'Challenge For Marketers Today Is To Identify The Target Customer'

As technology evolves, the tastes of Indian consumers have changed as well. Since 1991, there has been a huge shift in consumer behaviours and this has led to a change in marketing strategies.

Kedar Apte, Head Marketing, Castrol India, said, "There has been a huge marketing shift in the Indian market post 1991, since that was time of monopoly but post that the market saw a sea change firstly, with the new brands and choices emerging in the market, secondly, travel becoming cheaper and thirdly, the influence of technology, like with the emergence of cable TV and with social media and new technological advancements, the consumers are more informed and have far more choices."

Apte was speaking at the launch of the 14th edition of the BW Businessworld Marketing Whitebook in St. Regis, Mumbai on July 20, 2018, in a session moderated by Satyabrata Das, Head Strategic Alliances & Corporate Communications, Laqshya Media Group.

Adding to Apte's point, Amit Doshi, CMO, Lenovo India, said, "Today the consumptions have become very aspirational as today's mindset is all about experiencing a product and living it up rather than saving it for future."

Sandeep Verma, President Sales & Marketing Bajaj Corp said, "India produces an Australia every year, this is a comparison between sizes between countries and the same phrase can be used for almost every category be it FMCG or consumer durables etc. What is positive here is, that it gives us opportunities to produce at a very large scale. If we look at the magnitude and size India has we see great opportunities across industries to cater to a huge consumer base. If we see for example in the real estate, it could be from mass housing to super premier housing. India is today known as a big consumption country as each industry today has its own customer base widespread across India's geography and we don't need to see outside for growth, so we can say that there is one Australia in every single category in India."

Verma added, "Today there are many invisible brands in the market that are not big, but they are very large in their individual spaces and customer base. The amount of penetration a brand gets today because of media, the amount of segmentation and the cuts you get gives massive opportunities to marketers and a huge choice to customers."

Amit Wadhwani, MD, SAI Estate Consultants, gave his take on the real estate market and said, "The toughest thing in India is to convince somebody is not to buy properties, so for me, it's an easy job. India's real estate customers want no risk and need guarantees by someone to take responsibility and thus a broker or a channel partner sells them that assurance and not a property, that their money is safe. Today's real estate market is exciting, superb energetic yet complex."

Anupam Bokey, VP Marketing CMO, RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group FMCG said, "Today there are different pieces of content that are produced for giving experiences as per the individual needs. The challenge for the marketer is to identify the target customer so that we don't end up advertising the wrong thing to the wrong customers. But the opportunity is to have accessibility to all age groups of individuals."

Priyaanka Mathur

Guest Author The author is working in a leading media house