IDEASMARKIT (Where Marketing Meets Technology)

Comscore recently held a webinar on state of Internet in Asia pacific which threw up some very interesting data and some obvious questions regrading the Indian Internet 

Synovate surveyed around 11,400 from 16 markets across the world to find out what they had changed about their money management style and attitudes in the year since the global financial crisis hit. In India the respondents were only from the 4 metros so you have to take the results with a pinch. The key insight that this survey brings is that despite the recession causing more people in developed countries to move towards safer avenues the percentage of population doing so is still lower than compared to India where more than 50% of population still prefers Bank deposits. Amazingly India topped two categories of questions for the answer to what they would do if US$1,000 landed in their lap today 21% said that they would put it in a bank cash deposit while 12% said they would buy an insurance policy both highest across the world. The results are summarized in the picture below ( more at Synovate press release )

Digital agency Sapient Interactive has released the findings of a survey, titled Digital Marketing: The CMO perspective. The survey figures out the views of chief marketing officers (CMOs) or marketing heads of 52 organisations represented by sectors such as automobile, airlines, telecom and FMCG on various aspects of digital marketing and commerce. The findings are based on interviews conducted among respondents

• 17 % of the overall advertising spend goes to digital media, while 24.7 % and 19.4 % of the total advertising amount is allocated to print and TV respectively. Outdoor gets 10 %, while 4.5 % ad spend is allotted to radio.
• 33 % of the CMOs feel that they are over-spending on print advertising while 22 % on television.
• 59 % of the respondents would like to invest more in digital advertising.
• Maximum number of CMOs rated website advertising or product based microsites as most effective. Viral campaigns are regarded as the least effective way of digital advertising. Website advertising and viral campaigns get an average weighted score of 100 and 30.7 respectively.
• Search marketing campaigns (score of 94) and e-mail marketing (score of 90) are considered as the 2^nd and 3^rd most effective ways of digital advertising respectively. Banner ads received a score of 78.
• Almost 100 % of the respondents agreed that the main constraint in adoption of the digital medium for advertisement is the lack of understanding of metrics used to measure the effectiveness of digital advertisement. Another difficulty mentioned by CMOs in adoption of digital media is the inability to adapt traditional media practices to new media.
• 75 % felt that in the current economic climate, digital channels would take on a greater focus in their overall marketing strategy.
• Sectors most at ease with adapting to digital media include- Travel, Insurance, Airline/ hospitality, financial services and IT.

Edelman in collaboration with Brandtology, which provides business and brand online intelligence services have unveiled a Digital Brand Index for India. This was built by analyzing conversations in Indian social media sites. However I must warn you that these results should be taken with a pinch of salt since the largest channel which they mention for social media is twitter which has only 1.4 million users in India. The key findings of the index are

Nielsen has just declared results of its Upper Middle and Rich (UMAR) survey. The survey covered more than 18,250 individuals across 35 Indian metros. The survey has identified three segments of affluence from lifestyle and consumer durables mapping and estimates that there are 2.5 million population belonging to urban rich segments in India.

1. 2.2 million belong to the Upper Middle segment (owning a car and a computer)
2. 0.2 million households belong to the Upper-Upper Middle segment (owners of a car, computer and LCD television).
3. The Rich segment (owners of a car, computer and LCD television, and have holidayed abroad) consists of about 0.1 million households.

1. Half of the targeted consumers are schooled in English
2. English is the preferred language for newspapers however the television programmes watched are more in regional languages.
3. Nine in ten affluent individuals own a house; three-quarters have a fully automated washing machine; and nearly two in five affluent individuals have a home theatre and modular kitchen.