The ‘Elusive’ Indian premium brand:

Can you think of an Indian brand which commands a ‘premium’ tag? Let me define a premium brand first. A brand which commands a price higher than its immediate competition and is bought more for its intangible benefits than attributes. Agreed. There are some brands. But would it stand the test when confronted with international competition? At least I could not find any such Indian brand.

A similar problem with all the emerging nations. Less said about the under developed nations, the better. China and India have always fought international competition based on price. They have been few times, if any, when they have talked of quality or snob value. India or China has never had the technological wherewithal or resources in terms of money. Let’s talk of India.

The Indian consumer after independence through to the nineties was bought up on self-sufficiency and socialism of the Nehruvian era and then the Indira Gandhi era of nationalization. Conspicuous consumption was frowned upon and would attract the eye of the taxman. No wonder India has the highest savings rate along with China. It is only after the liberalization process started in 1992 that Indian masses got the resources and options to spend. 2000s saw the start of the consumption cycle. With easily available financing options and plastic money to fuel demand, consumerism had finally arrived in India, much to the satisfaction of MNCs. The urban middle class soon found surplus money with increasing salaries of IT, pharma, services industry employees finding their way into the mushrooming malls. With an urge to show their arrival on the ‘richness’ scale, people splurged as if there was no tomorrow.

Thus we saw major international brands such as Tissot, Rolex for watches, designer apparels, bags, shoes from renowned designers such as Gucci, Jimmy Choo, Louis Vuitton, hospitality giants such as Marriotts, Hyatts among others. Indian domestic brands obviously could not fight these acclaimed international labels on snob value. The only option remaining was to fight on price to drive volumes and be profitable. We saw Videocon taking on the Sony, Samsung, LG in consumer electronics; Maruti Suzuki taking on Hyundai, Ford, Fiat, and lately Skoda, GM among others in cars. Even now we have Tata Nano as the world’s cheapest car fighting on price. Although it has been touted as an innovation to cater to the bottom of the pyramid consumer, it still fights on price.

Moving from consumer goods, even the commodities such as steel, cement, food (sugar, rice, wheat, meat) are exported based on price difference rather than its high quality or rare sweetness and exquisite taste or looks (specific to flowers). I am not questioning the quality here but just the business appeal for a prospective customer.

India’s real tryst with a premium brand came when Tatas took over iconic and marquee brands Jaguar and Land Rover. They have retained the names and not added Tata to the newest family member because the primary market of these brands is Europe and Americas, and Tata isn’t even a renowned name in cars, let alone a premium name. Woodland is an Indian brand which can be considered as a premium Indian brand but not compared to its international counterparts such as Adidas, Nike, and Reebok. It should be given its due though because it has all the makings to take the brand global. I doubt how many Indians know that it is an Indian brand. Credit should be given to its international type of communication in TVCs, print and online media where it has international models as its ambassadors.

Indian motorbike companies such as Bajaj Auto, Hero Honda, TVS, it would take a lot of effort to become a premium brand since majority of their offerings are for the mass markets in India and abroad. Same is the case with the car maker Maruti Suzuki, and Tata motors. Maruti Suzuki has been successful in the last decade or so in scaling up till only the 8 lakh car. Ditto Tata Motors. It has yet to take on the 10 lakh plus luxury car segment comprising of the Skodas, Volkswagens, Toyotas and the super luxurious Mercedeses or BMWs.

The IT sector is famous the world over yet Infosys or TCS or Wipro isn’t considered as an innovative brand. Google, Oracle, Microsoft, Yahoo, SAP are brands due to their innovation. The Indian brands are still fighting on price. But now we hear talk of Infosys trying to move beyond just the IT solutions and get into consultancy which would make them in direct competition with heavy weight such as Accenture, BCG, Booz, Allen Hamilton, and other. Of course, competing with them would need another decade of experience but at least there is a start.

There have been a spate of acquisitions in the last decade by Tatas, Birlas, Ambanis, Mallyas and others which would hold us in good stead to get an Indian premium brand. Till then that premium Indian brand remains elusive.

Google’s Product (P) focus- Other Ps, ‘set to zero’

There has always been a debate among marketers and strategists of which P among the 4Ps of marketing mix is more important. And the answer has always been that it depended on the industry and the market scenario. The answer will remain the same until marketing remains in the corporate world.

Yes, circumstances decide the importance of the individual element in the marketing mix. Looking at the Indian marketplace specifically with an example of the telecom industry, price has become the differentiation factor. There isn’t any attribute or benefit that one service provider offers which the other doesn’t. Thus the customer decides the operator on the basis of the least costly and nearest available.

With white goods and, to a certain extent automobiles, promotional spend has been the major driver. Although there is a product differentiation, it isn’t a compelling reason enough for the product sale. ‘Place’ continues to be the dark and unsung with an exception of FMCG where it is given its due.

Few times, if at all, is the product the focus. In a country like India which is very price-sensitive, marketers have always been focusing on the price, and rightly so. The case isn’t the same in the developed markets. R&D isn’t seen as a off-shoot of strategy. Rather it is thought of as a cost centre with intangible consequences resulting in lack of its effect measured on the P&L. thus the urge to spend isn’t always compelling enough for the marketer. It is seen as a luxury rather than a necessity and the axe always falls first on R&D when the going gets tough in the economy.

Thus we see an Intel, IBM, Oracle or a Google R&D centre in India but not a R&D centre for a Tata or Reliance or a Bajaj. Cost reduction resulting in low-priced products always seems the easier option.

Internationally speaking, Google with its phenomenal growth has always thought of Product development as the focus. Its first product offering i.e. the search engine was free with no promotional spend (all was word-of-mouth). Then came the email service, Gmail. Again it was free with no promotional spend. Other products such as Google Maps, Blogger, Orkut, Youtube followed. All free with only word-of-mouth publicity. It is imbibed in the Google culture where the engineers are given 20% time from among their working hours to pursue their own product for the company. The result is for everyone to see. A gamut of services, all free for the end user.

In an interview, the number 4 in the Company after its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin and CEO Eric Schimdt, Mr. Nikesh Arora said that Google was working on Google TV which was the future of TV and internet in a seamless network. The new philosophy for Google is to ‘set to zero’ the 3 Ps-price, promotion and place with entire concentration on product development. Currently if you have a look at the number of services on offer, its quite staggering. A testimony to the Google’s endeavor of spotlight on product.

Why Screenagers are a Marketers nightmare

Screenagers continuously move from screen to screen and they have plethora of content to look at. The attention span is less since they so not know what they want. The are as capricious as any spoilt child. This is a set of people who are not awed by technology but see it as a natural evolution. They thrive on technology and they are the ideal choice fro new technology products.

But as they say, every coin has two sides or rather it is like a two-edged sword. They will immediately throw away a bad product or an un-user friendly product.

Screenagers tend to be an extremely well-informed lot which enables them to see and switch from one thing to the other with great accuracy and immediacy. In a sense, their ability to process large amounts of information simultaneously is rather staggering. Even the speed with which they switch between screens is constantly rising. One screen that is facing an erosion of sorts is the oldest screen of them all, TV.

The attention spans of these people are at their lowest when they are watching television, while it’s extremely high when they are on the Internet or on the mobile. I think the 15 second advertisement will soon be history. With multiscreens comes the multitasking behaviour, which crunches attention span to five seconds or less. That is all the time we as marketers will have to communicate our message, our positioning and make an impression. TV will have to interact with the other screens and that advertising ideas need to remain alive in that scenario.

Given that they are the prime target audience for numerous brands, marketers suddenly find themselves chasing shadows. They don’t like their screens being filled up with sales pitches, they have short attention spans and time is always at a premium. If they are in a car they have no time to stare at hoardings since they are busy with one or the other screen. One of the big challenges as a marketer is to find non-intrusive ways to access them.

SMS blasts are hugely ineffective and irritatingly intrusive. The internet media was saved by Google’s search engine discovery — which led to the birth of data marketing . We need its equivalents for mobile phones, gaming consoles, etc. marketers need to pull up their socks to tap this difficult market. While mobile and the internet as media are being increasingly consumed, the time spent in communication for these screens is less compared to the Television.

A lot of interaction across screens are visual led, rather than information intensive, communication targeted at consumers particularly on the Internet and mobile phones need to be of the same nature. Unfortunately, that is not happening.

Integration of these 3 screens is the most essential for success and to understand the want of these screenagers. If we treat each screen as a different world, we have lost at the first step itself.

Catch them young is the way forward since they are at a very Impressionable years. Not just these screenagers, but the general population is moving towards digital too. Mobiles are the answer to get near the populace since that gadget is with almost everyone and is available 24x7.

The truth though is that as of now nobody knows how to deal with this situation. For years marketers and agencies have agonized over the remote and today the remote seems like a dream compared to the nightmare that multiscreening is. Because at the end of the day, the problem is how do you reach a Milind Patil, a twenty-something from one of the four metros who stares into his phone screen every now and again either messaging or reading messages.