"I plus Pod, IPod, lap plus top, laptop, cell plus phone, cell phone…"
-Chorus in children's voices in a radio ad for an NGO that ran this Christmas.
Move aside Mary with your little lamb. Here are the new nursery rhymes that will define the world the new generations are going to live in. The five-year plus is already living a life of and with technology. And technology is not a clever trick you learn to master but actually simpler than ABC as it follows simply logic.
The post liberators as M.G. Parameswaran, Executive Director and CEO (Mumbai) of FCB-Ulka Advertising, calls them, are the under 20s who were born or barely gained consciousness at the same time that India started its long journey of liberalisation. This generation has come to see a world that has no queues for ration or vehicles, a generation that truly believes that the world is its oyster.
Take Ambika Nayak, 9 years and her friend Hridaya A. 8, as examples. While Ambika wants a Discman for the New Year, Hridaya has just received a bunch of CDs for Christmas. Both have expressed a strong desire to have their own cell phones. When they spend time together they often surf the Internet, have become members on certain sites and keep in touch on e-mail. They also search the Internet for information for projects and play online games.
Says Ranjeetha Menon, Vice President, OgilvyOne, Director, IBM Brand Services, “ For the urban Indian youth of today, the mobile phone is an extension of them and a sizeable chunk of their life is spent online.” According to a recent study conducted by the Internet And Mobile association of India (IAMAI) in April 2005, a full 55 per cent of the total respondents (half of them under 25) polled shopped online. The rest had visited an online shopping site at least once and most of them are aware that they can buy online.
Just how much technology is the Indian youth using? India currently has over 75 million subscribers and is adding on approximately 5 million more each month. There are over a million broadband connections. A billion text messages are sent out every month. 45 million SMSes were sent to select the Indian Idol. That is 50 times the votes won by any Indian politician. And the phenomenon is not just urban. Over 1,00,000 tickets are booked every month on the Indian railways website making it the website with the highest online transactions in India.
So we have a new generation growing up who consume media significantly differently and whose comfort with the digital world is real and growing. And marketers have to understand that. The global brands are already leading the pack. Before hitting TV, Pepsi’s most recent commercial first ran as a three-part “webisode” for a week on Yahoo! From a mere 80 advertisers, MSN has over 150 in just six months of the launch of its Desk Top TV. Media Turf's CEO, V Ramani explains: "For advertisers, the Internet is fast evolving from a fancy add-on to an essential part of the media mix."
To further grow this space and make it a mass media channel for advertisers, MSN India and NDTV Media, media marketing and consulting company have come together. Says Rajnish R, head of marketing & strategic business initiatives-MSN India, "We are trying to make buying online extremely simple, easy and cheap for the advertisers than it is on print or television." Shubho Ray, president IAMAI predicts, "There will be a robust, double-digit growth for online advertising volumes. In the next three years, we will see a major evolution in the way marketers use online media and we will soon track it by cross media research and events," he adds. According to Siddharth Rao, CEO of Webchutney, an online solutions company, "Online ad spends today account for 1 to 10 percent of total budgets. This may appear small but is a marked change since even last year."
In fact, we are already poised to enter the second phase of Internet usage. If the early years belonged to e-mailing, chatting and probably e-commerce, then, according to Alok Kejriwal, CEO, contests2win, “Searching, gaming and networking will drive the resurgence of the Internet”. “What’s interesting is that the content here is increasingly being created by consumers themselves if you look at wikipedia.org or myspace.com or the most happening youth video portal, youtube.com
This growing generation is more involved in defining the content that it consumes, be it an iPod or a video portal. This is a generation that is building online communities. Talking to them will mean reaching to them from within this content. The cues are out there. In a recent survey, otherwise demanding teens said they were okay with in-game ads. Menon says, she and her ilk are no longer talking of websites, banners and landing pages but rather of search engine marketing and optimization, blog marketing, community building, pod-casting, etc
The penetration of technological goods and services (for all Indian youth) varies between 10 per cent for mobile phones to a mere 0.7 per cent for video cameras. This is yet far from saturated. Urban India shows more than double the reach while these goods and services reach nearly three times the youth in the top eight metros. It is the right time to begin to establish contact with this age group. And reap as the consumption grows.
(Published in the Hindustan Times in the business section)
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
AN IMMORAL TECH GEEK
I love my gadgets. Or actually I love the gadgets I understand. That means I love my washing machine and computer, I love the microwave, the TV and the Discman. I almost love my cellphone, digital camera and digital recorder. Currently I am learning to love iPods.
My daughter loves my cellphone with ease as much as she loves to surf the Internet. She would love to have a Playstation. I have yet to find a reason to fault her wants.
But there are times when I wonder if it is immoral to enjoy technology. Like I did a few days back when I read a survey that lamented the use and preference for gizmos among children in their early teens.
Is it worse than say an addiction for tobacco or alcohol for your body, mind and soul? I am not sure. And when I flash back into my own family I can only see an interesting evolutionary process of which she and I are parts.
I recall how my mother’s generation thought washing machines meant the end of clean clothes. They discussed how their sons and daughters-in-law wanted ‘that’ gadget home so that they would be done away with domestic chores. Now doing away with chores to simply put your feet up or party was downright evil. I remember them discuss how it was important to wash clothes personally as it was equally good for the clothes and for the woman washing them. “Good exercise”, they called it.
Though my mother was quickly bullied to turn around, some of her friends continue to think it more Godly to soak clothes personally. As they got older and couldn’t bend down too much, the maid took over to gently rub off the dirt. Not that the family didn’t ever buy a washing machine. But it is usually kept shut, respectfully covered with an elegantly embroidered tablecloth.
I remember being tempted to remind them that my grandmother thought they were evil as much when they cunningly turned to mixers and grinders for short cuts to making “masalas” and “dosa” batter. Yes, batters were better when their noses were literally at the grindstones but they found valid enough reasons to move on. I also, thankfully, stopped short of telling them that their generation had as many overweight women as mine does, good exercise or not.
The fact remains that technology keeps on growing and evolving for one simple reason: it brings joy, peace, happiness, relief, excitement, leisure or meaning in more lives than not.
And every one of us will use it where it makes our lives better. For any adult objecting to kids using calculators to add numbers –the survey says 88 per cent of children need them- must answer when was the last time she didn’t use the remote control to change channels. That’s when she knows that the trip to the TV will do her body a lot good. The fact remains that if a convenience is available, we will use it. So I don’t think that we were more industrious as students. It’s just that calculators were a big thing to have and few families owned them. And I doubt if we made for smarter students just because we did not have calculators. To actually compare we would need similar data on students of a generation that did not have access to these gizmos.
The other fear that is of the potential damage that technology will bring to our world. All these gizmos will ruin our children’s education you think? Well no one can accurately predict what kind of a world my eight year old will have to live in and what skills will be most useful to her. If more technology is running our lives I guess our children need to be comfortable with it around them whether they prefer to use or not later. I mean I prefer to use by black book to make appointments but I would feel rather inadequate is I didn’t know how to use a PDA.
Then of course is the moral stance. I won’t say it doesn’t disconcert me when my daughter heads straight for the computer when she gets back from school because she wants to “paint”. But that may be largely because I am uneasy as I don’t yet know what kind of kids result from exposure to computers and other gadgets to a much larger extent than I was. It may be easy as a parent to create a clone of myself along with all the known weaknesses and strengths.
But every time I have to deal with a new behavioural pattern in my daughter I remind myself of just one thing: I was different from my mother as she was from hers because we all had to deal with our worlds. But some things remain constant, timeless, universal. Those are qualities of the heart and the soul. And those definitely get passed down from generation to generation, by thought, word and action. Radios, TVs, fridges and computers did not harm those values. I doubt if Playstations will.
(Published in Hindustan Times in the op-ed page)
My daughter loves my cellphone with ease as much as she loves to surf the Internet. She would love to have a Playstation. I have yet to find a reason to fault her wants.
But there are times when I wonder if it is immoral to enjoy technology. Like I did a few days back when I read a survey that lamented the use and preference for gizmos among children in their early teens.
Is it worse than say an addiction for tobacco or alcohol for your body, mind and soul? I am not sure. And when I flash back into my own family I can only see an interesting evolutionary process of which she and I are parts.
I recall how my mother’s generation thought washing machines meant the end of clean clothes. They discussed how their sons and daughters-in-law wanted ‘that’ gadget home so that they would be done away with domestic chores. Now doing away with chores to simply put your feet up or party was downright evil. I remember them discuss how it was important to wash clothes personally as it was equally good for the clothes and for the woman washing them. “Good exercise”, they called it.
Though my mother was quickly bullied to turn around, some of her friends continue to think it more Godly to soak clothes personally. As they got older and couldn’t bend down too much, the maid took over to gently rub off the dirt. Not that the family didn’t ever buy a washing machine. But it is usually kept shut, respectfully covered with an elegantly embroidered tablecloth.
I remember being tempted to remind them that my grandmother thought they were evil as much when they cunningly turned to mixers and grinders for short cuts to making “masalas” and “dosa” batter. Yes, batters were better when their noses were literally at the grindstones but they found valid enough reasons to move on. I also, thankfully, stopped short of telling them that their generation had as many overweight women as mine does, good exercise or not.
The fact remains that technology keeps on growing and evolving for one simple reason: it brings joy, peace, happiness, relief, excitement, leisure or meaning in more lives than not.
And every one of us will use it where it makes our lives better. For any adult objecting to kids using calculators to add numbers –the survey says 88 per cent of children need them- must answer when was the last time she didn’t use the remote control to change channels. That’s when she knows that the trip to the TV will do her body a lot good. The fact remains that if a convenience is available, we will use it. So I don’t think that we were more industrious as students. It’s just that calculators were a big thing to have and few families owned them. And I doubt if we made for smarter students just because we did not have calculators. To actually compare we would need similar data on students of a generation that did not have access to these gizmos.
The other fear that is of the potential damage that technology will bring to our world. All these gizmos will ruin our children’s education you think? Well no one can accurately predict what kind of a world my eight year old will have to live in and what skills will be most useful to her. If more technology is running our lives I guess our children need to be comfortable with it around them whether they prefer to use or not later. I mean I prefer to use by black book to make appointments but I would feel rather inadequate is I didn’t know how to use a PDA.
Then of course is the moral stance. I won’t say it doesn’t disconcert me when my daughter heads straight for the computer when she gets back from school because she wants to “paint”. But that may be largely because I am uneasy as I don’t yet know what kind of kids result from exposure to computers and other gadgets to a much larger extent than I was. It may be easy as a parent to create a clone of myself along with all the known weaknesses and strengths.
But every time I have to deal with a new behavioural pattern in my daughter I remind myself of just one thing: I was different from my mother as she was from hers because we all had to deal with our worlds. But some things remain constant, timeless, universal. Those are qualities of the heart and the soul. And those definitely get passed down from generation to generation, by thought, word and action. Radios, TVs, fridges and computers did not harm those values. I doubt if Playstations will.
(Published in Hindustan Times in the op-ed page)
Monday, April 16, 2007
THE CONSUMER IS NOT KING
I did not think I would say “I do” more than once in my life. But that was in pre liberalized India when we were all naïve and life seemed simpler if not so comfortable.
Since then things have changed a lot as anyone knows. I for instance say these sacred words several times a day. And it’s become so easy now that I say it easily to perfect strangers, often on the telephone and without blinking an eyelid.
“Do I use post paid service?” “Yes I do.” “Do I pay my phone bill on the due date?” “Yes I do.” “Do I eat cookies.” “I do.”: “Do I wear perfume?” “I do.” “Do I….?” “I do”
Some years back corporations wanted us journalists to sing paeans of their improving and increasingly focused consumer service. How lucky the Indian consumer was to get now that everyone wanted to please him. I remember wondering if anyone was asking the consumer just when he may like to be left alone.
Today too much service is making the consumer in me beg for mercy. Try walking down the ground floor aisle of any mall today. It feels like walking down a top-end red light area, or a correctional facility as shown in popular films, the way you get solicited by the perfume counters. I don’t want to offend them and say that I came in today to just buy a book.
I step out to go to my favourite coffee shop. Well favourite till some time back before it started bringing merchandize to my table and asking me to buy it. Now my coffee order which simply went “One cappuccino please” goes appended. “One cappuccino please but thanks no flavours and no, I don’t want to buy cookies or mugs or anything else”.
Brand owners must notice that if the consumer has many more interfaces with their merchandize he has as many opportunities to evaluate the service. I don’t think a coffee drinker will mind not being able to buy coffee cups from the café but it would surely be nice if the cups were cleaned of stains, the coffee was hot and not luke-warm and the pretty leafy design on the foam didn’t smudge for lack of practice. Also, I notice the lack of standardization. For instance the coffee is more watery in some outlets than others. I don’t recall any visitor buying the merchandize at his table. The staff however had spent much time hawking it. This could have been utilized in wiping the crockery better.
Ditto for the perfume brands. Instead of the perfume “mandi” at the mall may be the companies could offer more pack sizes. Currently a trial costs you over Rs 1500, a considerable amount for an average Indian pocket. The multi-brand packs that you get at duty free shops costs about Rs 300 to 400 per brand trial. Sure enough, I yet get my supply from family members traveling abroad.
Perfume marketers I am sure know that no one can choose a perfume confidently by just that fly paper stuck at his nose by an over eager salesgirl. I am sure it would be tough for even them to be able to choose a perfume if they had to smell ten at the same time, with or without coffee beans to neutralize the previous smell.
No consumer satisfaction survey is going that deep yet but it may be interesting to study if too much attention makes the consumer too self conscious to consume a brand. I remember going to the café counter earlier, looking at the stuff leisurely and buying what I liked. I don’t do that any more because I feel watched and obliged to buy.
Then there’s the phone company. I want to use this opportunity to thank it for reminding me of my payment due date. But I wish I wasn’t asked for three days after that if I have paid up. I recently spoke up to the poor girl from the service centre who dared to ask me this. Her reply was telling. Apparently even when I make the payment on time it doesn’t reflect on the company’s system for 72 hours. So I, the customer who gets useless promotional messages all day have to answer these calls because the company cannot upgrade its payment tracking system. Instead of this “service” why not look at my good payment record and not bother me until I really slip up? Now that would be what a consumer would call service. And besides, remember I have to split my time talking to the credit card company as well!
After 15 years of liberalization marketers should understand that the consumer absorbs the service quality subtly without reading about it in newspapers. He doesn’t need to be spoken to all the time. Leave him alone for some time and let that service penetrate his senses like the perfume in the mall air.
Since then things have changed a lot as anyone knows. I for instance say these sacred words several times a day. And it’s become so easy now that I say it easily to perfect strangers, often on the telephone and without blinking an eyelid.
“Do I use post paid service?” “Yes I do.” “Do I pay my phone bill on the due date?” “Yes I do.” “Do I eat cookies.” “I do.”: “Do I wear perfume?” “I do.” “Do I….?” “I do”
Some years back corporations wanted us journalists to sing paeans of their improving and increasingly focused consumer service. How lucky the Indian consumer was to get now that everyone wanted to please him. I remember wondering if anyone was asking the consumer just when he may like to be left alone.
Today too much service is making the consumer in me beg for mercy. Try walking down the ground floor aisle of any mall today. It feels like walking down a top-end red light area, or a correctional facility as shown in popular films, the way you get solicited by the perfume counters. I don’t want to offend them and say that I came in today to just buy a book.
I step out to go to my favourite coffee shop. Well favourite till some time back before it started bringing merchandize to my table and asking me to buy it. Now my coffee order which simply went “One cappuccino please” goes appended. “One cappuccino please but thanks no flavours and no, I don’t want to buy cookies or mugs or anything else”.
Brand owners must notice that if the consumer has many more interfaces with their merchandize he has as many opportunities to evaluate the service. I don’t think a coffee drinker will mind not being able to buy coffee cups from the café but it would surely be nice if the cups were cleaned of stains, the coffee was hot and not luke-warm and the pretty leafy design on the foam didn’t smudge for lack of practice. Also, I notice the lack of standardization. For instance the coffee is more watery in some outlets than others. I don’t recall any visitor buying the merchandize at his table. The staff however had spent much time hawking it. This could have been utilized in wiping the crockery better.
Ditto for the perfume brands. Instead of the perfume “mandi” at the mall may be the companies could offer more pack sizes. Currently a trial costs you over Rs 1500, a considerable amount for an average Indian pocket. The multi-brand packs that you get at duty free shops costs about Rs 300 to 400 per brand trial. Sure enough, I yet get my supply from family members traveling abroad.
Perfume marketers I am sure know that no one can choose a perfume confidently by just that fly paper stuck at his nose by an over eager salesgirl. I am sure it would be tough for even them to be able to choose a perfume if they had to smell ten at the same time, with or without coffee beans to neutralize the previous smell.
No consumer satisfaction survey is going that deep yet but it may be interesting to study if too much attention makes the consumer too self conscious to consume a brand. I remember going to the café counter earlier, looking at the stuff leisurely and buying what I liked. I don’t do that any more because I feel watched and obliged to buy.
Then there’s the phone company. I want to use this opportunity to thank it for reminding me of my payment due date. But I wish I wasn’t asked for three days after that if I have paid up. I recently spoke up to the poor girl from the service centre who dared to ask me this. Her reply was telling. Apparently even when I make the payment on time it doesn’t reflect on the company’s system for 72 hours. So I, the customer who gets useless promotional messages all day have to answer these calls because the company cannot upgrade its payment tracking system. Instead of this “service” why not look at my good payment record and not bother me until I really slip up? Now that would be what a consumer would call service. And besides, remember I have to split my time talking to the credit card company as well!
After 15 years of liberalization marketers should understand that the consumer absorbs the service quality subtly without reading about it in newspapers. He doesn’t need to be spoken to all the time. Leave him alone for some time and let that service penetrate his senses like the perfume in the mall air.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
