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The growth challenge

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The Strategist New Delhi
Last Updated : Jun 14 2013 | 3:07 PM IST
At a recent seminar, Andre Nair, CEO - South Asia, Group M Media, spoke on the road ahead for the consumer insight industry.
 
"Life used to be straightforward. You're born, you grow up, you live with your parents. You may leave home, find a partner, you start a family. When you're 50, the kids leave the nest, and around 70, one of the partners dies. It isn't so easy anymore.
 
"Now, whether you're Indian or from anywhere else, this is what resembles life today and tomorrow: You start working at a much earlier age, you get a partner, live with a partner, you separate from your partner. You find the right partner, you get married, you have children. You then get divorced, your first set of children leave home, you marry a second time, you then have your second set of children...
 
"So, a much busier, more complex life than we look for. Consumers are busier and have more choices to manage. But what kind of choice are we talking about? For the time-pressured Indian from socio-economic categories A and B, about 20 per cent of a day is spent on entertainment and other activities.
 
"In 2003 there were 76,000 advertised brands, of which 20,000 were new brands! But it seems to me "" and research agrees "" that consumers today are savvier and more aware of advertising and marketing techniques.
 
"They are not passively sitting there responding to marketing: they are actually interpreting them; they know our schemes and our strategy.
 
"And not only do we have more choice with the brand itself, there's an explosion of media choices as well. In 1993, there were 90 radio stations, last year there were 275; in print the number has gone up from 303 to about 379; and cinema, which was at 8,000, has now crossed 9,600. The number of TV commercials a week that your average TV consumer has the potential to be exposed to is about 940. That's 940 different messages, 940 different products, 940 different brands. We live in a crazy world.
 
"The media, too, has changed. Media today is also programming, is content, is sponsorship, is an event. So there's competition for the consumer's time and attention, whether it is reception of communication messages, consumption of media, brand decision-making or respondent measurement. And that means the media has to work that much harder to be effective.
 
"So, what do we need to do? We need a type of research that goes beyond demographics and lifestage and into attitudes, motivations and behaviour. Where people's category and brand use is measured using their relationship with brands and their communication channels.
 
"Let's get specific. The first challenge is in respondent burden and intrusion. With our consumers having increasingly busy and complex lives, the quality of the responses and compliance rates are under pressure. This new methodology must minimise respondent burden and at the same time maximise compliance. The only way we can stay ahead of the game is to know more and more about consumers and their needs.
 
"Then there's television audience measurement (TAM). New technology such as digital TV and picture-in-picture throw enormous challenges at the existing people meter measurement methodology. The massive increase in the number of channels means that sample sizes are being stretched to the limit; and current sample sizes are already inadequate for niche situations.
 
"Over time, there will be a change away from mega-TAM measurements that attempt to capture the whole "universe" of TAM to those that focus on consumer behaviour, especially for niche broadcasters who have little to gain from appearing as a blip on the ratings.
 
"A third challenge is the measurement of non-traditional media. Spends on this segment are up and it is increasingly requiring accountability, both in terms of recommendations as to how much they should invest and in terms of effectiveness. There is an array of measurements available for non-traditional media, but no industry standards. Any existing studies are usually ad hoc in nature and limited in scope, so that often they measure different components of media out of the context of the full-media behaviour of the respondent.
 
"That brings up the issue of data convergence. One way of dealing with all the dynamic change, and to have a full understanding of all the issues that affect advertising and sales, is to converge disparate data sets "" fusion.
 
"The concept has been around for many years and can be extremely effective in merging one or two data sets and gain an understanding of the effect of, say, TV viewing on sales. And now, new-generation software is available that can bring completely independent data sets together by using time-series analysis. For instance, such an analysis can help in understanding the effects of promotions, point-of-sale activities, advertising and TV viewing on sales and brand awareness.
 
"But how is effectiveness measured? Econometric modelling is increasingly important as a way of measuring return on investment for media and other expenditure, but this approach is dependent on the availability of quality tracking and sales data. And now that it is understood that brands are no longer chosen for their functionality, methods are being developed to measure qualities like moods and feelings as well.
 
"That is where the importance of both qualitative and quantitative media research comes in. With the increasing fragmentation of traditional media and the unlimited and unmeasurable scope of ambient media, there is a greater need to measure, apart from media exposure, environment, involvement, connection, affinity and appeal for all media.
 
"Clearly, we need a new business model. Tomorrow's researchers need to move from insight to application. Too many researchers today are still at the data and information stage.We need a researcher who can transform from backroom historian to boardroom strategist.

 
 

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First Published: May 04 2004 | 12:00 AM IST

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