 "John Lewis")
John Lewis is the global president of Nielsen, responsible for the consumer goods vertical, one of the largest for the market research company. Lewis, who was in India to take stock of the Indian operations, spoke to Viveat Susan Pinto on the road ahead for the company and how it is gearing up to provide services for sectors such as e-commerce and digital advertising. Excerpts:
What are you doing to address marketers’ concerns on Nielsen’s retail audit? This remains your core business in India and something you are known for...
That is correct. You have to recognise the role we play here with regard to the retail audit service. We help marketers understand where they stand (in terms of market share) vis-a-vis competitors. We have, over the years, listened to client concerns and have significantly expanded the panel size of our retail audit. It stands at 40,000 outlets now. This might seem small for a universe of nine million outlets in India. But you have to remember that the panel size of our retail audit was even lower earlier. We’ve increased it and the retail audit we do here is one of the largest in the world. India is an important market for us and we understand the concerns marketers here have. The changes we did over the past few years have benefited clients. We’re consolidating those gains. Given that this is an on-going process, we should be ready with additional changes in the next few years.
Where does India stand in the pecking order of markets for Nielsen?
It is among the top 10 markets for Nielsen globally. And we see it getting into the top five in the next few years. That is because in terms of pace of growth, India is among the top two for us, the other one being China.
What are you doing to increase your engagement with consumer goods companies in India?
We are making specific investments in certain areas. For example, India is on the verge of being a large digital market. Why do I say verge? Because while most realise how significant digital is, advertising spends are relatively low here vis-a-vis other markets. The reason for this is because marketers are not confident of the return on their investment on digital. Therefore, there are tools that are needed to see whether marketers are getting what they want. In the next few months, we will be launching a new capability called digital ad radiance. This will allow marketers to understand whether they are getting the target audience they want when they buy digital media. This is an answer to a specific problem that exists here in India of low digital spends.
Will you consider further acquisitions in India after Indicus, which you bought last year?
We are always looking at acquisitions. Indicus was a good buy for us, where we acquired its expertise in economic research and specifically its ability to provide granular levels of data within a city, town or village. This opens up a world of possibilities for us in our drive to provide more data and information to our subscribers. We are looking at acquisitions such as these where we can acquire a specific skill set or technology. At the same time, our global acquisitions will also impact India. eXelate, a data and technology company based in the US and Israel, which we acquired last month, will help us get into programmatic advertising, something that is also coming to India. Programmatic advertising allows a marketer to reduce wastage and better target online advertising to consumers with a specific buying intent. Media agencies in India are already speaking of programmatic ad-buying because that is the future. The acquisition will allow us to look at this area closely and work with media agencies who buy advertising space or time on behalf of their clients or marketers.
What are you doing to address the growing e-commerce market in India? Are you building any specific services or capabilities for this sector?
E-commerce is among our top priorities in India as well as in other parts of the world. We are diligently building business models that will allow us to map this channel as we have in the case of modern and traditional trade. The key to success in e-commerce is partnerships. We are talking to all the key consumer internet companies here to see how we can work with them. In China, we already have partnerships going with Alibaba and a few other e-commerce players. Yes, we are slightly ahead in markets such as China and Thailand. But we will make steady progress in India as partnerships with companies here are finalised.
