India-Bharat divide and enablers in personal data revolution

India is the fastest growing big economy in the world right now and among many enablers and outcomes, internet revolution, or to say more specifically, ‘personal internet revolution’ is an intricate mix of reality and hype.

With two-third of the Indian population below the age of 35 years and more than half of it belonging to the Millenials (born between 1980-2000); smart-phone tusnami backed personal internet revolution could never have been possible without this big chunk. The mobile internet users in India are estimated to be more than 350 million by end of June.

But among these generalist claims and macro statistics, the intricate mix of hype and reality on the ground is quite easily ignored. This mix and its immense quantum in terms of differences, is what will drive the future of data revolution, which has been ignored as suited for the present hoopla on the subject. This intricate mix, which many may call a divide between India and Bharat (for various social and commercial subjects), is however, not a destructive force or a warning for future. It is rather a huge opportunity, waiting to be exploited and rode upon with success, if only, we accept and appreciate this divide. What else would you call a situation where the phenomenal growth has been rendered without even appropriately involving a huge chunk of population(Tier-3 and below have less than 30% of mobile internet users). The personal data revolution is not a nation’s or service provider’s success story, as yet. It is an astonishing but very limited outcome of narrow commercial business plans, meant to pluck the low hanging fruits only.

Majority of online traffic, heavy social media engagement (videos, video chats etc) and online commerce is still limited to top metros and tier-1 cities. The usage adoption in tier-III cities and below has been fast but with interesting riders in terms of adoption, usage and upgrade. This means that the personal data revolution achieved so far is encouraging but constrained and the next wave of revolution will have to come from smaller cities, towns and villages. Are service providers ready to tap these markets?

Below are some basic differences in the consumer profile and consumption patterns in geographical areas which have not been perfected by the data revolution champions. Without understanding these in detail, the ‘personal data revolution’ can never be extended to the huge chunk which is still waiting for that precious network signal without the need of exchanging their precious fortune.

Following insights among others, were particularly interesting to understand the profile and consumption patterns of the internet aspirants of ‘Bharat’s Millenials’ -

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• Smart phone/Tablet is the next big purchase for majority of the feature phone owners, for the sole reason of being able to browse data
• Smartphones have made inroads but not as conspicuously as in bigger cities, with balanced mix of local budget brands like intex and Lava, cheaper Chinese handsets and mid to upper brands like Micromax and Samsung
• For majority of data users, current data expense is between 100-200 Rs. In some cases this is more than monthly voice/sms expense.
• 2G is predominantly used for internet consumption, for the sole reason of it being cheaper than 3G
• Users are brand agnostic and switch internet and voice service providers based on value offered(based on temporary promotional offers). Dual sim phones have helped this trend.
• Social (WhatsApp, FB, Chat) is the major traffic generator, while Travel/commuting is catching up
• Almost 80% of respondents were dissatisfied with the 2G performance in terms of speed and also questioned value for money against 3G (Approx 1 GB plan for 3G is 250 Rs and for 2G is 175 Rs)
• Only reason to not switch to 3G in spite of inconvenience and dissatisfaction over 2G services, is cost
• An alarming trend that came out was that just like their metro-cities and Tier-2 cities counter-parts, Smartphones are becoming an addiction with majority accepting to check the phone the first thing in the morning and the last thing in the night. Many accepted to have developed a habit to sleep at night while checking phone, as compulsion.
• In order to restrict the cost of data consumption, following methods are widely adopted –
• Visiting college and school libraries, shopping malls etc where WiFi is available
• Almost always try to share app between friends through tools like Xender and Appshare  rather than downloading
• Avoid downloading heavy apps to save data
• Avoid updating apps in spite of reminders till it is unusable, often ditch the app if is not considered worth of spending data to update
• For almost half the users, data consumption is sporadic, by keeping the data turned off and switching on only when intended to use(chat, check facebook, check/send an email etc)

                      

 
      There are various insights that can be drawn from the above results but clearly only two factors drive data consumption in the smaller cities and towns – Cost and internet speed.

It is incorrect to assume that the customers are agnostic about the performance of the service just because they continue to use it. They are constrained by the pocket size and the marginal value offered by the service for every extra rupee spent. In many case the experience with 3G services had not been so significantly different from the experience these customers have had with 2G services, so they have developed a mindset that there is no actual difference between the two and hence continue to use 2G despite having ability to pay for 3G services. This is a technical and infrastructural issue where the service provider is unable to provide the premium experience despite charging higher amount.

‘Bharat’ is eagerly waiting for the Service providers to take cognizance of the ability and revenue strength of this segment, it is the providers who have to respond to this opportunity, but not with slight tweaking in their services designed for the metro-customers but design services keeping in mind the user profiles and consumption habits of its inhabitants.

  Jio with its aggressive plans in terms of costs and services has all the elements to woo this segment and if it can deliver superior services with lesser cost, they will embrace it wholeheartedly. However, hard companies may try, this segment remains a brand agnostic one and better value offering will always win.

Jio’s aggressive stance will surely influence and drive others to look at their pricing and product strategies and quite possibly reduce their own offering prices, if not match it with Jio. In either case, entry of Jio into the segment will, inadvertently, as part of its aggressive competitive tactic, address the issues ‘Bharat’ customers have been having and as a positive outcome will contribute to the next wave of personal data revolution. 

Inner-circle counter branding- Ear and eyes open!

I recently came across a print-ad for Nasaka water purifier from Okaya group, and in no time a peculiar fact hit me. Veteran actress Shabana Azmi is seen endorsing the water purifier in the ad. The peculiar fact was that her son (from Javed Akhtar’s first wife, Honey Irani) is also seen endorsing the same category product, Pureit from HUL.

While, it is understandable that Farhan Akhtar is not Shabana Azmi's own son, and this conflict can very well be no conflict, an important question to ask here is, how credible does a product endorsement come across, when close family members, with equally strong brand image and credibility, endorse or anti-endorse products that are in direct competition or even substitution of that product or category.

The context and its implications of such a situation, also makes it imperative to judge if it is critical now to extend the boundary of due diligence and selection process for a brand ambassador beyond the individual to his closest set of people? Simply put, how pertinent it is to given to the individual’s image, appeal, relevance and credibility, should or shouldn’t the inner-circle deserves some notes and thinking, before inking  that million dollar deal?

Coming back to the first example cited, Both Shabana Azmi and Farhan Akhtar are known to be thinking actors and have associated themselves to a social cause every now and then. They have also managed to stay away from any major controversy adeptly, while being known for speaking their mind up. Crafty! Such attributes make them very attractive brand ambassadors for food and health category. Hence, Okaya and HUL were both bang on with the choice of their endorsers. However,  Okaya recently got Shabana Azmi to promote their Nasaka brand of water purifier, while it was well known that Farhan Akhtar promotes Pureit.

This can be a clean overlooking or may even be a thoughtful move. As Jack Trout and Al Reis suggest, in order to build a positioning in customer’s mind, try manipulating what is already there, instead of trying to create something new altogether. People know Farhan Akhtar and that he promotes pureit. So when Shabana Azmi comes up with an ad for another purifier, it helps than remember Nasaka since they would quickly relate Shabana Azmi to Farhan Akhtar, who is related to Pureit, and in the process will remember Nasak water purifier. Or at least the Nasaka marketers would hope for that.

Now, it is quite possible that people don’t fret much about how endorsements by members of a a particular star family cut, overlap or even counter each other, and they are able to remember them individually only attached to their respective endorsements. However, going by the argument in the last paragraph, connections are the easiest way to remember things, for example, Network maps, and hence it cannot be completely ignored that people may notice that while a male actor is promoting a tobacco brand, his star wife is busy educating people about ill-effects of Tobacco. This will not affect the Tobacco consumers but will definitely raise eyebrows on the sincerity of the star wife, and hence can mar the anti-tobacco campaign.

In order to ensure that such confusions and complexities are never allowed to find their way in the prospects’ mind, it is important that the due-diligence which is a regular exercise, post personality-alignment between the brand and the prospective endorser, is not just restricted to the prospective endorser but also to his or her inner-circle ie, the closest family members. The due diligence must along with other things (acceptability, appeal, relevance, credibility, social status, legal baggage etc) include a possibility of prospective endorsements and a contingency plan in case the family member’s brand endorsement interferes directly or indirectly with the primary brand endorsement. While this is a internal preventive technique, marketers can also adopt a regulated preventive technique where contracts pertaining to brand endorsements can be made to extend the exclusivity and non-compete clauses to family members. These of course will be difficult to draft as well as implement, and beyond doubt much more expensive.

There are of course various factors to consider before choosing one of the two techniques and a risk-impact analysis is a must before making a final call. These techniques can help marketers avoid losing their sleep over a challenger brand piggy-backing on their brand ambassador’s family member (and hence manipulating an already established positioning of their brand in the prospect’s mind!).