E-commerce to be key growth driver for lifestyle brands; Hindi speaking consumers ignored by luxury brands: Marketers

New Delhi: E-commerce will be a key growth driver for lifestyle brands, Hindi speaking consumers are usually ignored by luxury brands and digitisation is directly impacting the phenomena of Indian-ness, said marketers representing a diversified set of companies across the auto, fashion, durables and lifestyle sectors, at industry event Great Lifestyle Brands hosted by online advertising and marketing platform afaqs.

Management consulting firm Technopak president Saloni Nangia said the next decade would define winners in the digitally creative world. Citing data, she said from eight million users in 2010, Facebook has grown to 241 million users, with the number of people with internet access having increased from 92 million to 566 million over the past decade. “E-commerce will be the key growth driver for the lifestyle business in the coming decade,” she said. She added that game-changers in the coming decade would be disruption of traditional business models, customer centricity, product experience and collaborative supply chain.

On the panel on whether marketers have a millennial fixation, Havells India vice president– marketing Amit Tiwari said the internet is connecting brands to their audiences, irrespective of age and consumption patterns.

Havas Media India chief executive Anita Nayyar said luxury consumers make up 4% of the population which is sizeable given the huge population of India. “Besides metro cities including Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru which are high spenders, tier 2 and 3 cities spend heavily on auto, women’s apparel and accessories. In terms of expenditure, watches and jewellery take the lion’s share followed by technology, cars, vacations, food and wine and apparel,” Nayyar said.

Speaking on the relevance of the Hindi speaking belt who he said are usually ignored by luxury brands, India TV executive president – sales, Sudipto Chowdhuri said consumers in UP, MP, Maharashtra, Punjab and Chandigarh have immense purchasing power but a substantial segment out of those people don’t consume English. “Unfortunately, many luxury brands ignore these audiences,” Chowdhuri said.

A panel moderated by co-founder and director, afaqs!, Sreekant Khandekar, comprising of DDB Mudra Group national strategy head Amit Kekre, Swarovski head of marketing Konia Khanna, Dabur head - strategic marketing and investments Minoo Phakey, and consulting firm CherryPeachPlum’s Vani Gupta Dandia focused on whether Indian-ness is unique to India, how the growing digital force impacts the phenomena of Indian-ness and brands that make for India like Uniqlo and others that mould for India such as Puma.

Royal Enfield global head – marketing Shubhranshu Singh said a brand could play multiple roles without losing its integrity. “Almost every brand can make an ad, most brands can do a reasonable marketing job, but very few brands can create culture,” he said. Singh added that 70% of the company’s social media marketing is user generated, with only 30% being commissioned by the company.