EARLY BIRD ADVANTAGE, WILL IT WORK WITH FDI IN RETAIL?

Conventional wisdom says that, you need to be first to win, when it comes for Early Birds our finger goes to MICROSOFT, STARBUCKS, NOKIA, AMAZON. Each one of us today want to be a LEARDER but no one is ready to LEAD, as the word LEADER itself start with LEAD. If it’s a natural monopoly then the person who is first in, wins. This argument amplified lately when the high costs were incurred to build the strong brand like STARBUCKS (for brand which launch later).

First mover is a company which enters first in the market it may or may not be the first company to develop that particular product. Very well known example is COCA-COLA. Earlier in 1980 Thumps up was the innovation brand of Parle later after 1992 when Coca-Cola entered in Indian market by name Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt, Ltd, took over brand from parley. Even after 30 years of take over its Thumps up which is leading in market capture and making Coke the umbrella brand to take second position. Its because people are use to the test of Thumps up which is irreplaceable inspite of coke spreading the bubbles of Happiness.

Selling to the Gen Y is a new marketing challenge(related to Real Estate)

ONE of the major challenges developers face is how to build a home that will appeal to the current generation of property purchasers.

Tastes and trends, as we know, change from one generation to the next. In the days of our grandparents, homes were largely huge, with several rooms, high ceilings, large verandas and most probably a big garden.

Those houses were most likely built to meet the needs of a culture that took it for granted that two or three generations would live together under one roof. It was a time when the second generation could count on their parents to help watch over their children.

As population grew and our landscape became more urbanised, homes became smaller. Children moved out of their parents' homes when they got married so they could have their own place where they could start their own families. Probably place where they work, or have their business.

Today, we are probably looking at yet another shift in the continuously changing taste among property purchasers.

The Baby Boomers are mostly retired, and the Gen X babies have reached middle age.

This is the era of the Gen Y a generation that also goes by many other names, such as the Millennial Generation, Generation Next and Generation Net. It is generally accepted that Gen Y comprises people born in the 1980s or early 1990s. Those in this generation are also known as Echo Boomers, most probably because some of them are children of Baby Boomers.

Having grown up with the Internet, they are mostly familiar with communication, media and digital technologies. Given that people are taking longer to walk down the aisle; it can be safely assumed that there are many singles in this group.

This generation of people are also more likely to move out of the roost at an earlier age, before they get married.

So where will they choose to live? Will they be renting mostly, or are they more likely to put some money down for a place of their own? And if they do, what kinds of property are they most likely to opt for?

Some in this group may already be fairly successful in their careers. Even if they do not earn exceptionally high incomes, they are more likely to have more cash left over after all the necessities have been taken care of to spend on themselves.

Being single, they will not have to worry about cutting back on some discretionary spending to meet cost of necessities associated with people with spouses and children.

Of course, that does not necessarily mean that they will use this additional cash to invest in property. A fair number of them may even have parents who would buy them their first home.

Given this scenario, what kind of homes will appeal to this generation of buyers?

Presumably, no survey has yet been done in India to find out where people in the Gen Y group will choose to live. Nevertheless, we can assume that most of them will likely choose to live closer to urban centres.

Urban centres will also provide them with the conveniences now associated with modern living excellent communication facilities through wi-fi, convenient public transportation and entertainment centres. Thank to the growing number of builders and the N numbers of projects build by them. The perfect match for the nuclear family, 1HK, 1BHK, 2BHK

As costs are generally higher in such areas, Gen Y home buyers will probably opt for smaller units. Given that most of them are likely to be single or just married and still without children, smaller apartments are ideal.

Of course there are no statistics available in India yet to say for certain that all this is true. All the same, we can always take a peek into what is happening in other countries to give us an idea of how things may turn out in India.

An article in a recent issue of Fortune magazine offers some interesting insights. According to the magazine, in the United States the number of people aged between 18 and 34 (largely Gen Y) choosing to live on their own is growing the fastest from about 500,000 in 1950 to about five million today.

Interestingly women who choose to live on their own outnumber men 18 million women to 14 million men. These numbers have not been broken down by age groups but presumably it is uniform all round, it would apply to the Gen Y group as well.

If this same trend were to be seen in India, home builders will be forced to rethink their concepts for new projects. Building a home for the single woman in her 30s would probably be quite unlike doing the same for a couple or a single man.

Businesses in the United States are already responding to this trend. For instance, home-improvement giant Lowe's features a lone woman renovating her bathroom in its TV advertisement.

With an increasing number of women joining the workforce and making it to the top of the corporate ladder, the Gen Y single woman can no longer be ignored as a potential customer by property developers.

What will she look for in a home? Will she prefer to live near her workplace, presumably in the city centre, or will she opt for a pad in the suburb and make the trek to work every morning?

Will she go for a two-room apartment just in case her parents visit from the home town, or will she buy a studio unit for convenience?

Of course we also cannot ignore the single men or the married couples. Increasingly they will be the ones making the purchases. If we ignore their needs and wants we risk losing sight of the market trend.

A NEW WORLD

Will Virtual world takeaway the real?

Gone are the days when marketing of the products were done by giving adds in newspapers, magazines, or putting billboards.  Now –a- day marketers are focused on new medial tools and the traditional have to take the back seat. Is this change good or bad will be clear by the end of this story. Take any brand which is well know and study its launching strategy in market, last year the brand  were launched at showroom, at the business gatherings or any other special occasion. Today they are not waiting for the occasion or for any gadthering or even at showrooms. The brands are launch overnight virtually specially on Facebook. Take for example the automobile giant Ford, last year it unveils its model Explorer. The launch challenge the 50 years of tradition of launching at showroom and first time it was launch on Facebook and hard to believe the response and the brand awareness was manifold higher than the traditional 50 years record. Facebook is just one of the well know social media there are many more.

With the launch of 3G and the cut-throat competition between the service provider like Idea, Airtel, Vodafone and Tata docomo for grabbing the customer has add more to the virtual world. Remember the ad by idea 3G stating that, now population will be under control ask how? Everyone is busy with idea 3G so husband and wife don’t have time to spend together and hence the result. People enjoy staying in the virtual world, being it Facebook, Google chat, messenger, Skype etc for more time then real world. Vitural world give them the virtual happiness of which all have become slaves. Weighter you want to wish you friend on his/her birthday or ask about his updates just log on to the social networking website and there they are your friend, relatives, colleges, boss, even your kamvali/ Maid and doodhwala(milkman). Facebook Katta(Platform) is famous place where you will find your entire near and dear one and share your happiness sorrows, breakups, tie-up, many more.

Not just sharing your feeling is added by this world, but all the activities we do throughout the day has some relevance to the virtual world. For example you want to purchase a cell phone, the first thing you do is to visit your best friend GOOGLE type the name of your beloved brand the list will keep u engage for next couple of hours until you make the purchase decision. . Online Reviews are dominating one’s buying decision. Right from product selection, its features its result, its reliability all is provided in this virtual world. Anything you want right from the needle to the car all is available to make the purchase in this world Remember our childhood the only virtual world we were expose to was the games on computer (Dare devil, sky road, Alladin etc) even for that our elders use to scold us for being so attach with this virtual world..I wish I could expose them to today’s world more and more people, rather so called more intelligent people are attach to this virtual world be it for any reason. Obviously we were negligible as compare to them.

The key thing what marketers are doing today is trying hard to create online engagement between the customer and brands, apart from the increasing the number of followers it is also important to keep them engage. When the consumer are been bombarded with so many message make your brand voice the loudest and the most unique.

At present it’s the era of virtual world be it marketing or brand building or increasing the market share of your product. The future is filled with new challenges, threats and new ways of doing business. This time the old ways and tools will not work what will work is innovation and the ability to manage with the change. It’s the time to make maximum use of the virtual world to build your really word.

Business can thought never lose the human touch also one cannot ignore that the impact of personal contact. This will be held high till the end. We can never ignore the fact that in today’s world people wish to talk virtually instead in of interacting in person. They think it gives them more comfort. But the serious question to raise and to bring to the notice of this world is Are we generating Virtual world by excluding the human touch? Will that work? And at last what would be achieved out it?

Just Virtuosity.

 Best luck virtually!