We have 150 million+ TV-owning homes. Another 220 million readers of publications. And we have just 38.8 million Internet users. Wait a minute, we also have 171 million mobile users already! Do you really need to even look at the internet?
In fact, till three years back, we had marketers and agencies largely humoring agencies like ours. "Oh! You are in the dot com business…nice, nice.. yes, here are some peanuts.’’ And, well, anything for survival…if it’s peanuts we got, it’s peanuts we ate.
But, come June 2006, and the country’s most aggressive consumer product marketer takes the lead and invests in a multi-crore campaign pushing the `website’ for their brand. And…the industry wakes up…with a jolt. Hello! Blogs, Message Boards, Gangs, Communities! ``Follow the leader’’ -- quick!
There is no doubt that Sunsilk Gang of Girls has become the benchmark site in the Indian internet space. And if Hindustan Unilever (HUL) believes this to be the space to be in, then blindly follow it, there must be good judgment there. Significantly, HUL has made history by being responsible for the `tipping point’ of the digital medium. Thank God for HUL, marketers across all industries and segments in India are not going to miss the media of the future, the media of the consumers, the most influential media, the media that will one day be a significant host for all other media. The internet.
Where does the mobile fit into all this. To start with, mobile is going to be the access machine for content, a cheaper and easier replacement for the personal computer. Mobile will, in fact, help increase internet penetration with more people accessing the medium via cheaper high end phones. Japan and China are living examples of this happening… where more users access the net via the mobile than the PC.
Few smart marketers, particularly in the financial sector, spotted the internet opportunity way back. With lead-based campaigns they have already saved millions of marketing rupees in doing the most effective communication (or, may I say, acquisition) plans on the internet reaching not just local but global audiences.
So what makes the 3.8 % population so significant? If you are reading this article and you are based in any place in India, you have the answer. If you are reading this because someone forwarded you the url to this article, then the point can be stressed further. And if you are reading this content without in anyway paying for it -- except for the internet connection you are using or the email bandwidth over which you received it -- then the point is explicit.
One, the internet reaches out to people like you, the most influential of the entire consumer segment particularly in India. The nature of the medium allows you to forward the interesting piece of information/content to as many people as you want to. The medium is self-exploratory and thrives on w-o-m. The medium allows you to establish connections with individual consumers and really know what are their pain-points that you need to address.
Also, I would urge you think about the five `I’s that make the Internet so special over other media.
* It is Individualistic – it addresses individual users and allows individuals to do what they want.
* It is Infinite – there is no space limit to the amount of information, entertainment, communication, and research tools you want to use.
* It is Interactive – your target audience can engage with your brand at levels unprecedented in any other media.
*It is Impulsive - you can make them choose to read your communication at an impulse with the right kind of creative strategy. In other words, even if the user never planned to know about you, you can still tap into that user. On an impulse, they will even choose to buy your product, and they may do it instantly online!
* It is Informative – the users choose to seek what they want to know about you, and you can give them everything on one platform. But what is equally significant is that it is informative. It captures all information in one go, and so easily that it not only does it tell you everything you want to know about your audience, it also helps you to measure your marketing rupee to the T. (Frankly accountability of the Internet media has the champions of traditional media flummoxed as accountability bars are being raised, and measurement to the levels that can be done on the internet seem impossible to them!)
With technological revolutions one day you can get your audience to touch and feel your product. Watch out for the latest. You can get two, or even four of these `I’s on other media. But all five, well the internet is the only place you can get all five of them.
Prudence would be in helping this medium grow, because significant communication challenges can be overcome with the internet. The faster its reach grows the better it is for you the marketer, and you the consumer. To close, I leave it your intellect to imagine how critical this medium is and how you can use it. You can choose to not know more about it, you can choose to live without it, but you cannot ignore the internet today. |
DigiWrite
