How Media Planners Can Sell When Consumers Won’t Stop Researching

Now-a-days, every time an average consumer sees a particular product which he has to purchase, he almost always researches the product and the brand online. The article from Advertising Age gives an insight into Google’s ‘Zero Moment Of Truth’ and how media planners can sell when in an age where consumers research a lot before buying.

The article talks about how the ‘Zero Moment Of Truth’ – ZMOT – is potentially disruptive thinking of marketers.

Consumers have changed their pattern of decision-making dramatically, increasingly deciding and switching their opinion of brands or products before they step into a store, talk to a sales representative or visit an e-commerce site. Hence the “Zero” moment of truth refers to the stage before the “first” and “second” moments of truth.

The number of sources consulted by consumers before a purchase has already nearly doubled since last year, to 10.4 from 5.3, according to a study conducted by Shopper Sciences for Google.

So what all implications does this consumer behavior of researching before buying a product have on marketers?

1. In addition to aiming your marketing communications toward heavy users, you have to focus on “heavy influencers.”
2. The classic marketing funnel needs updating.
3.  Everything should be more social.
4.  Digital discounting is in. 
   

Read the full article here

 

Can other sports channels survive in a cricket crazy nation?

Though India is a cricket crazy nation, it is a debatable whether other sports channels can exist in India. Ten Sports launched a football channel called ‘Ten Action’ and Zee will be going for ‘Golf’ this year. Top media and Sports channel executives discuss with afaqs.com:

Prasana Krishnan
Chief operating officer, Neo Sports Broadcast

Indian success stories in golf, tennis or badminton are already visible, and this is leading to a steady increase in a following for these sports. Hockey continues to hold fans, particularly in semi-urban and rural India. Football is now showing good traction in other parts of the country, beyond the traditional strongholds of Bengal, Kerala, Goa and Punjab.Cricket dominates the economics of sports, and it will continue to take the largest chunk of revenues. But, there is an encouraging trend of growth in other sports.

But, it needs to be noted that the numbers are still small when compared with cricket. Ad revenues for these sports are even lower. In the short run, I don’t see any major surge in revenues for other sports channels. But, there is a steady growth and the trend is positive.

Sudha Natrajan
Deputy chief executive officer, Lintas Media Group
Cricket will account for 75-80 per cent of the sports ad spend in 2011, growing at a CAGR of 30 per cent. But, channels like ESPN and STAR Sports have always had a healthy mix of cricket and non-cricket programming which has delivered results for them.Sports channels are likely to see ad spends to the tune of Rs 2,800 crore for the calendar year 2011. These channels are likely to enjoy a 20-25 per cent share of the TV ad spend pie of Rs 10,500 crore in 2011, against a viewership share of 4.3 per cent on an overall 4 yrs+ CS audience.

The most important factor in supporting the launch of dedicated channels for other sports is the fact that the live content on football, tennis, F1 and golf have fetched ad revenues of Rs 465 crore in the first half of the year, while the acquisition cost of this content would probably be 1/10th of the cost of acquiring live cricket telecast rights.

Aloke Malik
Managing director, ESPN Software India
The consumption growth pattern of sports categories like motor sports or golf has been consistent and it still has the potential to grow multi-fold. The Indian market is huge, dynamic, and replete with opportunities. The emerging middle class has the power to buy, and thus the power to commit to leisure.The Indian sports fan is maturing fast with an increasing level of acceptance for other sports. It is this acceptance that is moving sponsors to look upon other sports as a good investment option.

We also see huge potential for HD Sports networks. Fans want to be up close to the action and there’s no better way to experience the visual splendour. We have received positive responses from consumers during the special HD feeds of FIFA World Cup 2010, and the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011.

Meenakshi Madhvani
Managing partner, Spatial Access
The overall interest levels of the masses for other sports are abysmal compared to that of cricket. This reflects in the viewership patterns of the sports channels. Over 90 per cent of the time spent on live sporting events telecast is on cricket alone. The rest is split among other sports.No! India has always been a cricket crazy nation, and will continue to be so. Almost every hot-blooded male knows everything there is to know about cricket — the stats, the gossip, even the technicalities like the Duckworth Lewis, or the newer ones like Hot Spot and Hawk Eye.

Sports like football and F1 do have a fan base, but that is largely restricted to the upwardly mobile. These channels will have to fight for the remaining 10 per cent. Advertisers would use other sports only when the interest levels increase significantly. If the channels need ad revenue to survive, their future is very dim.

 

IAMAI and IMRB studies show that Internet is increasingly becoming a small town phenomenon

Recent IAMAI and IMRB studies has put to rest the myth that internet is only for the rich. The afaqs.com article also puts to light that the internet diversity is very poor in the top metros and the internet usage by the lower SECs were at an all time high. The key points from afaqs.com article are listed below:

• Mumbai, with 8.1 million claimed users, and 6.2 million active internet users, is the top internet-using city in the country. Delhi, including the NCR, has acquired second place with 6.2 million and 5 million claimed and active internet users.
• But, the survey also found that towns with less than a population of two lakh, collectively returned as high a number of internet users as the top four metros put together.
• The internet density is very poor in top metros, despite awareness, education, and infrastructure. Delhi and the NCR, for example, have only five million active users, with a population base of 20 million.
• The combined use of SEC C, D and E have been at an all-time high, with a combined usage of 36 per cent, representing more than one-third of total internet users.
• 63 per cent of the active mobile internet users are from the top eight metros.

Read the full article here

 

Volkswagen hopes to improve CRM with ‘Planet Volkswagen’

Volkswagen India is trying to get more closer to Indian consumers with the help of it’s new website www.planetvolkswagen.co.in. With this move, Volkswagen hopes to take Customer relationship management in the auto industry to a new level.

Watblog:

Volkswagen (VW) India have announced that the company will be getting more interactive with its customers (present & future) with a new web-portal www.planetvolkswagen.co.in which will go live on October 17.

Volkswagen has always stood for quality & perfection & this move seems to be squarely aimed at getting its target audience (or market) to have a closer experience of the Volkswagen brand, online. Their foray into the Indian market has been limited to urban cities. But that is soon changing with recent additions like: Polo, Vento, Jetta, Pasat & of course Phaeton & the iconic Beetle.

Mr. Lutz Kothe, Head – Marketing and Public Relations of Passenger car Division at Volkswagen Group Sales India confirmed that the budget on “digital expenditure” has been doubled & they aim to become one of the most interactive auto companies in India. With Planet Volkswagen, they now have a portal dedicated to all auto enthusiasts.

The pre-existing website is basically a simple corporate website focused on advertising & a way to locate a dealer for a test drive. But with this new portal, VW aims to take Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to new heights in the auto-industry where, till date, it was limited to after-sales service.

Apart from basics like product & brand promotion, the new web-portal will have games, a separate section for kids (after all they do influence a buying decision!), feature drive destinations, integrate with Social networking sites like: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. A virtual tour of the VW factory is also on the cards. Power of media was discussed some time back too.

 

So how many people are talking about your Facebook page?

Facebook has now let people who visit your page decide whether your page is worth a like or not. The new metric ‘People talking About’ will give users an idea of the interactivity level of the fans who are already in the page. Keys points of the Mashable article:

People Talking About will measure user-initiated activity related to a Page, including posting to a Page’s Wall, “liking,” commenting, sharing a Page post or content on the Page, answering a Question posed to fans, mentioning a Page, “liking” or sharing a deal or checking in at your Place.

Friends of Fans is the actual number of friends your fans have, and weekly total reach is designed to be an accurate assessment of how many total people have posted something about your Page, how many news organizations (within Facebook) have referenced it and how much viral distribution elements of your Page has gotten.

In addition to tracking the four metrics, Pages Insights will also offer a deeper dive into data around specific updates. Facebook will list your last 500 posts (the company began tracking them in July) and count the total number of engaged users, People Talking About it and virality. The latter measures the percentage of users who commented on the post.

Read the original article here

 

E-commerce firms in India are shifting focus to consumers

One reason which was seemingly obvious of the slow growth of e-commerce websites in India was that, Indian consumers are really skeptical when it comes to buying online, products which they would normally buy from some retail store. Firstly, they feel a sense of insecurity doing transactions online and secondly, they have the question, ‘Will the product be delivered to me at all? And if it is, will it be of the desired quality?’ A synopsis of the post which recently appeared in the Business Standard shows how e-commerce websites are changing the way they do business to suit Indian consumers.

“E-commerce firms such as Flipkart, Myntra, SnapDeal tweak their sales model to suit Indian conditions. Unlike in Amazon, where people had to pay online for the product first and then pay an additional fee to for the product to be shipped across to India, the Indian e-commerce players have introduced an option where the Indian consumers do not have to pay a single rupee for the product until it is couriered to them. Most of them don’t even have shipping charges. This, the firms believe, suits the Indian mentality perfectly.

Online sales still make up a small portion of overall retail spending – one estimate pegs it at $10 billion (Rs 47,500 crore), a tiny fraction of India’s $500 billion (Rs 23,75,000 crore) retail market – but they are growing fast.

That rapid growth of firms such as FlipKart and Snapdeal has drawn the attention of venture capitalists who poured $183 million (Rs 869 crore) into 20 e-commerce firms in the last 12 months, up from $61 million (Rs 290 crore) for 13 firms in the previous 12 months, according to Venture Intelligence, a research firm.

The growth has also been noticed by foreign online retailers like Amazon and Groupon, where the former is working on an Indian version of the site and the latter has bought and Indian deals website SoSasta.com.

India has 50 million to 100 million Internet users, according to various analysts, and the number is growing by about 30 per cent a year, but capitalizing on it will not be easy.

Consumers and suppliers laud FlipKart’s service and execution. But they expect the company to soon face greater competition, especially if Amazon starts an Indian operation. How FlipKart will handle the situation of foreign competition remains to be seen.”

The full article which appeared on Business Post can be viewed here