Tapping Into Changing Minds Of Audience Is The Formula For Success

A consumer's taste changes with the wind. What's most relevant today may later become just another fad. If you take a leaf out of the quote "Your best customers leave quite an impression. As a brand do the same and they won't leave at all."  Marketers will probably realise how crucial it is to adapt to the changing trends of the audience. More so with the evolution of content and technology users have access to the world at their fingertip.

Rabindra Narayan, MD & President, PTC Punjabi spoke on how liberalization post 1991 evolved consumer behavior at the BW Businessworld Marketing Whitebook Summit 2018. He explained how different today's digitally influenced consumers are compared to earlier times. He said, "From a positive India to a progressive one, we now find Indians settled across the globe contributing to the evolution of our Indian society. With a platform full of options and with content evolving alongside, we now find a diversified audience, be it an individual or a community to cater to. PTC Punjabi engages with a wide-ranging audience keeping in mind the need to match our content & agenda with the requirements of audiences across countries that we deliver to." The need of the hour is interaction and delivery through various consumption platforms claims Narayan.

Speaking about the time when a mass behavior change in consumers was noticed Mr. Anshuman Verma, Chief Marketing & Digital Officer, DHFL Pramerica Life Insurance said, "India has gradually moved on from a demand constraint economy to a supply abundance one. Today when you look around there's no dearth of global brands evolving. With rising affluence and urbanization, the content a consumer could afford has certainly accelerated. With increase in supply today's user has access to several options and is spoilt for choices. Creating content that is relevant to your consumer is the best way to engage on a personal level." 

With the changing trends today millennials have become the world's most powerful customers. With several start-ups in business led by young leaders understanding the audience of their age group gets a lot easier. Yeshwanth Nag Mocherla, Founder, The Thick Shake Factory with 80 outlets narrated how getting the right consumer insight was crucial for the growth of their firm.  Mocherla said, "With millennials having an attention span of a goldfish it is a challenge for us to have a customer walk into our stores and make a purchase.  To counter this we at ThickShake Factory have an internal WhatsApp account where our store managers share at least three useful consumer insights on a daily basis. This is in order to understand and relate to our consumers better. We as a brand are trying to sell one specific product and be unique to our users in the market."

Discussing if India was ready for a $4 trillion economy, whether the marketers were well prepared to meet the expectations of their growing consumers, Sai Narayan, Associate Director & Head, Marketing Policy Bazaar said, "Earlier the brand-consumer relationship was a monologue which has now transformed into a dialogue with the customers not only having an opinion on the products they use but also they possess the power of expressing their views on several social media platforms. Policy Bazaar has set a long journey from being a push brand to becoming a pull product in the market today, we believe in performance marketing. With several OTT in the market our next reach is to connect with people from small towns. Policy Bazaar works on the model of 'how to connect with the consumer till we are able to manage a sale' as we want our users to be able to trust us."

Commenting on how consumers made a noticeable shift in their purchasing style, from making a family purchase to being individual customers carrying a different set of expectations from brands Sanjeev Shukla, Chief Marketing Officer, Muthoot Pappachan Group who said that in today's fierce competition brands need to align the values of the entire family together in order to keep each member of the family happy with their service. The value a brand is able to bring to the table is of paramount importance and with consumers today making progressive choices and looking for betterment it becomes a must for us to deliver a lot more than what our customers are looking for."