea never came. The TVC as an execution always defeated the idea.

So I tried a different tack this week.

In one of the institutes where I take guest lectures, I asked the students to give me communication solution to a case study with digital ideas. I clearly told them I did not want TVC's or press ideas.

Mind you these are students who belong to Bharat. They do not live in a metro, they do not have unlimited use of 3G or broadband connections. They do not earn so and are neither from affluent households. They have limited shoe string budgets and many have either taken education loans or have worked earlier and are using the savings to get a PG degree in management. They are net savvy and almost all have their own smart phones.

And what they do not have is allegiance to a media or a habit.

So when they came up with their presentations, it was not surprising that without realising they were giving ideas. They had ideas on how to use Facebook or Instagram or event and PR.  They had ideas which were based on consumers habits and preferences. They had thoughts which were simplistic and had freshness and some of the suggestions could have been used in real life too. For me the icing on the cake was when one group suggested how to make a TVC based on the feedback received on FB and Twitter. They had unknowingly suggested an idea where the TVC existed as part of a full 360 communication plan and not as a standalone hero.

Maybe, that's what agencies need to do today as well. Get youngsters comfortable with the digital media and force them to give digital solutions.

Maybe, asking for an idea is not a solution. But asking for a digital breakthrough is the solution.

Maybe, sometimes we get caught up in our jargons and terminologies so much that we forget about simple approaches.

And maybe, we tend to ignore the talent in Bharat too.

Bharat is not the antithesis of India

As marketeers we tend to build silos and slot brands, consumers and even perceptions into the same. So Apple is expensive, Samsung exists across price points, metro youth is English speaking, non metro is vernacular, urban consumers are trendy, rural consumers are poor.....huh what was that again?

Exactly my point. Post liberalisation in the early nineties it made sense to have a bipolar view of India. The haves and the have nots. Rural India and Urban India, government job seekers and private job seekers....Like the famous Bush quote on terrorism "you are either with us or against us"

Even though we have moved on we still try to have bipolar silos but with different contexts and subtexts. So now we don't live in urban or rural areas we live in India or Bharat.

But as I said, we have created these silos thinking these two are bi polar. The reality though is very different.

When I was shifting to Doon, I was given lot of advice by friends, colleagues and well wishers. All of them had slotted Doon to be the antithesis of a Gurgaon or Mumbai. So in their mind Doon did not offer what Mumbai had and Doon offered what maybe rural India had. Not many corporate jobs (partially true), no light life (partially true), people do not understand English (untrue), no facilities for children (totally false), poor infrastructure (not true), not many entertainment facilities (untrue)....

Simple point here. It was interesting to see how these people had slotted India to be. Entertainment meant malls and multiplexes (picnics was seen as a very rural or school kids phenomena). English speaking population. Kids very busy with extra curricular activities like dance, music, sports, work meant well paid corporate jobs, infrastructure meant flyovers and uninterrupted 3G from Airtel or Vodafone. (Yes, Idea was considered as a Bharat brand, more rural!). India seemed to be the antithesis of Bharat.

The reality however is very different. Bharat has moved quickly to adopt India. A new generation is already here which behaves as the Indians in India. But they have not abandoned Bharat. Their roots are firmly entrenched in Bharat but their hopes, ambitions and dreams are very Indian. 

They want to marry a partner of their choice but with the blessing of their parents. Arranged love marriage as these are called. They prefer BSNL or Idea as for them Vodafone or Airtel is more talk and less work (read coverage). They are taking bank loans to do an MBA as an IAS, IFS or IPS job is not their Mount Everest any more. They get Dainik Jagran at home but prefer to receive breaking news from it on their mobiles. They throng the multiplexes for new releases with Popcorns but weekend outings are still Mussorie or Maldevta on bikes.

And they are not connected just with India but also with the world.

They are as comfortable with Salman Khan as they are with Van Diesel. They have downloaded the Hotstar app to watch the Cricket world cup and the IPL but don't waste their broadband data plan on inconsequential matches. They argue passionately if Man United has lost its mojo and are equally vocal about the revival of Indian hockey .

This is not just Doon phenomena. Lucknow, Ahemadabad, Hyderabad, Bhopal...... are all in the same boat.

The sooner we realise that the the bipolar world of marketing jargons is fast becoming irrelevant the more effective our communication to them will be. We as marketeers would be making a grave mistake if we consider Bharat to be opposite of India. It is actually a new continuum with its own idiosyncracies. Till we accept that we won't be tapping it's potential.



 

Paper Boat - An inspired launch

Paper boat. The name itself invokes memories. Of a bygone time. Of a childhood where innocent fun was the order of the day. Of life which was simple and uncomplicated. And of the local drinks available at home or on the streets in the past.

Paper Boat has launched a slew of such drinks, a throwback to the nostalgia of those days. For me this has been the stand out communication of the past few weeks. Stand out because of the following simple reason.

After a really long time I have seen a launch based on complete positioning. The brand promise of memories is reflected in almost all aspects of marketing. The name paper boat is all about memories. Then the product concept of drinks like jal jeera, aam ras, rasam, kala khatta is also so very nostalgic, the packaging clearly amplifies the positioning of memories and of course the communication has stayed true to memories.

This complete marketing package is what has made this launch memorable (pun unintended). It is not often that one gets to see such simple yet focussed marketing launch and I must say hats off to the marketing and the communication team.

I think there is a strong lesson here. Get your fundamentals right. Have a sharp positioning and stay true to it. Integrate it within all elements of your marketing mix. How many times have we seen that because packaging needs a big lead time, we compromise on the pack design and it does not reflect the positioning? Or because the brand name needs to be registered and put on the packaging it has simply no reflection of the positioning? How many times have we seen an overdependence on just communication to see a brand through?

And that is what makes Paper Boat a good case study for an exemplary marketing launch. It has used the various elements of marketing cohesively so that there is no over dependence on one element of marketing mix.

Finally, even the timing of the launch is just right. At the onset of summer. And they have latched on to cricket the opium of the masses. So all seems well.

I did a quick cursory search amongst some college students and first jobbers here in Doon and realised that the product concept appealed to them. It was almost as if this was a "Bharat Product" which India also will accept. Aamras, kala khatta, golgappa pani..... And memories, nostalgic memories had a big appeal.

The question now is, will the brand be successful? I googled the brand and went to their website. It seems to be a new company started by entrepreneurs, some with beverage industry experience. But a fresh, young mind set, and it seems innovative thinking. The critical success factor in this category has always been distribution. I have no clue about their distribution set up but from the website it seems they have gone into a direct delivery ecommerce model. The claim is that they can deliver in about 75 Indian cities. Well that's another first and let's see how it plays out.

The website in itself is also very interesting. I was very impressed with the FAQ section where they have addressed questions about, freshness, artificial flavours (yes they do have some), preservatives (no they have not added any), shelf life (a decent 4-6 months), packaging etc have been answered honestly and upfront. On the whole the website is a good reflection of the brand and I enjoyed surfing it.

The only disappointment was social media. The Facebook page seems to be like any other Facebook page replete with product info, TV ads and comments. It seems that the opportunity to use "memories" on Social Media has not been really exploited.

But then I also realised that the brand has been around for more than a year. And I had not heard about it. It had been present on social media and I hadn't heard about it. It was only when it went on mass media that it has gained traction. Says a lot about the power of mass media in today or the under utilisation of social media. Or maybe it was intentional as the brand was ratching up its infrastructure.

The fact is that after a long time a new brand has created interest. I for one will follow them with interest and hope that they create happy memories for the future.