News: Of brand sluts and the Chindia century

(DNA 26/10/2006) Mumbai - Marian Salzman knows all about “brand sluts”. They are the fickle face of today’s consumers who are low on brand loyalty and conducive to better deals. Noted trend-spotter and executive vice-president at J Walter Thompson America, Salzman is credited with identifying global trends such as metrosexuality, globesity, the rise of the Al-Qaeda and brand sluts.

She stoutly believes there’s a yin-yang relationship between global and local trends, so her prophesies should hold weight for marketers here too.

She tunes into some current international trends:

• eBay nation — the culture of buying and selling is catching on internationally, whereas in Asia bargaining and bartering has been part of business for centuries.
• Brand sluts: Consumers don’t have brand loyalty, they’d rather shift to the better offer.
• No downtime: Due to Wi-fi connectivity we have lost time to relax—smart brands in 2006 will be able to tap into consumer’s free time to get their message across.
• BRIIC: Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia and China are the future markets and trend-setters to look out for.

What is trend-spotting?

“Trend-spotting is all about pattern recognition; you can look at what’s happening in the now and extrapolate what will happen in the next,” explains Salzman in a one-on-one with DNA Money. The most important thing is to tell the difference between a fad and a trend. “Metro-sexuality was a fad; the real trend is that gender roles have changed, there has been a blurring of what’s male and what’s female.”

Through looking at what people are writing, reading, watching and talking about, Salzman is able to strip away the layers to get through to the trends that are here to stay. “We do qualitative research and look for data patterns that call out to us and help in identifying consumer shifts,” she says.

‘Chindia’ time

It’s her first visit to India, and she is already making observations: “This is the decade of Europe, but the century of Asia, or rather ‘Chindia’.” In India she sees two or three major trends already. She cites the phenomenon of the free-woman, where women in the 20-25 age group are given total monetary indulgence and freedom and then suddenly thrown into married life. Then there is the “empty nester” phenomenon, where more people are living it up in the second stages of their life and are far from retirement, and finally, the sachet culture, where people want miniature sachets, to try before buying a whole product. Marketers can use the information Salzman researches to do targeted selling, or for creating products for those niches.

She believes the future lies in flip-flop, where India and Asia will be the trend-setters and the rest of the world the followers. “Right now, the fad is to wear Indian clothes, eat Chinese food, and watch Bollywood movies. But the trend is like the Tatas buying Corus; the footprint of Asia is here to stay,” she says.

“One has to use the communication and relate it to the product or brand they are making it for,” she says. With the vastness of India, she believes Indian marketers have to play small yet reach big. “India is all about narrow-casting and micro-niches.”

Salzman believes Indian marketers will have to see a lot of wrong before they finally get it right.