So we set out to do a status check on this, by asking aspiring urban folks two questions; How many soap, shower gels, hand wash, face wash, shampoo, body lotion brands do you have on your bathroom shelf right now? Last month, how many of them were different?
The answers were, to say the least, a revelation and it sure poses fresh challenges to conventional marketing thinking.
Piyul Gupta’s apartment in Powai, a suburb in Mumbai has two bathrooms. Both bathrooms contain multiple shower gels, two different face wash brands, three different brands of soap and two different brands of toothpaste.
"We normally buy the same brands from the supermarket. Sometimes when Isha (Piyul’s ten year old daughter) is with me, she picks up new things for herself and us," says Piyul, when we asked her about her buying behaviour. However, her bathroom clearly did not reflect this tendency.
We discovered that when Piyul says "same brand" she actually means "similar brands". So if this month she has a bought a particular brand of shower gel and body lotion, there is every likelihood of her buying something different next month. Within her ‘consideration set’ she plays ‘kabhi Nivea, kabhi Vaseline’ without fuss, and often without realising it!
However, this change in her buying behaviour is a very recent phenomenon. It is not a coincidence that it happened when Piyul started frequenting a supermarket. When she patronised the local grocer, she invariably asked to buy a particular brand and pack size, for instance, ‘Bada Pantene’.
To switch brands in that shopping context had to be necessarily a pre-determined decision, one that had been reached much before entering the store. You also could not appear confused and indecisive in front of the knowledgeable shopkeeper, or seek his help in browsing through brands.
Consider Piyul’s behaviour now inside the supermarket. She can approach the shampoo aisle, easy and undecided, check all the options and pick what appeals most without anyone being any wiser and without any bother. One could almost think of Piyul’s curiosity and indecisiveness as a sort of ‘flirting’. She browses through the entire rack, examines the choices that fall within her consideration set and then picks up whatever appeals to her most at that point. She is usually not loyal to a single brand.
In fact if brands were folks and we had relationships with them, then the earlier method of buying from the corner store was more like a ‘marriage’, where month-in-month-out we bought the same brand for lack of any other option or way of exercising it, simply as a matter of habit. In the new market place, the relationship paradigm has visibly changed to one of ‘dating and mating’ with like-minded brands.
Every time Piyul walks down the supermarket aisle, it’s a fresh round of ‘swayamwar’, where brands have to be well turned out, wear all their most attractive sparkles and trinkets in order to catch her attention. Clearly, that she asked you out last time and even liked being with you, does not automatically make you the ‘chosen one’ next time. Your competitor may wear a smarter outfit or have a better party line, next time. After all, anything is possible when a relationship is temporary.
If the shop shelves are where the monthly ‘swayamwar’ is to be held, individual brands will have to fight to look their best and work with the stores to be first in the line of the customer’s attention. Another important aspect. If that in the ‘dating and mating’ way of conducting relationships amongst people, a whole array of services are built up. Party venues, restaurants, multiplexes, all these are required far more as courtship places than if people ‘settled down’ quickly with a partner.
In the same manner, brand ‘swayamvars’ need an important service – supermarkets. Without these courtship venues there would be no avenues for the aspiring new brands. In fact, the two things feed off each other. More supermarkets mean more brand ‘dating and mating’, which in turn need more supermarkets.
As people get financially better off, aspire more, consume more, they use product brands as a ladder to climb up the lifestyle wall and lead better lives. They enjoy the feeling of choice, and flirting with multiple brands, not just in stores, but even at home. With multiple brands peopling her bathroom shelf, Piyul switches from one to another ‘in shower’ so to speak, foregoing loyalty in favour of choice.
This is now the new reality of the aspiring consumer, especially when it comes to simpler items like soaps, shower gels and body lotions. Brands will have to recognise this changed paradigm and find new ways of accompanying the customer on her way to the shower, every month. While many categories are still in the early years of wide adoption in India, is going to be the new challenge
Reach the author Mr. Damodar Mall on Twitter, his Twitter handle is - @damodarmall
Note: This article was originally Published in BrandEquity
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