Mumbai: With the festive season nearly upon us MMA Global India did a survey across 186 cities to gauge festive consumer sentiment and behaviour. It found that 64 per cent of consumers are looking forward to shopping for gifting this Diwali. 62 per cent of the 5000 respondents plan to increase their spends. 58 per cent are looking to shop for themselves. Pretty much all products will be researched online first.
Fashion, fashion accessories, personal care and grooming products are the top categories that consumers will splurge their money on. 55 per cent of consumers will experiment with new brands and products. In this area a similar trends was seen last year also. E-commerce services are helping grow this area. Around end September is when sale events are expected to go live. But sales in categories start to spike before sales begin. Aspirational upgrades is a big theme this Diwali. Retail media remains an important touchpoint this Diwali. 67 per cent will use retail media marketplaces to get more information on products while 58 per cent will use retail media to make a purchase. 39 per cent of probable offline shoppers will visit retail media.
‘MMA Global India did a Festive Insights Webinar in partnership with Amazon Ads so that marleters too can prep for the Diwali season ahead of time. The ‘Hard-Working Advertising Strategies’ webinar aimed to educate marketers about how to decode full-funnel engagement and strike the right balance with performance levers.
The moderator was Vijay Iyer MMA India Board Member; Director, Amazon Ads India. The speakers were Shivani Chopra Marketing Head – Consumer PC & Peripherals, India, HP India, Anika Agarwal Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer Orient Electric and Jyothirmayee JT founder, CEO HiveMinds. Chopra noted that the good news is that there are no headwinds for the festive season as had been seen in the past. For her high involvement products people do research a lot and it is a four to six week buying time frame. People she are trained to expect that October is when the best deals happen. Consumers she said are savvy enough to know that only a limited number of products are for sale at the good price. So consumers start research in September well in advance.
The other trend is that due to the amount of clutter marketers should not spend funds on products that need a lot of education. This is the time to reap the benefits of the audience that has been primed over this timeframe. A single minded focus is important for success. In terms of consumption trends people feel close culturally and so this kind of content picks up. Vernacular content works.
Agarwal noted that in her category the focus is on home improvement across multiple categories like fans, lights and small appliances. There is an impulse purchase and a planned home improvement purchase. People do up their homes pre Diwali. So a lot of buying happens in the lead up to the festive season for categories like fans and lighting. But there are impulse purchases for festive lights and small appliances and it is about quantity of the products bought. It can be about the same or a different brand and a lot of trials happen. People are happy to experiment both with newer brands and with newer products from the same brand.
The festive period is about family time, togetherness and what one can do from a content perspective. But in the three months prior to that new products are put on the shelf for consumers around July and August. People do look for new products. It is also about an upgrade for the home. There is a 30-40 per cent pre festive spike that happens for the company’s categories 10 weeks in advance of the festive season.
Jyothirmayee said that going by July sales this is going to be a really big festive season compared to the past. 2023 was a muted year and 2022 was not big. In July and sales on Independence Day saw a 30 percent increase in sales for big categories that drive the sale period. So marketers have to plan a little ahead. The pre consideration phase is extremely important she noted. Consumers are no longer looking for cheap products. Marketers today sell to a very informed customer on digital. They want competitive prices on premium products like watches. Planning the discount strategy is important as this can propel sales during the first three days of the sale period. Research is important to figure out the price point that consumers are looking for. Last year a clear premiumisation was seen. The lowest rung price point was not the highest bought product.
Discovery is massive in the pre consideration phase. India is open to exploring new brands and new categories. So if there are unique, niche products this is the time to start and go into adjacent categories to drive new to brand and also new to categories to target the awakened consumer. Sometimes companies do not have enough marketing money during the festive period and so they lose out on a considerable portion of sales. So staggering marketing money so that it sustains during the festive period is important.
During the webinar the question was asked about balancing getting the customer’s attention with performance. On retail media one can do both. Chopra noted that whatever one does do it with a threshold. There has to be a benchmarking of budget. Work with thresholds on performance first. She said that retail media is no longer just a point of sale. Pre build up is important. In retail media one can do this. You can push the product over a period of time as the same customer comes and sees your presence. The middle funnel can be pushed by working with influencers, creators who work very closely with retail platforms.
There is a direct link from a social to a commerce kind of journey that can happen. There is also rich data available through an in-market audience. The full funnel is possible there but yet you can see immediate results. Her advice is to go through the entire funnel especially if a company is launching a large product portfolio. Drive discovery, push consumers through the consideration funnel and then actually drive out the sales with the audience who has been primed. But work with thresholds due to the size of the audience.
When it comes to brands like HP the aim is to ensure that it is top of mind during the season. People love a good story. The story should be apt for the brand and for the least six to seven years HP has told a Diwali story. The brand has the chance to be a part of the cultural moment. Performance does tend to overshadow the brand part but HP has very specific goals when it comes to branding. She added that the danger is that if one tries to do everything then money will run out. So once an audience has been primed the goal should be to ensure that ROI is gotten. Once the threshold has been reached then use the rest to build a good story that is a part of the season. It is very important also to get the pre purchase phase right. Timing plays a very important role. One has to know the reason why the product will sell. It is about knowing what the winning products are. So don’t put eggs in every basket. Consumers look for the latest products not the cheapest.
Agarwal agreed that setting thresholds is important and marketers can get greedy. Brands tend to be focussed on outshouting competition. Objectives are also very important. Companies have to decide what the lead categories are and what the lag categories are. They have to decide which categories will run only on performance. The funnel has been built and it will be milked. In terms of spending she said that between the middle and bottom funnel at least 70-80 percent of investment goes there. There will always be a lead story because that is the content story, brand narrative. This is what eventually drives conversion. For her company a lead category is chosen which is lighting in the last couple of years. Lighting she explains sets beautifully in the context of Indian homes. This is where the whole story and the brand story is told as a lead category. Identifying the right to win is important. The company must know its place in the product category and how it solves a problem. Is the product a market leader? Is the company a part of the top three? Then the strategy will be different from the 4-10 players.
A player who is number 10 should be clear about their place in the category. Then analyse the category itself. What s the traffic being seen? Where is the share in the category that the company can operate in? If there are multiple SKUs then do not invest in each and every one of them. Pick two or three where the company has a right to win. The overall offer must be compelling which leads from price to content to then putting marketing monies behind it. Choice is the most important thing and this will depend on the category that the company is operating in. What is the market size and the company’s brand size within that? Then you choose strategies and move forward. Don’t try and do everything. Choose and then milk the funnel during the festive season. If money is there then build the brand story on top. This will always help in conversion itself.
From a spends point of view her company breaks it into two parts – pre festive and festive. During pre festive 20-25 per cent of spends go into building the new product, build the pipeline etc. Festive money is split evenly. There is a threshold level that is put into building the brand narrative. During the festive season most spends are mid and bottom funnel led. The top funnel spends would have been done in the weeks leading to the festive season. The only top funnel spends that happen during the festive season are for the brand lead story being carried.
Jyothirmayee said that competitiveness and clutter are present. There is a need to standout despite everything that a marketer can do about pricing, the kind of content that has gone out, the product. So when a consumer is deliberating with three products in the cart and deciding what to discard what to add brand building in the first few days of sale works very well. 30-40 per cent of marketing money going into branding while the sale is happening might still be necessary for certain brands to break out of the clutter. At least 25 per cent should be looked at for branding but performance still takes precedence once the sale goes live. Another shift is what retail media offers. There are lots of browsers and buyers. Retail media allows companies to find the edge between a browser and a buyer. Retail media signals can be used to distinguish between the buyer and browser if one has branding money when it is too late to go to the top of funnel. She also spoke about the importance of storytelling. The Indian consumer is video led and so short videos are important. But they should be distinct. One has to bear in mind that there is ad fatigue.
She noted that brand loyalty is somewhat fleeting during the festive season. So it is an opportunity for D2C bras to introduce their product and category to customers. Missing out on the season is a big blunder and if the product is not ready then they can still go into a seasonal time period. So beauty can target winter for instance. Fans can target the Summer. But festive is the best season to go live. It is also imperative to not ignore customers who are live on retail networks checking out products. Being present on retail networks is essential and at the same time there are many formats where a brand can be built from a recal point of view. A customer who becomes on board during the festive period will potentially stay on as a customer for the rest of the year. D2C brands can get their first wave of customers during the festive season. Then they can nruture them as repeat customers.
