Of customers, consumers and whether they have any power

By 2020, there will be two Indias, one older, one younger; English will be the “public face” but people will return to their roots, and brands will be able to tap into the dark side of consumers as people get comfortable with negative emotions, said Mr Madhukar Sabnavis, Country Head (Discovery & Planning), Ogilvy & Mather India.

Speaking on ‘The Changing Consumer' at the 10th All India Management Students' Convention on New Age Marketing on Wednesday, he referred to Burger King's Whopper Sacrifice campaign which promised free burger coupons for every 10 friends unfriended on Facebook. He also said marketers' focus would be the man rather than the woman as modern trade grew and the actual consumers became shoppers.

‘A nation of kiranas'

On ‘The Rising Customer Power', Mr Ganesan Ampalavanar, Executive Vice-President, Nestle India, said the power equation changed depending on the segment/company's situation. India, he said, is still the domain of manufacturers and the era of big retail is not here yet. For the next 15 years it will remain a nation of

kiranas . It is tough for organised retail to break in and for power to rest in customers' hands as scale – “you need to be in Tier 2, 3 towns, leave alone the villages” – is crucial to make a big impact. Shopper behaviour in India skews towards small, daily purchases, real estate is costly but prices have to be low – quite a challenge which leaves more questions than answers, he said.

Mr Nitin Mathur, Senior Director (Marketing), Yahoo! India, said the mobile Internet would overtake the PC Internet. Speaking on ‘The Emerging Digital World', he said locally relevant and deeply personalised content would drive Internet growth. Long-form content (such as entire movies being put online) would flourish as advertising on such media has been proved to have higher recall and likeability.

Mr Prasad Narasimhan, Managing Partner, Asia, The brandgym, said brands had to rethink loyalty. People can easily find replacements; they are interested in bonding with other people, not with brands, so the brand should become an ‘ adda ' which brings people together.

Create models for India

Ms Devika Devaiah, Director, Erehwon Innovation Consulting, exhorted the students to stop chasing global benchmarks but create global reference points instead. New role models need to become part of our education, she said, illustrating, among several cases from India of home-grown innovation, that of emergency services organisation EMRI and Madurai's Aravind Eye Hospital which still manages to make an operating profit even though only 30 per cent of the patients pay for their surgeries.

On ‘Transition from Student to Manager', Ms Anu Oza, Vice-President (HR), Lead, Leadership Development, Accenture, urged the students to remain students all their lives – to keep learning. Find your ‘deep life interests' (managerial, creative and such) and pursue them passionately, she advised. Be aware of your weaknesses but consolidate your strengths and keep going to stay in the game. Surrounding oneself with positive people is important, she said.