In 2016, the Economic and Political Weekly ( EPW ) completes 50 years. It is one of the most respected journals from India. Its earlier version as the Economic Weekly, and its founder was Sachin Chaudhary. In 1960, Dr. K. N. Raj was chosen to join the Weekly and he became editor in 1968. He stayed as editor till he died in 2004. He virtually built the paper. The Weekly published political commentaries and discussion on policy too. All good researchers aspired to be published in the Weekly. A trust called Sameeksha was formed to ensure the financial viability of the Weekly. A research foundation was established in 2013. When the trust was formed, the name was changed from the Economic Weekly to Economic and Political Weekly. To begin with the Weekly had the leftist leanings. The Weekly became more balanced since the 1980s.
Author: Shabbir Chunawalla
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Luxury Brands and Indians
Indian professionals go in for luxury brands by paying through credit cards. Indians are more concerned with the badge value of brands — they are symbols of affluence elsewhere, these brands may be bought for the talk value of experience or manifesting connoisseurship. In the early 20th century, royalty patronized the luxury brands in India. Recently, the number of Indian billionaires has increased. The salaried class is being paid handsomely. There is a market luxury goods at different price points. The spending is uninhibited. The splurge by the Indians is a fact.
Luxury brands tend to be individualistic. When more and more people can afford them, they become fashionable.
Indian retail in luxury brands copes with the problem of the right portfolio of brands and the media to communicate with the customers. They have to expand beyond the metros to realize the full potential of the market. Most cities have high streets dedicated to the marketing of luxury goods, e.g. 5th Avenue, New York, Oxford Street, London and the Champs Elysees, Paris. Such high streets are still not present in India. India still has no large retailers in terms of space of luxury brands. There is a problem of generating awareness of the brands. It is a problem to reach the target audience using the right media. Media like Vogue, Vanity Fair are not available. There is a problem of trained manpower to retail such brands. Many consumers defer luxury shopping till they go abroad.
There is ample scope for many players in the market as the market for exclusive products is growing in width and depth.
Evolution of Luxury Consumer
Luxury products demanded by the masses are sold on the basis of ‘ I am worth it ‘ feeling. This is a premium brand market for the masses. At the other end of the spectrum, certain exclusive high-priced products are sold.
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Marketing Luxury
Diamonds are just rocks mined from the bowels of the earth. They have been invested with value by good marketing — showing diamonds in use by the celebrities and royalty, promoting them as an expression of love, and as something that stood the test of time. This is true for Swiss watches and French wines. These products have become what they are today riding the back of successful marketing.
These products symbolize what a luxury brand is. They satisfy the need for self-worth and an aspiration to belong to an exclusive club. They demonstrate sophistication and class. The ownership and gifting of such products have high emotional values. Consumption of such products itself becomes a source of identity. A luxury product is a market of differentiation, e.g. LVMH bag or Cartier watch.
Price premium on luxury brands leads to huge profit margins for most luxury brand companies. A luxury brand’s value lies beyond its core product function. More than 80% of it consists of brand value and the rest is made up with features such as quality, technicality and aesthetics. A luxury product becomes justifiably expensive and is meant for a select few. Luxury is a matter of perception. It is aspirational. A brand has to meet this perception by premium quality. Luxury marketers have to shape the consumer perceptions. Even amongst the select audience of luxury brands, a smaller super niche super elite club can be created. Such elitist bias is shown by creating signature products and by-invitation sale. As many more people can afford luxury brands now, prestige, and exclusivity are created by distance, not necessarily financial, but intellectual and cultural. Ad agencies promote cultural and intellectual distances.
Corporate elite is a good audience for luxury brands. Luxury itself is vulnerable to dynamics of the market place — what is luxury to one is a matter of life-style for another. Luxury brands cannot afford to become common place, and hence have to innovate constantly.
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Matching Media and Audience
When we try to match the media and audience, there are comparisons of efficiency. Cost per thousand ( CPM ) is the cost to reach 1000 customers by using a specific medium. It is a measure to compare different vehicles. Indian Readership Survey ( IRS ) data and Audit Bureau of Circulation ( ABC ) data are good input. CPM should be related to relevant audience. There is reliance on GRPs in broadcast media. BARC meters record what the people actually view on the TV. Media show regional differentiation. It is necessary to focus on certain regions considering the market of our product.
There should be a contextual fit, say a demo that requires visuals and sound effects is best suited to TV. There should be product fit — image of the product and media must match. There should be a fit of editorial matter and ad, e.g. a humorous ad would lose punch if placed in a humorous programme.
Sometimes, duplication or multiple exposures are desirable. Sometimes they are a waste. There is overlap of audiences of different vehicles, and some duplication is unavoidable. There should estimation of unduplicated audience of each vehicle. If reach is the objective, we should focus on vehicles with large unduplicated audiences.
As far as possible, the demographic characteristics of the readership or viewership of the media and the target audience of the product must match.
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Patents
There are 2,26,339 patent applications pending as of July 31, 2015. On an average, around 43000 patent applications are filed annually. After accounting for those that are withdrawn, around 38000 patent applications need to be examined. The Controller General of Patents and Designs ( CGPOT ) has hired 459 additional patent examiners. The charge levied for withdrawn of a patent application has been waived.
The time for approving a patent application from current 5-6 years is proposed to be reduced to 15 months and for trademarks from 13 months to just one month.
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Branded Content on Social Media
Yash Raj Film’s Bang Raja Baraat has crossed a lac views in less than 24 hours. Lakme BBB video depicting to families have gone viral. Man’s World of YRF has crossed 1 million views.
Branded content is for subtle advertising of the brand. It is a short film which professionals make. It trends on social media.
Brands such as Myntra Emami and many others have taken to such short films to promote the brand offerings. There are cameos in such films. It can do cross-promotion too.
These short films are made with a tight budget of Rs. 5 lac, but the costs can go up to Rs. 1-Rs. 2 crore.
The target audience of these films is generally between 18 and 30.
Start ups too take advantage of the branded content.
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Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings
It was difficult for marketers to measure RoI on the digital campaigns.It was also difficult to map the target audience. It can be done now with Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings (DAR).
This new tool DAR can measure all kinds of display and video ads( except Twitter and YouTube app on mobile phones and tablets). Even mobile phones and tablets will soon be integrated.
DAR can measure online advertising audiences, the reach and frequency of ad campaigns and gross rating points (GRP) of the digital ads.
The new system will help advertisers and agencies gauge return on investment for every rupee they spend online.
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Rural Ratings
BARC India proposes to include rural India’s viewership data. It will give more comprehensive information to the broadcasters and advertisers. It will throw deeper insights about what India watches.
By adding rural reports, there is almost a 2.5 times jump in TV viewership. Advertisers now know prcisely what their money’s actual worth is.
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Vuclip
Vuclip offers premium video-on-demand services for emerging markets. They use a freenium model — both free and paid users. In India, they have close to 20 million free users, who are completely mobile users. They use the service when they come across the app and the browser. They have 6 million paid users every quarter. There is a constant churn here — both voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary churn is when the user is unwilling to pay. Involuntary churn is when the user wants to continue using the service, but does not have enough money on the prepaid card, for example. They churn out, but they return to the service once they have the money.
They source the content from 270 content providers — international, regional and local content.They make the content providers understand that the higher the monetisation for Vuclip, the higher will be the monetisation for them too. To begin with, content providers want all their content on subscription basis. But this does not have enough scale. They have a sitting with the content provider, and decide which content they are ready to part with free, and which they require to be behind the subscription pay wall. News is loved, but no one is ready to pay for it.
Currently, their 90 per cent revenue comes from subscriptions and the balance 10 per cent through advertising.
HotStar, Eros Now and Spool are leaky buckets. They get a lot of downloads, but majority of them get uninstalled.
Facebook is doing lot of videos but that is advertising-driven. Facebook also puts Its software development kits ( SDKs) into other people’s apps. Whatever value was provided by Fb, the same value can be provided on third party sites such as Vuclip. In fact, they are partnering with Fb.
On mobiles, consumers do not have long session times, as the device does not lend itself to such long sessions. Most sessions ( 90 percent ) are of 10-15 minutes. In such a short short span, people can watch humour, stand up comedy or sports highlights. It is no different in the US. It is not true that all that is watched on TV will be watched on the mobile.
They can think of having revenue sharing agreements with telecom operators. They can bundle data and video as a part of the package. This can be priced innovatively.
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What India Watches
So many questions arise on the watching habits of the Indian population. Who is watching what? What works ? What does not work ? Has the advertiser put money on the right show ? Where the RoI is maximum? All such questions make the world of TV watching a Rubik’s cube — whatever is revealed leads to a new puzzle.
Many GECS and news channels, many specialized niche channels, Over-the- Top ( OTT ) channels such as Hotstar, digital TV — all this makes the measurement complex.
Advertisers are looking at splitting their budgets between TV and digital which was earlier done on silo basis.