There is still some residual fear and doubt in the minds of a few people regarding the Covid-19 situation in India. Brands are wondering when to start spending their marketing budget as unfounded perceptions continue that their audience are still stuck at home and unwilling to spend.
But the fact is that people are adapting well to the ‘New Normal’. Data from Laqshya Media reveals that people are already out on the roads and traffic travel times are almost back to its normal levels.
The report draws, assimilates, and presents data from Google Maps on the travel time for point-to-point trips since the nationwide lockdown. Detailed graphs show that Mumbai traffic travel time is between 84% and 77% of its peak (January 2020) traffic, whereas Delhi is at 75%. Bengaluru, the city most amenable to WFH, also shows that travel times have reached 80% of the peak.
Apart from travel time, the other irrefutable data is people count that has been derived from a proprietary software platform called SHARP (Strategic Hyperlocal AI-aided Reach Planner). SHARP uses a complex algorithm that combines Census data, data from a commissioned market research study, data from a telecom partner and 2 billion app aggregator records. SHARP provides accurate residential and traffic computations for ~30,000 geo-tagged locations across 32 cities in India. It also uses anonymized, privacy-proofed metadata of 2 billion daily time stamps from app aggregators from across India. This allows SHARP to compute accurate traffic quantity and quality.
Even while staying at/working from home, customers had not stopped making purchases. 25+ lakh 2-Wheelers, 4.6+ lakh Personal Vehicles and 1.87 lakh Tractors were sold between June and August 2020.
Ecommerce order volume has grown by 130% for the beauty & wellness sector, followed by FMCG with a growth of 55% and agriculture and health & pharma with 38%. All these product verticals, including Indian e-Commerce(that aspires to reach the $200 billion mark in the next few years) will need to invest in its customers – drive them to the best brand decisions, using the most effective media at their disposal.
The report shows results obtained by PJ Solomon – Digital and OOH are the media of the future. These are the lowest cost AND high-recall media that brands must effectively utilize.
Atul Shrivastava, CEO, Laqshya Media Group says, “There are a lot of opportunities for marketers if they get over their perceptions and look at the data. We at Laqshya have invested in data and analytical techniques to be able to give better ROI to our clients. PJ Solomon’s study shows that OOH media gives brands greater recall at lower costs. Also, being one of the best No-Touch media, OOH is one of the best bets for marketers in the current situation.”
