Janus In The Shopping Mall

Cussed, quirky, unpredictable. Slippery, unfaithful, sly. Why is the Indian consumer so difficult to pin down? This has been the plaintive cry of many multinational corporations ever since the economic reforms began. Giant marketer after giant marketer strode into India with powerful brands and massive ad budgets, only to flounder as the consumer remained unimpressed. Worst still, there seemed to be no immediately visible pattern to his unimpressedness.

Consider the following. The Indian consumer welcomes McDonald’s yet rejects the Westernised system of course-by-course meal, retaining his preference for the traditional thali. She picks up a cassette of Gayatri from a roadside music kiosk even as she is on her way to see the latest Leonardo Di Caprio movie. Marketers like generalisation, categorisation, low uncertainty, high predictability. They like typical mindsets that they can leverage and manipulate. But is there a typical Indian mindset?

"This is perhaps one of the most weird markets. The Indian consumer will welcome a Coke with his thali. But she will not replace the thali with a burger. So it makes this very question of Indianness a thorny one," says Santosh Desai, planning head of advertising agency McCann-Erickson. Desai’s recent study on the Indian mindset is helping a host of the agency’s clients understand purchasing patterns. NestlŽ is trying to figure out the changes in behavioural patterns of coffee- and tea-drinking in the country, something which is enabling the Swiss giant to position its beverage for a specially targeted audience. The study is also helping healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson analyse the psyche of the Indian mother and concern for her child’s hygiene.

Desai says it’s possible to answer a host of complex queries by reading meaning into the customer’s daily habits and actions, much of which may not be connected to his buying behaviour per se. "There is a definite reason in why I call the Indian mindset a thali concept. Indians find it easier to see things in their totality and do not unduly exercise their minds to seek consistency and order in a narrowly defined way. It’s chaotic alright but it’s a rainbow of chaos with its ability to see order where seemingly none exists," is how Desai puts it.

Flummoxed? "Multinational corporations must understand that any communication to the Indian consumer must be rooted in an understanding of the country’s cultural codes," says Desai, and goes on to quote historian Samuel Huntington (of The Clash of Civilisations fame): "Only naive arrogance can lead Westerners to assume that non-Westerners will become Westernised by acquiring Western goods. What indeed does it tell the world about the West when Westerners identify their civilisation with fizzy liquids, faded pants and fatty foods?" McCann-Erickson is now analysing its consumer behaviour findings with a dedicated research team and psychoanalyst Dr Sudhir Kakkar, who, in turn, is helping multinational corporations (especially those ones which had a none-too-pleasant experience in India) understand that the Indian notion of self is transcendental while the Western notion resides within the body.

But how does that link up with the brazen materialism that we see all around us in today’s India? Many observers would agree that spend-and-enjoy is the mantra of the times and instant gratification the creed. Indians no longer want to wait a lifetime before they allow themselves to taste the fruits of success. It’s almost like the Indian mind is right now a sieve: sorting, selecting, rejecting a whole world of information, a whole new set of values. And an entirely new identity is emerging. But built on the foundation of the old. Put it down to paradox, to theses and antitheses and their complex interplay, to opposite magnetic poles in peaceful co-existence. "Opportunity and exposure seem to be the catalysts for a metamorphosis of the mind today. Young India is vibrant and swaying between the brashness of scintillating, body-baring music videos and the deep-rooted tenacious tradition," says Sandip Goyal, president, Rediffusion dy&r.

A recent study done by Ogilvy & Mather Asia describes the Indian youth as a perfect example of the Jekyll and Hyde syndrome. It found Indian youth to be one of the most schizophrenic in the continent since they feel very deeply about two basic but divergent drives of engagement with-and independence from-society and are constantly trying to manage tensions between the two. Indians feel the two drives more strongly than other Asians even when it’s easier to be either engaged or independent, says the study, adding that the same has interesting manifestations in their behaviour which revolves around motifs like Indipop, jeans, pizzas and sleeveless blouses.

o&m client servicing director Govind Pandey calls it the "lassi in washing machine" syndrome. "It’s like a survival mechanism which emerges after living in a country which lacks a system. I think Indians have developed a higher tolerance for ambiguity and a very well-developed sense of jugad (quickfix solutions). This streak of jugad is also the seed of entrepreneurism. One can very well imagine a German who has grown up in a structured and system-driven country coming to India and giving up, saying ‘Oh, you mean nothing is defined!’"

There’s also the karma factor: the inevitability of what is destined to be. After all, to the Indian, time is an endless cycle and everything doesn’t need to happen in a single life. Now add to that diversity, as the Hindi proverb puts it: Kos kos pe badle vaani, chaar kos pe paani (The language changes every mile and the taste of water every fourth). "Plus a cautious approach to life. When offered food, say no at least twice before agreeing (desperately hoping that you would be asked three times)," says Pandey.

Researchers agree. There is a typical Indian core mindset, but away from the core, you find a spectrum of variations. And it could be a long wait for the MNCS to see the core change to what they consider a global mindset because among the billion, it’s the fourth generation Indians who are more open to change. But they do not control the nation’s purchasing power. Take the example of Maggie noodles. "The typical Indian housewife would be open to Maggie not because it’s the best thing around but because the item doesn’t form part of her main menu, changing which would require a lot of time and effort," says Sangeeta Gupta, consultant, org-Marg. "The Indian mindset still remains rooted in traditional values which prevents a sweeping change in behavioural patterns easily witnessed in other emerging markets."

Agrees HTA president Sunil Gupta: "The typical Indian mindset is of one who is extremely discerning, forward-looking and continuously evolving. Besides, such an Indian has his feet firmly placed in both the worlds. After all, it’s easy to take an Indian out of the country but very difficult to take the country out of him. Even seasoned NRIS do not serve bacon and eggs at home and rely on traditional dishes like rice and daal. For example, the average Indian still relies on the concept of touch and feel and would definitely avoid the Net magic. The Silicon Valley magic may have already reached India but it will take a very, very long time for an Indian mindset to adopt e-commerce. And the faster the MNCS understand this, the better it would be for them."

But then, for every rueful multinational corporation operating in India, there’s a jubilant one. Old India hands like Hindustan Lever are incredible success stories. Time, perhaps, is a critical investment for the entrants to make sense of the Indian market. "India is a collection of communities unified by popular culture, family values, nationalistic concerns and the eternal quest for value-a worldwide phenomenon. Different regions behave differently. So averaging a North, South, East and West Indian will yield a non-existent entity. In short, you need to think global and act local truly and honestly," says Mudra CEO A.G. Krishnamurthy.

A definite no-no is the taken-for-granted approach. Indians don’t beat a path to the door of the famously-branded mousetrap. Analysts cite the example of auto major Maruti, which generated a completely new wave in the Indian markets the moment it hit the roads and caused thousands to instantly junk well-entrenched brands like Premier and Ambassador, which were considered technologically outdated. But the same consumer perceptions started changing the moment the market had a host of other technologically advanced brands to offer. "You can’t take the Indian consumer for granted. The proof is a host of Indian brands: Usha, Onida, Margo..." says one observer, adding the consumer now knows clearly that anything global needn’t be the best.

Therefore, the true success of a mass marketer would be to immerse themselves in the cultural values of each region they operate in, yet retaining their brands’ essence. As for evolution-the consumer has always been a moving target, and in India, she’s just moving faster and faster.