| The need for such a move has apparently been felt after realising that the traditional mass advertising through TV, print, and billboards is having a diminishing influence on consumers, who are now getting bombarded with an unprecedented overload of information. |
| More targeted marketing channels such as e-mails or SMS or direct mailers are also veering towards being perceived as "spamming" by the potential recipients and hence having nil or even negative effect on the consumers. |
| More evolved forms of advertising such as the very innovative options through search engines like Google are better but have yet to reach out to majority of consumers in most markets. In P&G's context, FMOT is the amount of time it takes "shoppers to make up their minds about a product", and at somewhere between 3 and 7 seconds, it is a lot shorter than a typical 30-second advertisement on TV. |
| Hence, P&G's efforts are now more focused on product packaging that should "interrupt" shoppers when they visit retail stores. P&G has also, apparently, developed an internal set of questions that border on existentialism, which a package must answer: "Who am I? What am I? Why am I right for you?" |
| I believe that this concept is even more compelling in the Indian context for consumer product manufacturers and marketers, and retailers. It is well-known that on account of myriad changes""demographic, economic, and lifestyle""India is seeing the emergence of tens and hundreds of millions of new consumers. |
| Many of them have achieved some kind of economic freedom for the first time in their life, and are therefore faced with a cornucopia of options even in terms of categories of goods and services they can spend their money on, and then a bewildering array of choices when it comes to specific product or service categories. |
| In the years to come, this surfeit of options will be further compounded when new retail start-ups add to the rapidly expanding current retail chains, and hundreds of new shopping malls emerge providing competition to the existing shopping high streets. In this situation, it is going to be very difficult for all marketers to take a decision on whether to try to reach the consumer while she is still at her home (or workplace or college, for that matter) or it is better when she is at a shopping destination. |
| New businesses are already being created in countries such as China where entrepreneurs are setting up electronic billboards/plasma panels that can provide a far more focused communication medium for brands located strategically, where the consumers are likely to shop for select products and services or where they can be influenced better than classically in her living room or bed room. |
| What should brands/consumer product marketing businesses do in India? They should start by making more investment in understanding the changing lifestyle and, accordingly, the changing behaviour of the Indian consumers in both urban and rural India. They should painstakingly map out what the consumers are doing in their 24 hours in a particular day, and in each of the 365 days of their year. |
| Some very interesting findings are likely to emerge that might indicate that the consumers, especially those below 25, are probably spending more time on new kinds of activities such as playing""as teams""video games at cyber cafes or in the privacy of their own homes than watching TV or reading books. |
| They are also likely to be spending as much time at coffee cafes and lounges, books and music stores, and trolling malls as new ones continue to open month after month, as they would be spending actually buying merchandise from retail outlets. |
| In this scenario, probably, the FMOT intervention (by the marketers) has to be through innovative collaboration with channels such as publishers of video games who could intelligently embed the marketers' message as an integral part of the game or by convincing the likes of Cafe Coffee Days and Crosswords/Landmarks, and even shopping mall operators to instal in-cafe or in-store or in-mall plasma panels and perhaps product sampling or experience areas. |
| For most modern format Indian retailers, a good start would be to appreciate and invest more in retail store design itself and then acquire expertise in visual merchandising that can appeal to all the senses of the buyer when she visits a particular store, thereby setting her up to make a purchase decision. |
| Mega retailers like Wal-Mart already operate an in-store television network that is seen by over 120 million shoppers a month at their stores. In India, Pantaloon has reportedly set up a separate division focusing exclusively on utilising various collaterals within their retail stores for in-store advertising in a more innovative manner. Others should follow. |
| It would be interesting to see where and how the next battles for getting consumers' attention are fought! |
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