‘Apple’s popularity wake-up call for Indian brands’

Chitranjan Dar, chairman, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) taskforce on FMCG and chief executive of ITC Foods, spoke to DNA about strategies companies operating in the Indian market are adopting to connect and communicate with their target audience. Excerpts from the interview:

What are large firms doing in the current market scenario to reach out to their customers effectively?
Large corporations are currently grappling with what kind of insights they can gather about consumers for their offerings. These companies are also seeing how they can mine data from internet, social media and other networks and whether they can make some sense or derive some patterns from there. Irrespective of the size, companies today are looking at creating differentiation and the focus is much greater than earlier. It is for these reasons that the market will see a lot of new product launches and, a lot of niches getting created to address some special needs. Without that it will be very difficult to sell to the market profitably.

What is it that companies will have to do to sell profitably?
Firstly, getting a better understanding of the customer. Based on these understandings companies will have to innovate around the value proposition of their brands/products. If the companies change their product they also need to change the way they communicate it to the market/target audience.

Do all products need to undergo change? What should be the frequency like?
Not really, because there will be some products that will remain timeless. These are products that are authentic, offers great quality and most important the product / brand are operating in an industry where people do not stick to a particular offering for long.

For example, ‘Bukhara’ at ITC Maurya hotel in New Delhi has not changed its menu and decor for 25 years now. While there have been some cosmetic changes in terms of furniture etc, but the overall experience of the restaurant has remained intact over the years. Thus, companies should think carefully before incorporating a change and not change for the sake of it. If the product/brand remains relevant even today in terms of communication, offerings, value proposition etc, there is absolutely no reason to change. Change should only be made after having understood the key profitable segments, what is it that the market demands and whether that change will cater to it.

So are companies really pursuing this approach in the right manner?
It is too early a stage to even point out anything in that direction but there certainly will be churns. While there will be some companies doing it in the right manner, there would be others which may not. In fact, there would be some companies aggressively pursuing this approach and there would be others taking their own time with it. Fundamentally, companies which will do it fast and right will be the ones which will be selling profitably to their customers.

That’s precisely the reason why I don’t see the companies’ landscape remaining the same in a decade or so from now, not everybody can win all battles.

On the marketing / advertising medium side, is TV, print and radio still the focus area for companies or are we beginning to see some change in the overall composition?
It’s quite evident these days that television has taken over all the other mediums as far as advertising / marketing spends is concerned. However, internet seems to have picked up pace over the last few years and we are seeing a lot of stickiness with that medium especially with the younger Indian consumers which is a fairly huge market being addressed by one and all. Companies are taking a subtle approach to using this medium as they understand that an in the face approach may work otherwise. One must understand that internet users don’t want to be intruded all the time besides their attention span is very short and they get bored very quickly. The approach thus is to use that medium to build a fan-following, knowledge sharing, learning opportunities and activities revolving around building customer loyalty and so on.

You mentioned about a data mining through inputs from customers across age groups. Could you throw some more light on the same?
It was a recent example I came across about data being mined by research official who asked Indian consumers about things that excited them more in their daily life. The answers were really interesting because people were not really talking about products or for that matter brands. They spoke about activities like mountaineering, biking, meeting friends and relatives, etc. In their entire thing about excitement and other things that gave meaning to their lives, less than 2% of the respondents referred to brands like for instance Apple, Coco-Cola, Nike, Bingo, etc.  Thus, despite all that companies are trying to do in terms of their marketing and advertising strategy its relevance with their target audience is very miniscule. That’s a shocking fact because all the efforts have not been able to create an emotional connect between the company’s brand / product and the customer. What was further shocking is the fact that over 50% of the respondents spoke about brand Apple which is not even a significant advertiser in India.

Does that mean Indian brands are becoming irrelevant?
It certainly is a wake-up call and there is still lot to be done to make brands / products more and more relevant to the Indian target audience. Why was Apple relevant because it was innovative, they communicated to their target audience in the right manner and adopted an integrated marketing approach that worked wonders in markets where they weren’t even advertising.