Constant innovation key to brand profitability in India

Customisation of products is needed to stay in business and remain profitable

India is a dynamic and diverse market, and marketing a single brand in such a market is a big challenge. Constant innovation and customisation of products is needed to stay in business while remaining profitable. This was the consensus among panelists at a session on brands at the India Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum. “The need is to find a unifying element to market products nationwide to cater to the various segments of consumers in India. This country is changing very fast and it’s difficult to sustain a business,” said Sanjay Gupta, chief operating officer of Star India.

Gupta explained that Star Plus was the market leader for almost a decade before being dethroned by competition. “I think the reason why we lost the top spot was because we lost touch with consumers. Our channel failed to spot the emerging trend of the portrayal of strong women characters in the television soap segment,” Gupta said.

“Sustaining a brand is very difficult. To really sustain it in the long run you need to have your fingers on the pulse of consumers,” he added.

The panelists also spoke of customisation of products to stay in business. Yahoo! Inc sensed a great demand for news in the Hindi language and, therefore, tied up with the Dainik Jagran group for content. Within a year, the Hindi news received more hits than did the English.

“I learned a fascinating thing about Dainik Jargan. They produce 40 editions of the newspaper every day in simple language. Stories are written in local dialects every single day,” said Arun Tadanki, managing director of Yahoo! India.

“I think that amounts to truly capturing the nuances of a market as complex as India’s. It actually delivers the product experience that suits the consumer of that particular area,” Tadanki added.

Likewise, fast food major KFC, which has traditionally been a retailer of non-vegetarian food, added vegetarian products to its menu to expand its consumer base in India, a country where millions of people do not eat non-vegetarian food.

“If you have the right proposition, you can take that and deliver it to consumers and in a format that they are looking for,” said Atul Singh, chief executive officer of Coca Cola India.

Panelists cautioned about companies getting swayed by India’s population, the second in the world after China. “It’s easy to be mesmerised by the fact that there are one billion consumers. But I think you have to filter out how many of the one billion can actually afford your products and how many are willing to spend on them. At present KFC has identified about 100 million of the population as its target customers,” said Niren Chaudhary, MD of Yum Restaurants in India, which operates the KFC and Taco Bell outlets.