Thursday, August 17, 2017

MARKETING SPECIAL .....PAPA DON'T PREACH! - BETA, CAN YOU TEACH?

PAPA DON'T PREACH! - BETA, CAN YOU TEACH?

For the special issue themed around Gen Z and Y, Brand Equity gets CXOs across categories to share data-mining done with their own millennial-samples at home and at work -children, friends of kids and employees -and how those firsthand insights and anecdotes helped fine-tuning strategies.

We had firsthand experience of just how tough it is, advertising to Generation Z.

At a screening of Kung Fu Panda 3, one of the commercials shown was Share The Load for Ariel, the one where the father belatedly realises the error of his ways and promises to help around the house more. While the ad left all the 30 pluses in the audience, sighing and reflective, we heard a 10 year old kid pipe up with “Huh? All that for this?!“ It's a tough ask marketing to a generation that appears to be born with an overactive BS detector. Making the job tougher is misunderstandings, oversimplifications and stereotypes by over-exuberant marketers and consultants.


So, depending on who you believe, this is a generation of pottymouthed commitment-phobes, tindering their way through dysfunctional relationships. Or a sainted, saintly bunch who never met a cause or agenda they couldn't get behind. A senior marketing head, on condition of anonymity admits that while she does not have empirical evidence to back her belief, she is fairly certain that these people ­ at least in the Indian context ­ are a long way from taking the cause-led position yet and wonders why brands are taking that stance when addressing them. She would love to be proven wrong on this, she says.


According to Josy Paul, chairman and chief creative officer, BBDO India, “They are wired so differently, there's a sense of them being alien, and it's not a generation gap and there's no emotional gap.“ While working on the much talked about Mirinda `Release the pressure' campaign, the agency consciously steered clear of writing a script. “We didn't feel equal to the task of writing one in their voice so we got them to do it for us“, Paul shares.


Some of the marketers trying to go inside the minds of Gen-Y and Gen-Z have a home advantage: a child or at least an employee or a dozen who fall under this grouping. Here's what some of them learnt.


Arvind Bhandari GENERAL MANAGER DAIRY, NESTLÉ INDIA


Them and Us


My wife, Trupti (also an FMCG marketer) and I are constantly aware of the language, the words, the sentence structure (and therefore the implied logic), the huge obsession with friends and the constant digital conversation that drives our daughter Rishni (18) and her friends. I remember how I got onto Facebook, just to know what my daughter was up to, only to discover that the real interaction was happening on Snapchat but since Snapchat doesn't save, my wife and I couldn't pry into her life. (Believe us, he isn't the first parent to discover that). Till one day, the screenshots of Snapchat, exchanged merrily on WhatsApp gave away, what drove their lives. Shocked beyond our `generation's' sensibilities, the only emotional comfort was `that everybody in this generation is doing it' and she is not actively engaging but merely belonging. And belonging is so important to her and all of us, so we uneasily gave in.


Learnings


One learning for marketers is that their world is more of reaction than reflection, since they can e-publish the smallest feeling and amplify in a jiffy. Their passion bears an inverse relation to what really matters to them on a daily basis (water or electricity breakdowns go unnoticed, but gay rights can turn placid dinner conversation virulent).Humour quickly comes to the rescue when any problem burdens: AIB jokes, memes, statics are there on everything. This gives them great resilience and staying power with any problem. Marital breakdowns, relationship nuances are openly discussed and wisdom acquired.


Parents are of little help because either they know less than them or are the subject of these discussions! Since their world is going to be more fluid than ours, it's perhaps ok that we let them get prepped like this.


Inspiration from millennial conversation


One occasion there was an advertising copy presented by the agency where the main teen character seemed too `socially pleasing' to be real and I didn't think that could be approved. On the week end, though when I was watching my daughter chatting up with her friend on the phone, I realised how much of the `mutually-exalting' talk they indulge in (perhaps to counter the parents who constantly chide and censure) though I must say she backstabbed her the instant she got off the line. I shared the experience with the copywriter and she brought a mild twist, making the whole script even more real and riveting. It's very useful to check the language of the millennials when we design our ad copy since its a whole lot different from ours, and that can be a serious derailer. Like `going around' is lame, you say `dating' straight off and many more like these, my daughter Rishni tells me.

Action-plan

As a marketer, I feel this generation cannot be talked to but only stimulated to interact, making the brand the platform and reason, at best. Is this true of their cousins and friends in smaller towns and lower down socialeconomic classes? Puzzlingly enough, yes, thanks to the digital egalitarian world. How far are the younger kids behind them? Shockingly close, watching their siblings and hungrily consuming WhatsApp etc.


Sunil Kataria, BUSINESS HEAD ­ INDIA AND SAARC, GODREJ CONSUMER PRODUCT LIMITED (GCPL)


My kids are the biggest critics of ad scripts especially the ones which are related to kids or teenagers. The current Cinthol cool film jingle was something I wasn't very sure of, even while our brand team loved every bit of it. I recall bouncing it off my daughter and son and they just loved it. It also left me with the realisation that I am getting old for sure with both millennials (brand team) and Gen Z (my kids) giving it a thumbs up! Another anecdotal instance is around my daughter Dhwani's (17) shampoo usage. She had been a regular user of shampoo of one of our brands and recently another brand developed a shampoo-range, and I gave her the development sample to use and, voila, she immediately switched. While it was great to see her `wow' reaction, I had to tell the brand team that they may have a potential internal threat coming in!


Govind Shrikhande CUSTOMER CARE ASSOCIATE & MANAGING DIRECTOR, SHOPPERS STOP


Them and Us


The younger generation is clearly very techsavvy and exists for here and now, something I have seen with both my kids son and daughter. My daughter Sharvari, did her post-graduation in the UK and joined the retail industry in India. However, as a customer she was very particular on the kind of fashion she wanted and would move from brand to brand following the product garment style hierarchy.


Learnings


Apart from being a heavy shopper, she ordered knick-knacks and fashion jewellery (priced between `150 to `400) from multiple online sites. Invariably, the sites would have delivery challenges and on occasion, would not even collect the money because of confusion on pre-paid versus postpaid. It was clear to me that these online companies will never make any money, if they were going to have free delivery for a `400 product. None of the online guys are making money and hence it is best to set up an omni channel retail strategy.


The other important thin g about this generation is the way they're looking at fashion.


They are neither looking at garments to last long nor are they wanting to wear them multiple times. The street fashion must be value -priced. The pricing equation must be reworked to appeal to them, something that brands like Zara have done well. For our private labels, Life and Haute Curry we are deploying some of these learnings.


Sanjay Sharma CEO, MTR FOODS


Them and Us


It helps to observe three generations of women from close quarters mother, wife and daughters particularly when working for a food brand and then hunting around for insights. Internal research did point out that this generation is associating consumption of packaged foods with a `Not Guilty' feeling unlike the previous generations, but the first hand experience reaffirmed it. Learnings My mother accepted basic commodities into packed foods. She would allow spices and masala and peripheral products like snacks, sauces etc. into her shopping basket. My wife's purchase basket is a bit wider than that and includes packaged products which offer convenience to make dishes which are not from India. My daughters Diya (18) and Anisha (15) want products that are high in convenience. They have little interest cooking Indian food even while they enjoy it as their staple cuisine. Instead they want to make exotic foods like brioche, pancakes, crème brulee, cookies etc. Possibly influenced by MasterChef and other cooking shows. Thus, it is likely they will adopt packaged foods that give them convenience to make Indian food easily, mostly because they might not have the knowledge or time for it.


Lloyd Mathias FORMER HEAD OF PC MARKETING, HP ASIA PACIFIC & JAPAN


One often uses `in-house' samples, comprising employees or children of colleagues. Most of these tend to be to validate already existing concepts and campaigns. When I headed marketing at Motorola, I remember we tested out the Pink MotoRAZR mobile on a few of our colleague's teen daughters. They used these for two weeks and we had them recount to us their daily experience of reactions. As the model was launched elsewhere in the world, with then brand ambassador Maria Sharapova, we did not have the time for formal research. We wanted to get reactions in India, so this was a quick and easy dipstick for the product. The phone went on to be a huge hit.


Vipul Prakash SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT ­ BEVERAGE CATEGORY, PEPSICO INDIA


Them and Us


I have two children both of whom are a part of Gen Z. I don't think the generation is so different in values and fundamentals. The biggest difference is these are people who do not have to deal with the duality of the analogue and digital era, being born into the digital age. It's not that previous generations didn't have opinions, but transparency and a breakdown of the barriers of communication has given a big fillip to authenticity. When I have a conversation with my daughters, we are talking about things as they are and it's very different from the conversations I had with my parents, where things were couched in a manner that was either too polite or impolite.


If what I say as a father makes sense to them in the first 10 seconds, they accept it. Unlike the kids in the late 90s and early 2000s who were often rebels without a cause, they say “If there's a conflict let's resolve it.“ My daughter wanted a tattoo. I started giving her a story and she said, “Just say yes or no“. I said, “Not right now but next year.“ And she said, “Okay.“ I said don't you want to talk about this? And she replied, “This is not one of the top 10 things I need to talk to you about.“ That practicality and straightforwardness is what is different.


Learnings


When it comes to advertising, the attitude is don't couch an ad message under CSR. Either show genuine purpose or show product selling. The important thing is whether it is our children, our employees or our consumers, they are all looking for directness and authenticity.


Action-plan


Our challenge is how can we be more direct and make our stories more powerful, told in a cogent manner?
Even how we operate in office has changed. Our younger employees want shorter meetings -not the four or five-hour brain storming sessions. One-page word documents have replaced 20-page decks.

By Amit Bapna & Ravi Balakrishnan
 Aug 09 2017 : The Economic Times (Mumbai)


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