Category: India

  • Freescale?

    Yesterday’s post made me think about scale- Air Deccan certainly had that, but it did not help them much in the long run as far as profitability goes, as the UB group with its financial clout just gobbled it up.

    I also read a post yesterday on the evolution of service, which talked about technology making mass distribution of services easier, and the importance of personalisation of services. There was another interesting post and a discussion here, which was triggered by the launch of Yulop’s WAP site.

    Yulop is essentially a Bangalore service, and I was wondering how important scaling up (in terms of other cities) was to them, in the long term. if personalisation and attention to details is increasingly becoming an important trend in products and services, could it be that even with a limited geographical spread and a set of users who are extremely happy with what they’re getting, a product/service can manage to be financially viable? The answer would possibly be quite dependent on the critical mass that the product/service requires.

    To put the question in a different way, is it possible for a brand to retain its personalisation/attention to detail capability as it scales up? What are the brands that come to your mind when it comes to attaining a perfect balance of customisation and scale?

    Meanwhile, I saw a new service which apparently is being tested in San Fransisco –  City Sense. You really must have a look…. and come back 🙂 The potential of such a service is, as the cliche goes phenomenal. The service would, over a period of time, be able to suggest hangouts for you, basis your history. And quite obviously, this can be applied to activities other than nightlife. Imagine its mashup with say, a local social network (of course privacy issues will have to be worked out) and basis a segmentation of interests, using it to bring in more people interested in the same things, and it would just keep growing, quite like a twitter way of following and being followed. Only, in this case, because its segmented by interests, it would be a powerful tool for brand communication and timing and customisation of offerings.

    until next, measuring with scales

  • Dear Departed Deccan

    There was an article in ET yesterday discussing the future of India’s first low cost carrier – Air Deccan. Inspite of the vociferous protests that I have made regarding its in-flight service and flight delays, its a brand that i adore, simply because of its intention – to enable flight travel for the average Indian. I liked the communication too- right from the first TVC ‘The Old Man and the Sky’ to using the ‘Common Man’ as a mascot.

    Kingfisher’s thoughts on bringing Deccan under a unified Kingfisher brand would be a bit ambivalent. On one hand, they would want to go international by leveraging Deccan’s five year existence, and on the other, they would hesitate to kill a brand which is so dear to many indians, especially in the Tier 2, 3 cities. But its slowly moving towards the former course of action. In any case, I quite believe that Deccan is only a small step in Kingfisher’s scheme of things, which would be aimed at trouncing Jet, and then becoming a major player internationally.

    Now, there are a lot of stories about how Deccan really needed money, because of some heavy competition it had been facing for sometime, and because any price rise would take it away from its original platform, and how UB came in, first as an aggressive takeover bidder, and than a strategic investor. This one is a very good read. Its almost like a Balaji serial 😉 . While Deccan kept murmuring about how UB was only a strategic investor, it was quite clear that a complete takeover was in the offing, and it finally did happen along with new uniforms, a new Simplifly logo and a bottle of water. And when those forever delayed flights started landing and taking off on time, I could only smile at the irony.

    After yesterday’s post, i couldn’t help thinking about whether in a social media utopia, Capt. Gopinath would’ve been able to appeal to passengers to accept the Rs.500-1000 increase in fares to keep Air Deccan afloat, and the equity of the brand would be so good that passengers would help. Meanwhile, in the real world, thus will die a brand that defined the aspirations of the Indian middle class, and literally gave them wings to fly.

    until next time, decadent

  • More Web 1.0 please

    WATBlog has a post today that gives details on the JuxtConsult India online report. Keeping in mind the ET report that I had quoted from yesterday, which stated that the usage of the internet was evenly spread across SEC categories, it is extremely interesting to note that most internet users have Televisions and Mobiles. Hmm, even SEC categories ain’t what they used to be, though that archaic system of classification is exactly that – archaic.

    The other interesting point is that around 51% of net users are from the corporate salaried class. Also, quoting from the ET article “The democratisation of the net continues, with higher SECs A and B now accounting for just over 50% of all users, down 6% from last year’s figure of 56%. In contrast, lower SEC C, D and E in urban areas now account for around half of all users. It’s same in rural areas too, with the top two rural SECs R1 and R2 accounting for just 41% with the rest coming in from the bottom-of-the-pyramid consumer in SEC R3, R4 and R5.” Figure that out, so much for even distribution across SECs.

    Out of the top 3 uses of the internet, 2 are based on communication. Job search is the only exception. I’ll add one more info from the post before i discuss what I’m getting at. A large number of users have a bank account but only about 1/3rd of those users have a credit card.

    While the general complaint is that internet penetration is just not happening, I’m wondering if the net has given enough reason for the average Indian to go online. Before the advent of web 2.0 (whose users, in an Indian context, i consider advanced) the reason for me to get online was convenience – a faster way to communicate, a better way to gather news, and such uses that gave a tangible value add to my life scenario. Web 2.0 is a bit more involved process, whose tangible gains are yet to be correctly worked out. (at least as far as I am concerned)

    The average Indian, who relies on India Post and maybe courier companies and now the mobile for communication, on brokers for marriages, on real life friends and relatives for social needs, whose news requirements are adequately met by newspapers, an average Indian who really doesnt need the web. The other entities he interacts with say, a state run bank, a local theatre, book or music store, bus services etc may not be bothered enough to help him take the baby steps on to the internet. IRCTC is perhaps an exception in some respects. To state the obvious, the internet speeds up communication, hence thats the most popular usage. Tangible benefit.  See the drift, thats also why only 1/3rd of the banking population has a credit card. They have no use for it.

    And so, we get back to the fact that there has been no ‘killer’ application that would force India to get online. And that perhaps is because most of the production and consumption is restricted to the top of the pyramid. And we adopt the net because it is convenient. I still wouldn’t buy groceries online, or order food online, because to me, there is no reliable and convenient method to do it. (Yes, I know about hungrybangalore) I can imagine the mindset of the lesser priveleged sections of the society. So, I won’t even get into the infrastructure costs here, and at the risk of sounding regressive, all I’ll say is Web 2.0 is cool, but can India have some usable web too?

    until next time, imagine a billion net junkies 🙂

  • India and the Internet

    I read a report by Akamai recently on the state of the internet. Before i start on that, I have to share the wonderful experience I had with Akamai. It didnt start out very well, because i was being sent around in loops of ‘check your email and click the link’. The link asked me to register, and sent me off to my mailbox. i stopped after some 5 attempts, and sent them a mail. Thankfully, got a reponse in an hour’s time, and not a link this time, but the report itself. And this level of service for a free download.

    India doesnt get mentioned in too many places, so the JuxtConsult report seems to be the best source of data. ET had an article on that a few days back. The urban penetration of the net has reached double figures finally. While the metros still account for a large portion of the net users, a staggering majority (70%) prefer to use the net in regional languages.

    As compared to the mass media that currently rule the roost in india, the net is a much more fragmented medium, even including TV, with its regional programming, and some niche channels. Perhaps because while language is one paramenter of segmenting, the net offers segmentation basis interests and has a more long tail view on the content front. That is unlikely to change, since I would think the costs of running a channel, and running a site would differ hugely, which basically means that there is a minimum mass that a channel has to look at – it can’t go too niche, that wouldn’t be too much of a problem with a site.

    Even though internet penetration is still at a relatively nascent stage, does that 70% mentioned above clearly show the trend that the net is going to take in India. If so, India is again poised to change the way things function. I’m sure the global personnel of McDonalds would’ve asked ‘WTF is an aloo tikki and why should we have it in the menu anyway’. I’m also sure, there would be a case study on it by now. The answer is of course, is being implemented.

    While the figures do show tremendous potential, it threw up a few questions for me. One, how soon will the numbers reach a critical mass for the niche players to emerge in large numbers and still be financially viable? Will these new consumers behave like a typical net consumer or a typical Indian customer or will we manage to create a typically new and unique entity? In a well connected India, how will this affect brands and their communication – will the categorisation of brands offline (as niche vs mass) be retained on the net, or will the sheer numbers turn this on its head. Consider a small example – A Tommy Hilfiger can afford to communicate the same way across India, its TG is comfortable with English as a communication langauge. In the offline space, it perhaps is a niche brand, but will the aggregation of users across the country on the net make it a ‘mass’ brand? A mass brand – Vodafone has two kinds of ads that I’ve seen for the ‘Dehradun didi’ – Irfan in Hindi and Prakash Raj in the South. Maybe it doesnt make sense for them to make one for each state now. But given the spectacular growth of mobile users, it might happen soon. Now look at it from an internet communication standpoint, in a later time when the net population is much more, because of the regional usage of the internet, would the (say) Kannada version of Vodafone be a ‘niche’ communication?

    I think it is safe to say that the internet, its dynamics and its economics will get moulded to a uniquely Indian way of functioning. Considering India’s market size, the impact of this in the overall netscape remains to be seen.

    until next time, the elephant and the web

  • Super Bowled

    I asked a colleague what his plans were for the evening. He looked at me quizzically. I reminded him of the fact that the IPL finals had been on Sunday. A look of realisation dawned on his face, and he said “I didn’t think about that. What’ll I go home and do now”.

    And that would best describe the amazing takeover of Indian primetime television by a force bigger than the combined might of saans and bahus. For more than a month and a half, irrespective of whether home teams won or lost, India was glued to SET Max. We’ll not delve into whether this is a dumbing down of cricket and such other weighty matters, we shall restrict ourselves to taking a small brand journey.

    What did we see during primetime other than the five minute intervals of actual cricket? We saw Hyundai and its I’s, we saw Godrej and CEAT and their brand new logos, Hutch and the ‘now on, now off’ pug, we heard Irfan talk of his local sister and the one in Dehradun, later we heard quite a nice tune for the ‘chota credit’, we hoped madhavan would just leave when Vidya balan was asleep, so we would be spared that silly syrupy sweet conversation, we saw the omnipotence of Yum Yus Dhoni, “break or not, there’s no break from me”, mind it!! We heard commentators laying more stress on the DLF than the six, of the fact that it didnt matter if it was a wicket or a winning run, it was a Citi moment of success for someone. We saw a Citi Metro card, a Canon powershot, and yes, I really can’t forget the one name that echoed across india, the one whom several of my friends threatened to kill if they could lay their hands on him, the one who goes by the name of Sanjoooooo!

    But i noticed two other ads that were on only for a day (for one night wonly) – Tulip IT and Avalon Academy. Thank God, they didn’t show it before, is all I’ll say. But they got seen, and how. It would be awesome if someone could do a cost benefit analysis, i.e no: of days ads telecast vs mileage for the brand. I wonder if the incremental benefit that Max New York got by being there forever is proportionate to the money they spent compared to the T20 style knock of Tulip or Avalon.

    I think the IPL has been a learning for not just the BCCL, but also for brands. There were important lessons on frequency of ads, context in which they’re shown, fatigue factor etc. I wonder whether these learnings would get brands to relook their strategy for next year’s IPL. But I definitely think we’re on our way to creating our own Superbowl. Maybe, it also means that we’ll get to see ads specially created for the occasion, ads that would make or break brands, and ads that would get showcased year after year.

    until next time, over