From ‘no’ to an enthusiastic ‘yes’, how the Indian woman’s relationship with makeup has evolved
Consumer Trends

From ‘no’ to an enthusiastic ‘yes’, how the Indian woman’s relationship with makeup has evolved

Rama Bijapurkar writes: It is this journey that lies behind the blockbuster stock market debut of online beauty products retailer, Nykaa. You could Google in privacy and figure out how to unwrap the power and magic of makeup without being deterred by social judgement. (Illustration: C R Sasikumar) The stupendous stock market debut of India’s online beauty products retailer Nykaa shows, among other things, the enormous investor confidence in the future relationship between Indian women and cosmetics and makeup. Having studied the attitudes to beauty and sexuality of Indian women in pre-liberalisation, pre-internet (almost prehistoric) times, the line that springs to mind is the one from the 1960s Virginia Slims ad: “You’ve come a long way, baby”. In the mid-1980s, the market research agency I worked for was commissioned by Lakmé, the pioneering company that brought makeup to Indian women as early as 1952, supposedly at the instance of Jawaharlal […]

November 19, 2021 0 Comments
Growth in income in last three decades: How consumer trends evolved in India
Consumer Trends

Growth in income in last three decades: How consumer trends evolved in India

The fact is that pragmatic consumption remains the hallmark of most of Consumer India’s spending.(AP Photo for Representation) With income growth in the last thirty years and more supply at various price points, and better access to credit, there are a whole class of “have-somes” who are consuming now. The last three decades have brought consumption front and centre into Indian lives, irrespective of age or income. The major life focus of all Indians is to strive to earn more and save more in order to buy a better quality of life for themselves and their family. The tenet that consumption is wasteful and best done in moderation has been replaced by “it’s OK to want it, now let’s see how we can afford it”. What hasn’t changed, though, is belief that the Almighty needs to lend a hand too. The PayTM sign at the Kedarnath temple high up in […]

July 13, 2021 0 Comments
Modi’s LPG reform was different. It helped the poor immediately, no trickle-down timeline
Consumer Trends

Modi’s LPG reform was different. It helped the poor immediately, no trickle-down timeline

As we celebrate India’s 1991 economic reforms, it is also important to know the success stories of recent campaigns. None stand out like LPG. Representational image | LPG cylinders | Bloomberg In 2014, to get a gas connection for my domestic worker, I needed to go all the way to the chairperson of a PSU oil company and ask for a special dispensation because the beneficiary was from a lower income group and lived in a chawl in Mumbai with no rent agreement or proof of residence. “It’s a subsidised commodity so we can’t change the rules,” was the reason the oil company gave us for being so hidebound on KYC documents for address proof. She needed LPG, not just for convenience, but for earning more. She needed it to make chapatis for her entire family’s lunch dabbas and then show up for work on time before her office-going women […]

July 17, 2021 0 Comments
Modi’s LPG reform was different. It helped the poor immediately, no trickle-down timeline
Policy Perspective

Modi’s LPG reform was different. It helped the poor immediately, no trickle-down timeline

As we celebrate India’s 1991 economic reforms, it is also important to know the success stories of recent campaigns. None stand out like LPG. Representational image | LPG cylinders | Bloomberg In 2014, to get a gas connection for my domestic worker, I needed to go all the way to the chairperson of a PSU oil company and ask for a special dispensation because the beneficiary was from a lower income group and lived in a chawl in Mumbai with no rent agreement or proof of residence. “It’s a subsidised commodity so we can’t change the rules,” was the reason the oil company gave us for being so hidebound on KYC documents for address proof. She needed LPG, not just for convenience, but for earning more. She needed it to make chapatis for her entire family’s lunch dabbas and then show up for work on time before her office-going women […]

July 17, 2021 0 Comments
Growth in income in last three decades: How consumer trends evolved in India
Policy Perspective

Growth in income in last three decades: How consumer trends evolved in India

The fact is that pragmatic consumption remains the hallmark of most of Consumer India’s spending.(AP Photo for Representation) With income growth in the last thirty years and more supply at various price points, and better access to credit, there are a whole class of “have-somes” who are consuming now. The last three decades have brought consumption front and centre into Indian lives, irrespective of age or income. The major life focus of all Indians is to strive to earn more and save more in order to buy a better quality of life for themselves and their family. The tenet that consumption is wasteful and best done in moderation has been replaced by “it’s OK to want it, now let’s see how we can afford it”. What hasn’t changed, though, is belief that the Almighty needs to lend a hand too. The PayTM sign at the Kedarnath temple high up in […]

July 13, 2021 0 Comments
PM Modi must push for a self-confident Bharat, not a self-reliant one
India My Land

PM Modi must push for a self-confident Bharat, not a self-reliant one

PM Modi should use his considerable pivoting skills and turn Atmanirbhar to Atma Vishwasi Bharat (AVB) or self-confident Bharat. The Prime Minister usually hits bull’s eye with the branding and messaging of his ideas. But he has had a miss with “Atmanirbhar Bharat”, stepping into the culturally loaded minefield of “self-reliance” —a noble word turned ignoble after 1991. Instead, he should have given a clarion call for “Atma Vishwasi Bharat”. His colleagues and acolytes would not have had such a hard time, splitting hairs, reinterpreting Atmanirbhar to mean self-sufficiency not self-reliance and arguing that the old xenophobic meaning of the word is consistent with the idea of globalisation. He should use his considerable pivoting skills and turn Atmanirbhar to Atma Vishwasi Bharat (AVB) or self-confident Bharat. Signalling “yes we can” will work well with those sections of society eager to claw their way up the social status and income ladder […]

January 20, 2021 0 Comments
PM Modi must push for a self-confident Bharat, not a self-reliant one
Policy Perspective

PM Modi must push for a self-confident Bharat, not a self-reliant one

PM Modi should use his considerable pivoting skills and turn Atmanirbhar to Atma Vishwasi Bharat (AVB) or self-confident Bharat. The Prime Minister usually hits bull’s eye with the branding and messaging of his ideas. But he has had a miss with “Atmanirbhar Bharat”, stepping into the culturally loaded minefield of “self-reliance” —a noble word turned ignoble after 1991. Instead, he should have given a clarion call for “Atma Vishwasi Bharat”. His colleagues and acolytes would not have had such a hard time, splitting hairs, reinterpreting Atmanirbhar to mean self-sufficiency not self-reliance and arguing that the old xenophobic meaning of the word is consistent with the idea of globalisation. He should use his considerable pivoting skills and turn Atmanirbhar to Atma Vishwasi Bharat (AVB) or self-confident Bharat. Signalling “yes we can” will work well with those sections of society eager to claw their way up the social status and income ladder […]

January 20, 2021 0 Comments
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 0 Comments
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 0 Comments
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 0 Comments
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