“Like everything else in India, marketing too is part logic, part gut,” says Dheeraj Sinha, regional planning director, Bates 141, in his book, Consumer India: Inside the Indian Mind and Wallet. In his book, Sinha puts Indian consumers into three segments: partition generation, transition generation and no-strings generation, and gives an account of what marketers and advertisers need to keep in mind to draw the attention of each of these consumer segments. Taking off from his book and drawing upon facts, fiction and personal experience, he unravels the interconnections between the mind and the wallet of the Indian consumer over a free-flowing tele-conversation with Arunima Mishra.
How is the mind of the Indian consumer changing? What are the key developments that are driving this change?
The new-age Indian consumer lives more through the warrior mindset; he wants to go out and win the world, be celebrated. The way we play cricket today, chasing till the last ball, the way Indian corporations are buying companies abroad, the way Indian women today get onto the stage on a reality show such as the Boogie Woogie (a reality dance competition on Sony) and dance — it’s all reflective of this mindset.
The shift can be explained like this: “I want to become the best in whichever field I am”. Everyone today wants to excel at his or her own level — “I want to better my business”, “I want to look good”, “I want to learn better”… For instance, people in rural India are using premium products such as Pantene/Dove shampoos, albeit in sachets. They may not have a TV set at home, but they want to participate in the larger consumption discourse that the nation is relishing today. Take today’s housewives — with the advent of reality television, many of them have reached the hot seat on the much talked about TV show, Kaun Banega Crorepati.
There are three big factors that have contributed to this larger change — money, education and manpower. The advent of money is a big reality for the new India. Look at our salaries today. Earlier, a salary of Rs 10,000 was a huge amount in a government job. Today, graduates from B-schools, the Indian Institutes of Management, start at annual salaries of Rs 1 crore-plus. Similarly, the huge inflow of FDI (foreign direct investment) in various sectors has made money available to the corporate sector. Many Indian companies have managed to double their turnover in last few years. India’s leading telecommunications company, Bharti Airtel, bought companies outside India. So did Tata’s automotive division.
The second big catalyst of change is education. Where else in the world do you have such a huge population of people, fairly conversant in English and rather well educated? The entire service sector boom, especially the one in IT (information technology), is a function of this.
The third big catalyst for this change, a related one, is the manpower that this country has. Earlier, this lot was employed in sectors of low productivity such as the government, the manufacturing sectors like textiles and the agricultural sector. Today, it’s been deployed in more productive sectors like IT, health as well as manufacturing.
How has the recent global financial meltdown influenced the mind of the Indian consumer? Is she deal-hunting more than ever before and down-trading to lower-cost options?
The buoyancy in the Indian consumer market has been far too strong for the meltdown to affect India too much. India is the fastest country to be on the rebound from the global meltdown. The Indian economy stood quite resilient because India’s GDP is powered mostly by domestic demand. Also, positive agriculture growth held India up during these times. The meltdown might have made the Indian consumer pull back for a moment, but it hasn’t dented her buoyancy.
To what extent has cultural integration in the country influenced her consumption habit?
India is moving towards a national culture. We are becoming more and more similar than different, though the nuances of the regional languages and idioms will always be there. For example, in today’s south India, Bollywood is as popular as the regional-language cinema. The youth in India, for instance, displays an attitude and a behaviour that’s united more by age than geography. It’s like in the case of relationships — this generation believes more in disposability than stability. Again, this is more a pan-India shift rather than just a regional one.
Can you give us an account of what differentiates the various consumer segments in India as you have described in your book, Consumer India...
The Indian opportunity today has three distinct segments with their own worldviews and consumption desires. The first segment is that of people who were born in the times of partition/independence of India. This is the partition generation, who are in the age band of 45-65 years. While the partition generation is held back by tradition, they are not holding back when it comes to consumption. The partition generation consumes categories rather than brands. But many of today’s lifestyle categories are new for them. Thus, what they want is simply a membership in the category rather than a choice of brands. Access brands that offer access to certain categories with high value but a plain imagery; so, do a good job of selling functionality to this generation.
The second segment is the transition generation, who are in the age group of 25-44. They were born during the times of India’s economic liberalisation. They have one foot in the pre-liberalisation era and another in the post-liberalisation era. The transition generation is learning to let go. Letting go means they are increasingly willing to make discretionary expenditures. This is the most targeted age range for brands across product categories. The transition generation is relishing the joys of consumption because it’s supported by rising household income. The marketer can use credit/debit to sell anything to the transition generation, that ties in a little bit of goodness with a little of indulgence. For instance, pediatric medicines with chocolate flavour, or something similar would work well for this generation.
The third segment is the no-strings generation (age group: 15-24), those who are born post liberalisation. Unlike the partition generation, which seeks stability in everything, from jobs to relationships to brands, the no-strings generation thrives on discontinuity and finds stability boring. For this segment, ‘bad is the new good’. The idea of morality for this generation is shifting. What’s good or bad is being determined not by the society, but by what works for them personally. In these times of blurring boundaries, one of the biggest challenges for brands is to realise that the no-strings generation will not readily identify with a spokesperson whitewashed with goodness. However, a sense of optimism without limits certainly means that this is a generation that spends more easily than, say, the partition generation. Brands would do better by factoring in this segment’s need for many and varied experiences.
Against this backdrop, how would you distinguish the Indian consumer from those in other parts of the world?
The Indian consumer is at the opposite end of the Western consumer. The West has been through its consumption curve and is now looking for the larger meaning of life, especially in the non-materialist space. India, on the other hand, is seduced by the newfound gloss. Therefore, the Indian consumer has little regard for the ideas of social good such as adoption, going green, among others. The other difference between today’s India and the West is the sheer energy and optimism the India has, which is comparable to very few countries today.
Is it tougher to sell to the no-strings generation than say the partition generation?
In the next 10 years, the market will see two or three kinds of consumers, and they will be quite different from one another. The much talked about 200 million consumers, who is today below the age group of 25, will be at the centre in next 10 years. Marketing, entertainment and advertising will try hard to appeal to this new consumer who has not seen the Doordarshan era. In next 10 years, India will engage with the generation born in the times of plenty. The no-strings generation, as they are referred to in my book, have not seen the scarcity or the lack of choice that today’s Indians have seen in their early days. Their demands from life are far more discontinuous and their approach is highly competitive and brave.
Ten years from now, Indian growth should also get increasingly more equitable as more Indians get into the middle class. This will yet again create a market for entry-level consumers where category membership is more important than brand differentiation. Access brands, which give the consumers access to categories that they otherwise cannot reach, will grow in their tribe.
For the last 20 years, Indians have been nurturing all kinds of dreams for their careers, children and retirement. The next decade will also see some dejection as the bulk of today’s India will reach their midlife and many of these free-flowing dreams may not be fulfilled by then. This would convert some of the current optimism to some cynicism.