A social media update announcing the coming retail apocalypse is now a routine occurrence. News articles about this issue are relatively common as well. The impression created is that new players hungrier for success are stomping all over brick and mortar. At the same, these new companies are not just online but are also opening stores and designing unique data-driven experiences. 

If done thoughtfully, automated services and bots can be a nice convenience. People want to have a more straightforward experience. Besides, there is enough to show that people like to socialise. We crave company and connections. For a long time, it was convenient to go to malls and traditional stores. These places provided the convenience of everything under one roof. You could also spend time with family, friends and celebrate occasions. Technology has upended this equation a bit. It is somewhat more convenient to order or manage requirements via websites, voice assistants, apps and bot. The robot hotel did end up creating vast amounts of work for the few humans that were part of the project. 

Retailers, however, need to rethink the offer and experience. Traditional thinking about space optimisation needs to be reinvigorated, and customer journeys need to redesign. I am very optimistic about the changes taking place. New retail requires fresh imagination, and it can be exciting to imagine and implement this brave new future.  Store formats and services will go through a transformation primarily driven by the question, what can the store do more? A new connected customer experience that builds on a data-rich environment but brings the core values of human empathy in service delivery. 

Continue reading “Retail is here to stay. Experience Needs Imagination” →

Many years ago, an engine oil major, a much-loved brand in India worked with us to answer an important question, ”What next?“ Why? Because each new car brand was endorsing their own or partner engine oil brands. Also, the experience had changed from one where a customer went explicitly to get the oil they wanted to one where the car company just changed the oil whenever the car went for service.

This company went out to create a very successful direct servicing connection with their customers.

It is now time for FMCG brands to think about customer experience of their products. The kirana (grocery) store in urban Indian markets is slowly disappearing. Indian shoppers are increasingly ordering online, driving the brick and mortar kirana store to rethink their business models. There are several reasons for this. First, the grocery retail in India forms 60% of the total retail market. Secondly, it is a hyper-local business.  Preferences for fruits, vegetables, ingredients and other goods vary according to locality, even in the same city. Thirdly, grocery has another added charm; these are essential purchases with high repeatability. However, there is more, it’s a high margin business for online retailers if they can capture the customer base and introduce private labels.

Continue reading “Thinking about the Unpolished Dal and FMCG Brand Experience” →

Taking a brand in to the digital space makes changes at the very heart of a business. It creates opportunities for growth or situations where market share is lost. The truth is ( and we speak from our experience in marketing, design, learning, services, technology, branding, research, consumer insights and creative ) that while consumers experience brands in an omni-channel environment – marketers and their agencies continue to work in designated, functional silos.
Nowhere is this more apparent in both client and agency organisations. Agencies offer almost routine solutions for e-mail marketing, web design, search, social media et. al. They may be specialists but they also work in silos. Is it perhaps a function of client organisations where digital or technology managers / heads also focus on specific areas with related KRA’s? Creating their own silos in the process?
Social platforms or tools such as software implementations alone, whether for say – a social media command centre or a delivery enablement feature in the ERP, are not going to create market leadership. A thought process and an offering, its differentiated positioning, business deliverables have to transform into functional enablement via a set of clear processes – where role alignment of everyone involved is crucial.
But somewhere, there is the beginning of a need. Manifesting in the fact that companies are facing business challenges beyond the obvious.
Consider this. A global brand was looking to create a social media dashboard to learn more about their current and new fans/followers across owned social media channels and produce correlations between their marketing activities and sales data with the social behaviours of their fans, to produce actionable, qualitative and quantitative consumer insights.Eventually the company opted for a conventional analytics platform and opted to track something simpler. Did they miss an opportunity to do some ground breaking work? Perhaps yes and therein lies the element of ambition for digital.
In conversations with managers, one hears the need to explore new frontiers but when it comes to acting on the plans, things tend to get a lot slower. Is it Lip service to the latest buzz words? What will nudge the decision makers to do more?
But where are the clear answers to basic questions? Where is the brand? What is it that we are really offering the customer? How is it being experienced and sustained online? Through repetitive product-centric content posts churned out by bright people starting out in their careers? Or via boring, clunky banner ads or pop-ups that lack imagination? Simply because digital or social is hygiene.
There is a need for a conversation on what it means to be Digital in the Digital Business and to figure out cross-functional solutions that are nimble and enable results. Based on consumer insights. And what value can a brand add to a consumer’s life. That is the essence of the digital ambition.
And there is a need to start this conversation. For there is a larger issue at stake here. It seems like a simple thing. Of getting the basics right. Even if the “˜ basics “˜ keep changing with time and technology.
When you think about digital we’d like you to put your customer at the centre of your decision making. No jargon, just clean, common-sensical stuff to drive business outcomes. Whether it is a clear thought process, proof of concepts and achievement of specific deliverables we’d like to work closely with you on your next digital challenge for your brand.

This post started as a twitter conversation with Riitu Chugh and has been jointly written with her. She is an Account Planner and a Social Business Strategist. We’d love to know your thoughts!