How marketers are decoding the new age consumers

Consumer behaviour has undergone some significant changes in the recent times, especially since the pandemic times. There are changes in their buying behaviour, how they interact with brands, their aspirations, the content that they consume, the media platforms that they are present on. It has become imperative for marketers to understand these changes in the market landscape and how they impact their brands.

Adgully’s CMOs’ Charcha - Kolkata Chapter 2023 turned the spotlight on ‘Decoding the New Age Consumers’. The panel discussion was chaired by Pritha Dasgupta, Chief Marketing Officer, Havas India, and the esteemed panellists included:

Anirban Banerjee, Senior Vice President, Business Unit Head - Battery & Flashlight, Eveready Industries India

Samrat Sengupta, Senior General Manager - Brand Building (Marketing), UltraTech Cement

Tarun Jha, Chief Executive Officer, Havas Creative India

Pritha Dasgupta commenced the discussion by talking about a viral post on Twitter about Starbucks, which stated: “Sitting at Starbucks, Coffee for 400. Zomato deal for the same coffee is 190. Ordered Zomato with the address of Starbucks. Zomato guy picks up and gives me to my table at Starbucks - Sandeep Mall.” She then asked the panellists whether they were familiar with this post, and also what it reveals about the new age consumers.

Dasgupta here also referred to the ‘Meaningful Brands’ report that Havas has been coming out since 2009. Citing the 2023 edition of the report, she said that it reveals that people or consumers wouldn’t care if 73% of the brands disappear today.

“Moving ahead, as we are talking about new age consumers, who love the content and are extremely aware and prudent, what are the big changes you have made in the way you engage with consumers and why?” she asked.

Responding to the question, Anirban Banerjee said, “As we are headquartered in Kolkata, when it comes to batteries, ‘Give me red’ is something that I have born and brought up with. Though I haven’t spent too much time in Kolkata in the last six months, but no matter where I was, thi line has been iconic. This year has been much stronger in terms of transformation from the POV of Eveready. One of the mainstream checks that we are doing is to get very close to the consumers, which means, being iconic and relevant to the younger India.”

“There has been a lot of research in the last 6 months and there is obviously a gap, but the older consumers strongly resonate with and continue to resonate with Eveready, whereas the younger India believes it is all about the power. Thus, going ahead you’ll probably see it in the campaigns that we come out with, which will have more to do with the connection with the new age consumers,” Banerjee added.

Samrat Sengupta noted, “From a consumer’s perspective, they are possibly the most important project of their life and hence, it becomes imperative for the market to ensure that we have the right kind of structured or brand associations. For us, TV has been delivering momentum, we are investing in TV, and at the same time, we are maintaining the parallel across other mediums. We have a lot of regional focus and we tend to focus a lot on the influencers category as a whole. We have been rising optimally across the outdoor, digital, and print, because I am not going to get the consumer once again in a lifetime, and hence for us, we must be consistent throughout whatever touch points the consumer would come across.”

Tarun Jha opined, “As the world is changing very rapidly, our habits are changing as well. What we need to do is understand the consumer as much as we can. The three main pillars to serve our clients are – understanding the consumer through various studies, analysing the consumers’ data, and respecting the behaviour of consumers. If we talk about the new film ‘Satyaprem Ki Katha’, when I read the reviews, it is not just any rom-com, it’s a movie with a story. I think that’s the energy we as communicators should have. Storytelling has to be very important in the era of New Age Consumers.”

These are edited excerpts. For the complete panel discussion, please watch below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmYRLqopvKg