Smart moves by Smart Phones - The Mobile Movement

Google just released a some statistics about Smart Phones and where it is leading us in the future. Nice.

A story of hope and dream, an inspiration to us

The story of Anil. India is truly incredible in many ways. Here is just one of the billion stories. Planners often talk about empathy but they forget what is empathy made of. Enjoy.

Mumbai Golf - ESPN E:60 from Evolve IMG Films Ltd. on Vimeo.

Cool infographics

Here's where you can find all the cool infographics on various topics and subjects. Enjoy.

The Pot Market. Bu

The Fast Company has recently released the most unusual study I've come across. The Market of Legal Marijuana - The Business Potential of Medical Marijuana. Amazing.

So stop smoking pot and do something meaningful ;-)

Contagious 2007

Those lovely people at Contagious has published a sum up of all the cool stuffs that happened in the year 2007. Its interesting. Insightful. A ready reckoner. And it gives you a perspective of where we're all heading towards.

Click here and read Most Contagious 2007.

Cheers.

food conscious

The last few days kept me busy with a new project for a food brand, err, packaged breakfast stuff to be precise. Now, don't ask for more at this stage since I cannot reveal who he is. Anyway, the client's brief was simple, "I want people to eat more of my stuff and want them do so regularly."

Targeted at the new age consumer residing in urban areas of India, the product in question is wholesome, nutritious and a healthy option in a bar format. So we spend our time thinking how we can achieve it. After all it is a pitch and we're fighting against some of the biggest network agencies down south. As you know, in India we don't have a pitch fee and the client has the liberty to walk out with all our good thinking, so we decided to think bold. Let our thinking and only our thinking help the client decide which agency deserves to handle his brand. Leave the rest on the hands of the devil. First week, we spend time with consumers, having breakfast with them at their home. Let me tell you, it was an amazing-early-morning-gastronomic-experience. Yummy breakfasts; Gujju, Carnatic, Tamil, Keralite, Bengali, Marathi, Rajasthani breakfast in seven days. Hot homemade stuff that housewives prepare early morning for their kids and husband , boring stuff that you buy off the shelf which busy working wives prepare for their kids and husbands, stuff that you buy off the shelf and add your own bit to make it interesting at houses of single working women or men. We conducted our research over the table. Why this, why that, why, why why why; in order to understand how important is 'the most important meal of the day' in their lives. By the end of it, there was enough understanding and material to prove a point that was hovering over my head. Phew. Moreover, I enjoyed what I was doing.

So here are few observations:
1. Hectic lifestyle is giving way to smaller, more frequent snacking occasions
2. People are spending lot of time on traveling, food on-the-go is becoming more prevalent, having just an apple while driving makes more sense than a full plate of breakfast
3. Main meal and snack occasions are becoming interchangeable
4. Healthy eating is on the rise. Be it home cooked or bought from the shelf, healthy it should be. But not many consumers understand what is healthy in terms of dietary intake
5. Women (even traditional housewives) are seeking knowledge and expertise in hassle free cooking methods
6. Time of day is one of the main reason to help decide what kind of snacks and beverages should be consumed. As the day proceeds, indulgence takes over health consciousness

Also with more media proliferation, Indian consumers now understand three basic pillars of healthy eating. The diagram below explains it best. And if you notice, food brands in India are trying to latch on any one of them to communicate the end benefits.
Few years back it was food products enriched with minerals like Vitamins, Zinc, Iron, Calcium etc. Brands like Boost, Maltova, Kellogg's Iron Shakti made good use of those properties to communicate to consumers.

Then low fat become the trend. Consumers in India now understands low fat means less cholesterol, which means good for the heart. Brand Saffola is build on this.
Last year it was less sugar, which means no diabetes. Look at the shelf and you'll find brands with bright blurbs shouting Lite, Sugar Free etc on their packaging. Did you know Dabur Chyawanprakash has gone sugar free? It was news for me. Anyway.
The latest, I mean, the prevailing trend that most food brands are riding upon now is high fiber. Let's keep our eyes open and see how many brands actually start riding upon this high fiber trend to gain share of mouth. It'll be fun.

Expectation from food is changing for the new enlightened food conscious consumers of India. Be it functional, sensory or experiential, the new 20 something knows what goes in directly reflects on the outside. Food for the 24x7 life will see a change in consumption pattern. And it is in our own interest that an open eye will help us crack the code for food brands trying to serve these new enlightened consumers in India.

Burp.

Have you tried this

Have you tried Mindmeister yet? A mind mapping tool that allows you to collaborate with others who are online. Its fantastic. Its brilliant. I just love it. Have fun.

don't carry baggage

You need your baggage to move around. So here's all the dope on the Luggage Industry of India. The category is divided into hard luggage and soft luggage (now, don't ask me the difference). Soft luggage is slowly gaining grounds. Top branded players include VIP (Alpha and Aristocrat are part of VIP Industries), Safari, Samsonite (American Tourister is a part of Samsonite) and Witco. Hidesign is one Indian player who is giving a tough competition to other foreign luxury players like Giordano, Delsey, Louis Vuitton and Gucci. And they are all making a beeline to woe Indian consumers.

Factors that seem to push this industry are low cost air travel and multiple vacation in a year. Rise in business travel and frequent women fliers are setting new trends.

• The size of the organised luggage market in India is pegged at Rs. 800 crore
• The market is growing at 20% y-o-y
• The grey market is estimated to be another Rs. 800 crore
• The market is witnessing 70% offtake in soft luggage

With varied traveller needs, luggage companies are now providing toilet kit holders, garment hangers, laundry bags, shoe bags and expandable bags. Value addition huh. Well, this is indeed a growing market and companies are indeed adapting fast to keep up.

Source: The Economic Times.

Well, don't carry baggage, carry soft luggage. Call the porter...

India Mobile Mania

Mobile telephony is one evolving category. Evolving everyday. So I thought will keep a tab of all the latest data doing rounds apart from what you get in IDC.

• Smart phones contributed 4% of the 65 million handsets sold in India in 2006
• 32% of mobile users wants every available feature in their handsets
• In the Q3 of 2006, smart phones shipped to India increased by 200%
• Mobile enterprise email growth rate for India from 2006 - 2010 will be 43% CAGR
• 3G phone market in India are expected to grow 70% in 2007 - 2008
  
• Churn rate of service providers is growing at 10 - 12 % per month
  

Well do watch out for MotoQ, Nokia E90 and the new Blackberry about to hit the Indian market.

Source: Tech Today

Business Week

Business Week has a very interesting section in its website called the Interactive Gallery. It's all about marketing. So those of you looking for interesting information and slides, visit here, it might come handy during those late night presentation preparation days.

Innovative changes in our lives

IBM recently unveiled its new study called "IBM Next Five in Five" - Five innovations that have the potential of changing the way people work, live and play over the next five years. So what are they:

• Remote healthcare access system from anywhere in the world: Now this is a big innovation. Imagine a Doctor keeping an eye on you 24/7/365 from somewhere in the world. WOW.
  
• Mobile Phones will start reading your mind: Intelligent phones which will adapt to the user. Termed as "presence" technology. Which means it will do things as per your preference. Well, do remember that features will vary based on price.
  
• Real-time speech translation: This is already happening in Japan and Korea. For example when you travel from Delhi to Rameshwaram and you don't know how to speak Tamil, don't worry. Your hand-held device will translate real time Tamil into English as you speak to the person for direction.
• There will be 3D internet: Hmmm, that means from now on I can walk the retail aisles in Ebay or Amazon. An assistant or an expert will be ready to help me out. Makes sense in a techno-ambivalent nation like India.
  
• Nano-technology will address environmental issues: Nano-technology has the ability to manipulate which I always knew. But now it will be able to manipulate the environment. Get you fresh drinking water, help grow more trees, etc. etc.
  

Out of the 'Big Five' I like only one - Remote Healthcare. I'd love to have a doctor attending me all the time. Though it might be pain in arse after sometime, but doctors are good people. In this case, I guess it will be a 'supercomdoc' monitoring me. I also think real time speech translation and mobile mind readers will become standard features like we have 2.0 megapixel cam, FM radio. Go ahead read the entire article here.

Start thinking digital, baby, but do remember not to become a humanoid.

Men are back

This is definitely a male marketing strategy. Suddenly all the retail shelves are alive with male range of skin care products. Switch on your TV and they pop up too. Indian male or shall I say the metrosexual (sometime the homosexuals too) men have started taking their skin very seriously.

Personal care companies are targeting Indian men as rising incomes allow them to buy more deodorants and shaving gels, adopting the metrosexual look popularized by Bollywood actors. Spending on men's grooming products is expected to rise 24 percent to 14.5 billion rupees, or $320 million, in the next five years, Euromonitor International forecasts. Emami, which makes beauty and health care products, developed its whitening cream for men because surveys showed they were consuming 30 percent of the women's version, ha!

"Everyone wants to be fair," and "To be fair is not just to be beautiful, but to be moving up the caste hierarchy" said Mr. Jayashankar, a professor with Tata Institute of Social Science. Since suntanned skin was associated with untouchables suddenly dark skinned men and especially those living in south wants a fair skin.

I've a serious task in hand at the moment. Make (oops rather force) all fat, dark, south-Indian males to use Skin Whitening Cream. Anybody got any decent communication idea that will help turn dark-male-arse-skins, White??? If you do have, please please do share with me, I promise to buy you a beer.

Dope on Booze

Interesting figures in today's ET. Booze market in India is growing.

• In 2006, sales of beer and other spirits crossed 220 million cases - a growth of 10%
• Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) sales made up half the market
• The market for IMFL is estimated to be around Rs. 34000 crore
• Beer hogged 90% of the rest of the market
• There are estimated to be 200 million regular whiskey drinkers in India
• A McKinsey study sees consumption of alcoholic beverages growing from Rs. 11,500 crore in 2005 to Rs. 71,200 crore in 2025 at an annual CAGR of 9.6%
• Almost 90% of the whiskey sold in India costs less than Rs.300
• The alcoholic beverage market is seen growing @ 15 - 20% if deregulated
• Exponential growth in the premium liquor segment is pulling the entire category
• Imports account for barely 1% of Indian spirits market
• INDIA is the BIGGEST CONSUMER of WHISKEY in the WORLD

Hola, I guess Alcoholic Anonymous has lot of work to do in this country. Anyone out there has any interesting campaign based on this figures. If yes, do revert. And don't drink and drive, you might end up paying the cops more than you drank.

Hic.

Update: More resources:

• Beer sales in India are forecast to grow at a CAGR 17.2% to 2011
• South India consumed most beer - 471 million litre, while north guzzled up 35 million cases
• Kingfisher rules the market with 45% share
• SABMiller brands command 37% market share
• Annual per capita consumption stands at just 0.6 litre compared to 23 litre in China, an average of 73 litre across Europe and 78 litre in US

Hurray.

Urban Dictionary

Urban Dictionary is the place to visit if you are looking for new age lingo, slangs and meaning of phrases that most kids use these days. 'Bom Chicka Wah Wah,' the new Lynx campaign, has a meaning. According to Urban Dictionary it means, this.

So planners keep rubbing your P-spot and look for the Urban Word of the Day.