Design Studios

Constantly innovating...

Brands viz Lenovo, Renault, Google, Yum restaurants all have an innovation centre. No age barriers - all you need is to be able to think out of the box, get creative....constantly. This is what helps companies invent, innovate and engage customers. Gone are the days when the RnD folks in their glass cabins hardly interacted with the customer. A recent instance I can recall, is when a company selling hair oils and shampoos decided to home visit the consumer and was aghast to see that there were some who put shampoo on their hair few hours before actually washing it off. This one would never know had one not entered the household and done a customer contact.

Huge monies are spent on innovation rooms/ design studios - to make them inspiring....a green patch (to soothe the senses), ample pure air, lots of space, the evils viz coffee/ tea, may be an area to stimulate thought for the smokers. Every company has studios across the world, primarily because the same design may not work across the world. There is an element of customization; which is important and that local flavour gets added on when the studio is local to the selected market.

What is new today, is forgotten tomorrow. Life is truly fast paced

Dating and mating

'Dating and then mating' - this is not about us humans, but about brands.

There used to be a time when there were brand loyalties, but a recent survey which conducted bathroom audits, proves otherwise. There were multitude of shower gels, toothpaste and soap brands found in two bathrooms which housed 3 ppl - pa, ma and a 10 yr old.

What this goes to show is that no longer is it true that 70% shop out of habit. Infact, what is now going to help the brand is whether it is present in the line of sight (say, at supermarkets), how well it is dressed up(packaged) vs its competitor, what zumba zumba (*remember the Reliance comm gym ad*) does it offer.

Customers now shop for similar rather than the same brand- either would do- a vaseline or a nivea, a Pantene or a L'Oreal or a Dove, a lifebuoy or a Santoor white, a pepsodent or a colgate.....so brands now need to build their muscles----so is it going to be a 6 or 8 pack for yours ?

Advertising and labeling

Advertising to children has always irked me. Pester power no doubt, but why at the cost of such innocent lives?! We are only helping shrink their childhood further - as if we did not do enough already.

Recently I read about some initiatives by Kraft foods, where they consciously refrain from advertising to below six year olds and to the older bunch six through eleven, they only use what may be referred as 'benefit for you' products which abide by the stringent norms laid by the food authorities. These are products that pass stringent nutrition norms. Isn't that a good initiative!

Another process they follow is a specification of 8 key ingredients in all products on the label - energy (calories), protein, total carbohydrates, sugars, fat, saturated fat, dietary fiber and sodium. They use front-of-pack labeling that delivers meaningful information at a glance and fits local needs.

Jobs-to-be-done marketing

I read this article recently and loved the idea of a 'jobs-to-be-done' marketing.

Apparently ~30,000 new consumer products are launched each year. Of these 95% fail to make a mark. Problem ? They all create products slot them into a product category or by a consumer demographic. Not every product works that way. Infact most don't.

A case in point. A company launched a milk shake targeted at a specific demographic. Post launch they conducted a survey to list out the characteristics of an ideal milkshake - thick, thin, chunky, smooth, fruity, chocalatey etc. It was found that most consumers picked up the milkshake because they all had a long boring commute between home and work and had to keep themselves busy, also make the commute more interesting.

Now that the Company realized the job to be done, it was easier to respond by creating a morning milkshake which was thicker and had more chunks of fruit - this lasted through the commute and also made it more interesting.

That's how the 'jobs-to-be-done' mechanism works.

Some indigenous examples I could think of :

• Daag achey hain campaign- by Surf Excel
• Learn English campaign- by Tata Sky
• Maggi moving from just be instant noodles to noodles which are also nutritious (vegetables and atta)

The Indian Retail Story

Organized retail India is ~7% of the total retail industry. This includes food, beverages, clothing, personal care, electronics, food services, furn
iture, furnishings, health, sports goods, books, music and other typical departmental store items.

It seems like a growing retail story is having its share of hiccups in the form of :

• Finding. training and retaining talent
• Legal and bureaucratic hurdles
• Developing and leveraging the right know-how
• Using collaborations to scale up and for investment in back-end

How will overcoming these hurdles help :

• it will benefit the key stakeholders : producers, employees, consumers
• Producers : the farmers will receive higher margins than they do now, owing to many intermediaries between them and the consumer. A likely increase of 10-30% in their incomes
• Employees : by improving their economic, social and financial status.
  
• Consumers : who get to save ~5-10% on their monthly expenses through access to better deals, wider variety and better quality

The Indian retail story can have a happy end only through Global Integration and Financial Inclusion. Inclusion the true sense would be mean 'Economic inclusion' - through higher wages, 'social inclusion' - through acceptance in society - a nondiscriminatory attitude and 'financial inclusion'- through better access to financial channels It has always been believed that the growth in services sector (more specifically IT, BPO) is giving the country that much needed boost to help improve its GDP ; really ?


May not be. There is a mismatch in the demand and supply of labour. While most available labour is educated upto Class XI or below ; the need in the BPO / IT sector is for the XII+ educated individuals. So what 'demographic dividend' are we talking about.
If indeed we need to club this divide, it is the consistent growth in the retail sector that will help bridge this gap. This is the sector which looks for employees with less than XII class education. They are trained and even get high growth in their incomes and better social status.

So, why not lobby hard for the India Retail Story to lead the India Economic Growth Story and root for Inclusive Growth!

Consuming Middle India

Recent past has seen a drop in exports in teas, coffees, spices, fruits viz pomegranates. Interesting ? Thanks to the increasing incomes of the middle class, there is higher consciousness about 'what they consume'. The richer crust of middle India finds brands with the export quality sticker more suited for consumption be it - green tea, pepper, coffee from the finest beans , milk and dairy products etc.. The exporters of these items find it more lucrative to sell to Indians who are willing to pay more than the foreign counterpart. An indicator for increased consumption is the price increase for milk is ~20% while the demand has increased by ~7%. The perception is that 'higher price' = 'better quality'

Infact there is also growing demand for fruits like pomegranates owing to their medicinal properties and 'general goodness' to health. The middle class Indian does not mind paying over Rs.200/- for a kilo of pomegranate.

Is that a good or bad sign, I wonder. Isn't this going to affect food inflation?! Any thoughts ?