Leading global research and data agency Kantar TNS says India needs to focus more on its online payment infrastructure and build consumer trust to realise its true digital potential.
According to the findings of a report, nearly half (47 per cent) of India's connected consumers feel "constantly followed" by online advertising.
Connected Life is a leading global study of the digital attitudes and behaviours of 70,000 internet users across 57 countries. It says India would need a major rethinking in terms of how advertisers should reach out to consumers.
Zoë Lawrence, APAC Digital Director at Kantar TNS said trust, infrastructure, logistics and payment mechanism are among the digital roadblocks stopping India from realising its digital potential.
According to her, India is one of top five e-commerce markets in Asia. She considers India at number three in overall digital power after Korea and China.
Kantar TNS is a global research consultancy, and part of Kantar, one of the world’s leading data, insight and consultancy companies. Their key focus area in India is to support marketers and to help them with customer engagement.
Lawrence does not separate marketing and digital. She believes both of them are an inherent part of everything that they do.
"We know the consumer is becoming more connected, my area of focus is to use what we know about the connected consumer. We need to support our clients in delivering and developing marketing strategies that would help them to engage with those connected consumers," she said.
The group is looking at the fragmentation of social media landscape. It keeps a tab on where the consumers are spending their time. It found that most of the consumers are spending their time on social media, instant messaging and online video.
The "Connected Life" report highlighted Facebook's penetration is high around the globe and Twitter is nowhere close its rival in any market. Facebook internet penetration in India is 75 per cent while Twitter stands at 34 per cent.
Commenting on the low penetration of Twitter, Lawrence said, "In India, if a brand is looking to define strategy and reach, Facebook will give that reach. Twitter has a set of issues and consumers are not leveraging the 140 character limit, they are unable to express their views. For that matter, they opt for Instagram which is easier by posting a picture."
Adding to that, Anusheel Shrivastava, Executive Director of Kantar TNS India, pointed out every social media product which is out there would not have the same trajectory like Facebook. They manage to continue with its growth in a phenomenal way, not every social media would be able to do that.
He said, "Twitter also had the kind of growth where they currently are. When we say they are troubling is more of money making business because not more new users are joining the platform."
Advertisers are feeling more difficult than before to reach consumers. They are facing an increasingly empowered consumer base. Consumers are skipping and blocking ads. It's challenging for the marketers to break the no code of Indian consumers.
The only solution for marketers is to find a way of compelling the viewers within the time frame or discover a different way of content.
One of the prominent reason brands started content marketing by tying up with independent content curators was not getting proper attention via ads.
BW Reporters
The author is a journalist with BW Businessworld. He primarily covers Retail, Media & Entertainment and Travel & Tourism sectors
