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Apna Internet -We have made the World Wide Web truly ours
Consumer Trends

Apna Internet -We have made the World Wide Web truly ours

By Rama Bijapurkar, Author of “A Never Before World: Tracking the Evolution of Consumer India” We are an affiliative, clannish, inquisitive, parochial society with each of us having multiple identities and belonging to several reference groups, always seeking out “people like us”, like homing pigeons. WhatsApp makes all this easier and more efficient. The whole clan weighs in on wedding preparations, and festivals are celebrated and new babies monitored closely by many more family members scattered around the globe. I know one grandparent in small-town India who watches the prized grandchild every day at her playschool in America. I have friends who belong to at least 10 different WhatsApp groups spanning their many identities which are getting even more complexly constructed then before. The multilingual keyboard with all its features, emojis, gifs and voice messaging is making language fluency less of a barrier, as we now transact socially with different […]

August 16, 2020
Fair & Lovely’s rebranding brings new opportunities for HUL and competitors
Consumer Trends

Fair & Lovely’s rebranding brings new opportunities for HUL and competitors

This forced churning, like all forced churning, might even do the brand franchise good, and enable it to compete in a more mainstream manner and appeal to a wider audience. The loser in this is a whole lot of consumers who really wanted fairness As we wait with bated breath for the new name for Fair & Lovely to be announced, a few things seem obvious: One, it was a move suddenly dictated from London because it just isn’t Hindustan Unilever’s (HUL’s) style in all the years we have known it to miss a beat when it comes to flawless, confident and much-researched execution of any change — especially when it involves consumers and a Rs 4,000 crore brand. Representative Image In this case, HUL announced changing the name first, then announced that the new name was being legally registered (their risk assessment clearly did not show this as a possibility otherwise, […]

June 29, 2020
Fair & Lovely’s rebranding brings new opportunities for HUL and competitors
Business Strategy

Fair & Lovely’s rebranding brings new opportunities for HUL and competitors

This forced churning, like all forced churning, might even do the brand franchise good, and enable it to compete in a more mainstream manner and appeal to a wider audience. The loser in this is a whole lot of consumers who really wanted fairness As we wait with bated breath for the new name for Fair & Lovely to be announced, a few things seem obvious: One, it was a move suddenly dictated from London because it just isn’t Hindustan Unilever’s (HUL’s) style in all the years we have known it to miss a beat when it comes to flawless, confident and much-researched execution of any change — especially when it involves consumers and a Rs 4,000 crore brand. Representative Image In this case, HUL announced changing the name first, then announced that the new name was being legally registered (their risk assessment clearly did not show this as a possibility otherwise, […]

June 29, 2020
‘Migrant’ has become a label that declares someone a perpetual outsider
India My Land

‘Migrant’ has become a label that declares someone a perpetual outsider

The creation of a new class called the migrants makes us forget that they are people and all rules that apply to people, apply to them as well. Many ask, “Why are the migrants leaving? Why can’t they be persuaded to stay? Surely, they would stay if food was actually being provided?” and so on. Passengers wait for their train at New Delhi Railway Station. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, “migrant” and “migration” were emotionally-neutral words used to describe Indians who have moved their residence from one part of the country to another, temporarily or permanently. Now, with due respect to the media and to the wise people who speak on behalf of them, the word “migrant” has acquired an emotional charge, value judgement and social stereotyping, and a new slice of society called “the migrants” has been consecrated. “The migrants” is now shorthand for a people who are poor, homeless, hungry, neglected […]

June 5, 2020
‘Migrant’ has become a label that declares someone a perpetual outsider
Policy Perspective

‘Migrant’ has become a label that declares someone a perpetual outsider

The creation of a new class called the migrants makes us forget that they are people and all rules that apply to people, apply to them as well. Many ask, “Why are the migrants leaving? Why can’t they be persuaded to stay? Surely, they would stay if food was actually being provided?” and so on. Passengers wait for their train at New Delhi Railway Station. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, “migrant” and “migration” were emotionally-neutral words used to describe Indians who have moved their residence from one part of the country to another, temporarily or permanently. Now, with due respect to the media and to the wise people who speak on behalf of them, the word “migrant” has acquired an emotional charge, value judgement and social stereotyping, and a new slice of society called “the migrants” has been consecrated. “The migrants” is now shorthand for a people who are poor, homeless, hungry, neglected […]

June 5, 2020
Plenty of food for thought in the post-lockdown world
Consumer Trends

Plenty of food for thought in the post-lockdown world

For food ordering apps, the lockdown has been a boon. (Photo: HT) Upper class modern millennials are the ‘weaned on Maggi’ generation, who grew up to become the Swiggy generation, even ordering in their Maggi Continuing on the theme of how Indian consumption will change after covid-19 and the lockdown, today’s column looks at urban upper class food consumption. I had said in my earlier column that consumer attitudes and behaviour will not change much except for income-driven economizing, though additional new opportunities were presenting themselves if only suppliers were ready to tap into them. Upper class modern millennials are the “weaned on Maggi” generation, who grew up to become the Swiggy generation, even ordering in their Maggi. Although there usually was a cook with the key who made something basic for sustenance, ordering in from a range of hole-in-the-wall to fancy restaurants was preferred because it was not just easy, […]

May 17, 2020
The DNA of Consumer India will remain unscathed after covid-19
Consumer Trends

The DNA of Consumer India will remain unscathed after covid-19

Investors are well-advised to track the supply side as carefully as they are tracking the consumer side CoronavirusCovid-19 Marketers and investors are increasingly wondering how consumption will change post covid-19 and the lockdown. The obvious answer is that everyone is going to be less well off, and consumption will shrink. In an earlier column we modelled the amount at risk. People will spend on necessities first (could include replacing a broken phone or refrigerator, not just food and school fees). For getting a piece of the “nice to have but can do without” expenditure, there will be a fierce cross category battle (buy an iPhone now, paint your house next year or downsize the wedding and give the newlyweds a car instead). The Indian consumer toggles seamlessly between ‘stretch’ and ‘settle’ behaviour—in good times, “whatever I can afford plus one price-performance level up” (stretch) and in bad times “let’s stay […]

May 11, 2020
The DNA of Consumer India will remain unscathed after covid-19
Demand Drivers

The DNA of Consumer India will remain unscathed after covid-19

Investors are well-advised to track the supply side as carefully as they are tracking the consumer side CoronavirusCovid-19 Marketers and investors are increasingly wondering how consumption will change post covid-19 and the lockdown. The obvious answer is that everyone is going to be less well off, and consumption will shrink. In an earlier column we modelled the amount at risk. People will spend on necessities first (could include replacing a broken phone or refrigerator, not just food and school fees). For getting a piece of the “nice to have but can do without” expenditure, there will be a fierce cross category battle (buy an iPhone now, paint your house next year or downsize the wedding and give the newlyweds a car instead). The Indian consumer toggles seamlessly between ‘stretch’ and ‘settle’ behaviour—in good times, “whatever I can afford plus one price-performance level up” (stretch) and in bad times “let’s stay […]

May 11, 2020
The DNA of Consumer India will remain unscathed after covid-19
Business Strategy

The DNA of Consumer India will remain unscathed after covid-19

Investors are well-advised to track the supply side as carefully as they are tracking the consumer side CoronavirusCovid-19 Marketers and investors are increasingly wondering how consumption will change post covid-19 and the lockdown. The obvious answer is that everyone is going to be less well off, and consumption will shrink. In an earlier column we modelled the amount at risk. People will spend on necessities first (could include replacing a broken phone or refrigerator, not just food and school fees). For getting a piece of the “nice to have but can do without” expenditure, there will be a fierce cross category battle (buy an iPhone now, paint your house next year or downsize the wedding and give the newlyweds a car instead). The Indian consumer toggles seamlessly between ‘stretch’ and ‘settle’ behaviour—in good times, “whatever I can afford plus one price-performance level up” (stretch) and in bad times “let’s stay […]

May 11, 2020
Wider cost-benefit analysis will determine if WFH is a success
Policy Perspective

Wider cost-benefit analysis will determine if WFH is a success

The current narrative around WFH does not accommodate diverse income groups and women workers. The bandwagon of opinion that work-from-home is the amrit (nectar of immortality) that the covid manthan (churning) has yielded is growing and speeding down an implementation path that is long on profit-and-loss benefit and short on people-centricity. Corporates love the cost savings, but a fuller analysis will show that it is a double-edged sword to be handled with care, quickly accruing quantifiable savings for companies, but risking slowly accumulating costs for employees and organizations, perhaps not quantifiable early on but not un-measurable. Implement work from home (WFH) by all means, but after data-driven weighing of costs and benefits all around. We would like to see an equivalent level of discussion on the people dimension as we are seeing on cost savings. Decision-makers, likely older, with older children, better paid, hence living in larger houses with better […]

May 4, 2020
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