They are The Economist... And they Talked to us

The Man at The Helm of Affairs at The Economist’s office in India, Supriyo Guha Thakurta, reveals to 4PS B&M what makes The Economist, well, The Economist.

Having worked as a leader with brands like Lintas Personal and Adfactors Advertising, this marketing graduate from XLRI Jamshedpur is at the helm of making decisions at The Economist’s office in India, pertaining to strategic leadership, and enhancing business revenue & profits. His task is far from easy considering the battle he fights everyday to increase the awareness of an already strong brand and ensure it gets a consistently better circulation year on year. In an exclusive conversation with Suprio Guha Thakurta, MD, The Economist India, 4Ps B&M finds out how challenging it has been for him to market the magazine in India and what unfolds next in those marketing plans.

There has been a 13% y-o-y increase in the magazine’s readership in India. What factors drove these numbers home?
We had established an office in India towards the end of 2007. The vision was that all factors were driving the Indian economy, and as such it did make a good place for our brand to be in. Our focus is to build a strong business driven by print, reason being our brand is recognised mostly by our magazine; and as such, we want to keep it alive till other forms of media take the front stage. The increasing readership only proves that the demand was always there for our product... it just needed to be marketed well, and we are pretty much in line with what we thought we will get to when we started off in India.

Globally, the magazine has marketed itself through billboards and outdoor advertising. Why is it different in India?
In India, we had the choice of taking that step, but we decided to look at each market in the country separately because this market didn’t know our brand. Brand awareness was there, but nothing beyond that. And based only on the perception of its name, our targeted audience thought it was a magazine focussing on politics and business, which is not the core of our magazine. Initially, we focused on Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, and we had a pure measure of effectiveness for our communication strategy. We needed people to be aware of the brand and then read the magazine. We measured the number of unique visitors on our website and found that it grew gradually. Eventually, there were visitors subscribing to the print version of the magazine through the website. When we started off, the numbers were approximately 2-3 subscribers per day, but in the last few years that number has grown to an average of 10 subscribers per day. So, the unique readership has grown more than three times over the last three years. After targeting these three cities, we realised that there’s more for our market beyond them. We were spending all the money in three metros, whereas 15% of our subscribers were not even from the first 20 metros. We thought perhaps it’s time to spread the message out there. That’s when TVCs were made. So, it was not some ad hoc thing, it was a well thought strategy. Now to ensure the increased awareness span, we have consistently kept commercials alive across India.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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Buy later, pay now,or what?

The 4PS B&M Annual Consumers’ Guide to Post Budget Price Movements

It’s the killing question that hits every consumer before a budget – will the prices rise or will they fall? While the Devil is in the detail, the price movement is in the interpretation. 4Ps B&M, in its inaugural post budget issue, took up six sectors – automobiles, real estate, white goods, computers and gems & jewellery – to give you the dummy’s guide to price movements post budget.

One of the core concepts of marketing theory and practice is that consumers act as value maximisers, and relentlessly make cost benefit analyses before they make a decision on any purchases. Despite that genuine intent, though, value maximization is obviously a very utopian concept. While every marketer puts his best foot forward into the market with his positioning, communication and distribution strategies, the consumer has to move through this intricate maze and seek out what’s best for him. Various factors could help clear the way or even make it hazier, like brand perception, social and economic background, cultural influences, inputs from family and friends, et al. Also, consumers have an upper limit (which is largely psychological) to which they research for the best value, which also varies with respect to the nature of the product they are buying. After that, they tend to simply sign on the dotted line. Moreover, our society is not that advanced in terms of consumer activism as compared to the US. In the US, there are associations like Consumers Union, which are not only keeping marketers and retailers alert through consistent scrutiny of products and services, but are also playing a key role in shaping consumer oriented policies. In that sense, the very notion of the consumer being the king, particularly in India, may be quite distant from reality.

Even if it is assumed that you have decided upon the best possible product, the other critical aspect of value is price, and the entire effort that goes into extracting the best deal. Moreover, pricing is in itself a very strategic tool today, and the ‘cost plus margin’ approach looks centuries old. Companies look at a lot towards factors like perceptions that pricing builds, price elasticity of demand, the stage in the product life cycle, competitor pricing strategies, their positioning strategy, overall company policies, et al. Even the salesperson you interact with has gone through multiple training programmes in negotiation theory. He is taught to make a quick judgment about the kind of customer you are and the values you seek and also use this judgement to decide what price to offer you at the start and at what price to stop.

Conversely, there is a lot that customers need to understand about how they can formulate their own price negotiation strategy. A lot of it comes from experience, but then, if you understand how companies behave today, you can bypass years of bad experiences and non-value maximizing transactions and significantly improve your consumer experiences here and now. It matters to understand, for instance, that if you cannot afford a premium brand like Sony, there are a lot of brands who can give you an acceptable or even remarkably similar experience at a lower price. Or the fact that coffee chains adopt a price differentiation strategy to target multiple customer segments, which is why the Mocha that you drink may be Rs.10-20 more expensive in terms of price over the Cappuccino, but there is hardly any difference with respect to cost of production.

Consequently, the focus of this cover story of 4Ps B&M is on one specific and critical aspect of a consumer’s pricing strategy – the right time to buy, a decision that is hugely dependent on the FM’s budget speech every year. Especially during these days of dizzying inflation, any buying strategy that is even a wee bit lighter on the wallet is definitely worth considering. Through first hand analysis and industry interactions, this cover story discusses ongoing and anticipated price movements across sectors, due to budget announcements or due to specific sectoral trends, to act as a guide to your purchase planning in the coming months. We’ve selected a handful of industries that garners the maximum interest of the investor population and have attempted to give an analysis that, despite going deep into numbers, keeps it simple for your understanding. While there are no guarantees that the prices would move exactly in the way we are postulating, what is true is that the probability of your making the right informed choice – of whether to buy now or later – increases. And now, jump right on to the 4Ps B&M Annual Consumers’ Guide to Post Budget Price Movements.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

IIPM Best B School India
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
IIPM's Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again.....
IIPM Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri on Internet Hooliganism
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IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM RANKED NO.1 in MAIL TODAY B-SCHOOL RANKINGS