Developing Tier 2 Tier 3 India was a brilliant project that aspired to tap into the burning ambitions of entrepreneurial India and help them create brands that people want to associate with. The first eight months was exclusively dedicated towards making this initiative robust and giving it legs. It gave me an opportunity to work with different types of mindsets. Most of all it gave me an opportunity to see a glimpse of the new entrepreneurial mindset in small town India. And more to understand the consumer.
Before I started on this project the conversations in the industry was all about skinning the market Tier by Tier. We like neat little boxes with predictable behaviours that help us land the strategy. That was until I dived into the reality of these so called Tiers to see what potential can be unlocked. what I learnt was first like a cold jug of water on my face followed by the cooling relief of it.
Entrepreneurs don’t waste time
perfecting their plan; they go out there do it and then figure out how to make
it work. They have a vision; and they quickly assimilate people to make it
happen.
Don’t take them lightly. It is
the dawn of the lean organization, which is clear in what they want and how
they want it. From a client in Hyderabad who wants a VC to finance his vision
of making India Healthy through educating and providing quality cooking oils to
Rohith Bhat, the 39-year-old Udupi-based app maker who boasts clients like
Apple and addicts of his products like Prison Mayhem HD and WordsWorth in
far-flung Europe, who is one of India's little-known cache of star mobile app
millionaires. They have the agility to keep up with the fast-moving technology
and produce apps based on new ideas with user-friendly presentation choc-a-bloc
with features.
I learnt that to make India
tier-less we have to first let go of our own biases of the tiers, and that there
are consumers there who are no different from those in larger cities. That media
and the net has made them a global mindset…aware, participatory, and demanding.
In October 2010, Aurangabad-based
businessman Atul Save came back to a Mumbai showroom of Mercedes with a posse
of other friends, and said, "We want to buy 150 of your cars... now
tell us a good price." The German car-maker company couldn't believe its luck.
It took bookings for 150 cars for Rs 65 crores on a single day-its best ever in
India-a number it would, in normal time, garner in a whole year in a big city. “We
might be based here but are well-travelled with exposure to global
brands," says Rahul Pagaria, part of the group that bought 150
Mercs. He owns a Mercedes E-class. He and his fellow businessmen got together
at a local club and decided to buy the cars all at once, something that is
unprecedented in India (source online news).
The small town Indian has
access to the latest technology, books his flights online, can afford the
latest, watches the same shows on TV as his city counterparts, wears the same
brands, is active on facebook and other social media, and prides himself in
being a global citizen. He is arrogant about all he has achieved living in
his town and has no plans to migrate. However there is a catch to this pride…
The blurring of boundaries
between tier 1 and tier 2 India is complete only in a psychological sense…and
not necessarily in a physical sense. i.e. though a 27 yr old is aware of the
latest fit in jeans and has the means to buy it as well…his local store might
not stock it, or worse that brand might not have arrived in his town…same goes
for the other categories consumers interact with. This creates a conflict in
their experience of brands, and leaves them dissatisfied.
Marketers will increasingly find
it difficult to ignore this if they want to be ahead of the race.
Comfort is gaining equal parity
with performance of a product even in rural India. In fact comfort is now a
parameter of performance in vehicles. From tractors with power steering and superior
aesthetics and ergonomics to SUVs with Mercedes class engines. Durability and
quality are reduced to an expected norm and rural India is being redefined
through biotechnology technology, engineering, and eco fuels.
Small town India is not a dumping
ground. What are marketers going to do once online shopping catches up? Rather
online shopping is growing with an awareness of this.
The more rules that are being
made the more they are breaking.
I learnt that chaos is the one
thing that confounds us in India…but the very thing that allows for innovation,
improvisation and business growth. We don’t function in an organised manner.
Hence anything goes. There are no rules. So an online shopping portal like
mysmartshop.com takes away the discomfort of ‘buying without trying’ by having
a local outlet that has sizes for trial, and if you are not savvy on the net,
someone will even help you chose and buy online…so it is an offline online
store. And guess what they are spinning money out of it.
Middle India is full of people with that
one idea brimming in their mind that can change their life. Circumstances and
lack of support often kills the idea halfway or even before it began. The ones
persistent enough to bring their idea to life often become benchmarks of
entrepreneurship and inspiration for others.
As advertisers what is the role we want to
play? How can we make a difference to
them, through our brands, though our support? Most importantly how can we
benefit ourselves?
The traditional BIG advertising agency is
facing serious problems. Not only are we ill equipped to handle this
metamorphosis, we have enough competition from local agencies and self-styled
business consultants. And there is no turning back. This is the future. They
are the future. At best we can be a part of it.
So
what can we do?
For starters we should be clear about the
role we want to play… Brand consultant? Creative-leader? Ideas and innovations consultant? Secondly what
are we willing to sacrifice? Are we willing to learn to unlearn….process,
comfort, ‘the done’?
Third, how do we become entrepreneurs?
What can we learn from them to infuse growth for ourselves? How can we learn to
lose the comfort of what is? And most importantly how do we learn to be hungry?
…Like them?
The change might not be easy but it will
be rewarding…for very few times in the throes of change we get an opportunity
to hunt with the hounds and run with the foxes.
