Challenge is to engage consumers: Devendra Chawla, Future Group

The landscape for brands is undergoing a transformation. While media is proliferating from one channel to multiple channels and one screen to multiple screens, brands need to shout louder to get consumers’ attention in this age of the addictive remote. Yet, the bigger challenge for marketers is not to get attention but to engage with this consumer.

While the media is expanding, retail is converging in the sense that a brand can reach & interact with more
consumers under the same roof. Though in nascent stage, modern trade is contributing in a major way towards the growth of categories such as breakfast cereal, cheese, packaged rice, toilet cleaners, liquid soaps, air fresheners and hair conditioners, to name a few.

A retail store in that sense is the new media vehicle to create awareness about new brands/products for a large number of consumers visiting the stores.

Interestingly, the stores also double up as a live research laboratory & a constant source of feedback, especially for retail marketers. There is as much feedback as one wants to accept on behavior of categories, the way they are consumed, what need gap exists giving way to valuable consumer insights. Lets see some examples on how we could make use of these consumer insights & feedbacks in developing our private brands.

Beginning with our young consumers. Kids’ engagement with products is much higher in a supermarket environment where products are displayed at their eye level and are well within their reach. For example, in the ketchup category, we learnt how kids are dependent on “ grown-ups” for usage, thanks to the heavy and breakable glass bottle.

Consumers were indirectly asking for innovative solutions here as the bottle is consumer unfriendly for the primary consumer.

We pioneered easy-to-use standee pouch with spout for our ketchup brand, Tasty Treat. Mothers instantly loved it since it made them anxiety-free and their kids self-sufficient. This pack reduced packaging cost by 30% and supply chain cost by 40% due to lighter weight providing even more value to the consumer.

We Indians are unique and unconventional in our own way. In a category like soups, speaking to consumers before the launch of our private brand regarding the ideal soup serving size brought to light the fact that 70% of them preferred drinking soups in mugs, in the comfort of their homes and not in public places!

We legitimised the ‘soup mug’ with our launch campaign ‘ab soup ka mazaa mug mein’ in all our Big Bazaars, and a consumer promotion of a large soup mug free with two packets of Tasty Treat. New consumers have entered the category, which has been growing faster after our participation. After the few months of launch, we have sold more than 5-million soup servings of our brand.

Moving on to products of family consumption. Our consumers were frequently asking for larger family packs. After this consumer insight, the 140 gm, multi-serve family pack was born that’s double the size of the single serve 70-gm pack. Larger packs are more economical, thus providing more value.

Now, let’s talk about young adults. We had apparel, shoes, makeup and accessories for various occasions. But, why not deodorants? asked some of our young consumers. We extended John Miller brand introducing occasion/mood-based fragrances in deo category to compliment the formal, casual and party dressing. For marketers, this could mean growing consumption of the category & differentiating the brand at the same time.

Engaging a consumer, as mentioned earlier, is a challenge for brands today. In the retail theatre, brands can come alive using multi-sensory engagement with the consumer. We rolled out an in-store brand campaign —Tasty Treat Khayo Piyo Mela—celebrating food categories and engaging consumers with multi-sensorial elements like tasting, sampling, announcements and in-store visual merchandising.

There will be television-built brands and there will be shelf-built brands. Both will co-exist. As media proliferates, brands will find newer ways to reach out to the consumer. That the consumer is closer to the retailer is a fact of life, and thus modern trade will continue to discover new consumer insight, receive cue’s on consumption and need–gaps.

While the context of the bazaar may be changing, all the answers still lie in the bazaar.

(The author is Devendra Chawla, head of private brands at Future Group)