The Hindu Business Line : `Focus on what lies beneath consumer behaviour'

THE conservative, contentment-seeking humble Indian who was rooted in a collective past has now become a narcissistic, hedonistic consumer and spender who believes tomorrow is going to be more glorious than yesterday. This consumer also has many strategies up her sleeve to live life by her own `modern' beliefs and principles to which tradition is suitably tailored.

When there is such a sea change in outlook, a number of products and brands get unlocked, said Mr Santosh Desai, President, McCann Erickson India, at the CII Brand Summit in Chennai. In a presentation on the `Changing Consumer - Mapping Changes', he said that this was exemplified in what he called the `now-freed mating market', which created, expanded and benefits various categories, such as grooming, gifts, movies and eating out.

Mr Desai said that for solid insights, marketers should focus on the issues underlying consumer behaviour. The focus should be on uncovering the structure of the transformation, on the process and not just the results, and interpretation of these changes.

Mr Madhukar Sabnavis, Country Manager-Planning, O&M.

In a presentation on `Mining Insights', Mr Madhukar Sabnavis, Country Manager (Planning), O&M, exhibited several instances of his agency's work to demonstrate how insights were gathered and used in advertisements. The fact that adults too loved chocolate but were closet consumers as the product had always been targeted to children was used in the Cadbury campaign. It focused on childlike spontaneity, excuses and pranks to show adults enjoying the product.

In the Sumo Victa campaign, owners were asked to state what was important to them and the values that emerged were personified in the campaign showing achievers who were well entrenched in their roots, he said.

Sometimes, there's an "obvious Adam" solution, as in the case of Pond's cold cream, Mr Sabnavis said. Various tactics (such as male/female admiration for smooth skin) didn't work till the agency hit upon the realisation that the first thing people did when they saw babies and children who had soft, smooth skin was pinch their cheeks. And hence the Pond's Googly Woogly campaign.

Mr Sabnavis said that marketers had to steep themselves in the consumer and then pull back a little, for that is when the insight is most likely to come through.

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