Thoughts on Building the New Behavior of Digital Payments in India Calibrating our ambition The issue with selling new ideas and technology to India is that the supply side is more eager and breathless than the consumer usually is. Predictions such as 'Indian digital payments market will reach $500 bn by 2020'...
As marketing and advertising trade punches, the answer to their woes lies elsewhere. Advertising as an industry has come to be everyone’s favorite punching bag. The criticism may have hit a crescendo in the last few weeks, but the advertising model has been getting flak for a while now. A lot...
Yes, consumers in India want products and services that are affordable but not those that look and feel cheap INDIA RELOADED Inside India's resurgent consumer market Dheeraj Sinha Westland Ltd 205 pages; Rs 599 Any book that starts with "You write your second book because others want you to" can be a put-off and make you feel that...
Dheeraj Sinha, Chief Strategy Officer, South & South East Asia with the Grey Group and author of the recently-released ‘India Reloaded: Inside India’s Resurgent Consumer Market’ tells Pradyuman Maheshwari that the very things we are proud of — India’s jugaad mentality, or the fact that the country is a great, big...
India is today exposed to exaggerated stimulus when it comes to social and pop culture content. We want everything to be sexy and all senses to be fully driven; subtlety is being given a miss for some other time. This is mirrored in our choice of products and services. Brands...
A lot of what marketers take for granted about India is just plain wrong according to Dheeraj Sinha, chief strategy officer, South and South East Asia, Grey. A large part of his soon to be launched second book, India Reloaded, is dedicated to busting these myths. Sinha discusses just four...
The Poor Want Purpose Without it’s branding by Mahatma Gandhi, Khadi would have remained hand-woven cotton fabric, good for sweaty climates. Mahatma Gandhi elevated Khadi into a larger purpose for the masses – swadeshi and swaraj. What Mahatma Gandhi did with Khadi, Baba Ramdev did with yoga, may be not...
The veneer of pretence has gone, leaving the Indian consumer demanding products that make them feel aristocratic, says award-winning global marketing expert Dheeraj Sinha...
Helping consumers build their own infrastructure is key to tapping into the billion plus marketplace, says award-winning global marketing expert Dheeraj Sinha...
Baba Ramdev’s success busts the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which separates the pursuit of self-actualisation from that of the basic needs. In this case, the so-called poor want both spiritualism and consumption from the same brand. Baba Ramdev brings lifestyle and spiritualism together for the masses. He is neither stripping...
It’s been an eventful 12 months for marketing in India. As Narendra Modi and the BJP swept to power, Indian consumers, looking for an upgraded life, rewarded those who promised to take them to the next level. Those who failed to do so were punished, whether brands or politicians. In...
India is celebrated for its mass market potential - the promise of 300 million middle class consumers. However, after two decades of economic liberalization, the nature of consumer demand seems to be changing. The entry level consumer of two decades ago is now in the upgrade cycle. Their preference for...
Early this month, I returned from our Global Strategy Council meet where we unveiled an updated version of our engagement-planning tool. True to the development in the western markets, the proposed version of the tool is fairly advanced in its use of data. It uses audience data overlaid with shopper...
The India growth story has always been about the big mainstream middle class population. Being able to cost your products for an affordable price, building a wide ranging distribution system and localizing your offer to the local tastes have been the key tenets of success in India during the last...
India is not new to luxury. It has a rich tradition of luxury since the times of maharajas (rulers of the princely states). In fact the royalty and their tales influence many of its cultural ideals of luxury. Even today, the palaces of Rajasthan, now converted to heritage hotels like...
Are we brave enough to accept that we don't know the future?...
Brands are constructed as artificial beings. They are constructed to the whims and fancies of some brand-mapping tool, which fits them into prisms or pyramids, or any other geographical shape that the model dictates. The social (media) space is about people and it demands them to be real, it rewards...
The counter argument to the world of 24X7 connectivity is already taking shape. The once celebrated idea of the digital natives, living a life that’s always on, seems to be meeting with some protest. Crispin Porter Bogusky’s campaign for window’s mobile 7, titled ‘really’ gives us a peek into the...
Its ironical that in these decades that have seen unprecedented change, the idea of ‘iterative success’ seems to be overpowering that of ‘dramatic innovation’ in this new age. To borrow from the lexicon of the digital world, our world seems to be in a ‘beta’ stage – in a stage...
What we obsess about is a good reflection of what worries us. As an industry therefore, the debates and conversations at the Cannes Lions 2011 are reflective of what’s keeping the marketing and communications community of the world awake at night. And while digital has dominated the debate for a...
Brand Ambassadors are like rockets, they help brands get there quicker ...
That brands have to be a part of people's lives is now an established tenet. But when India was pouring on the roads against corruption, when Egypt was leading a revolution against dictatorship, when the streets of London were burning under riots, marketers were sitting on the sidelines and the...