MxMIndia

Tag: Josep Montserrat

  • A quick chat with K Ramakrishnan, GM and Country Head, IMRB Kantar World Panel on the Top 50 brands as per the Brand Footprint Global Ranking

    More on the Importance of Penetration

     

    We have carried a quick chat with K Ramakrishnan, GM and Country Head, IMRB Kantar World Panel along with Josep Montserrat, global CEO of Kantar Worldpanel recently.  We had also spoken to Ramakrishnan on Parle being the #1 brand. Here is the complete interview with him by Anuka Roy

     

    There are brand studies and brand studies, how would you say is the Brand Footprint Global Ranking different from the others?

    The basis on which Brand Footprint works is penetration. It looks at the population size you are trying to reach, the penetration that the brand has, at least what percentage of them has access to your product in the last one year and also how often they have used. So, to that extent there is no other ranking which tries to take these in to account. They may take some brand parameters in to account or any of those but this one specifically takes the extent to which a brand has penetrated in to a household. That becomes the biggest point on which it is based and that way it is different.

     

    What would you say is the reason for Parle to be the No 1 brand in India?

    In India it is #1 because it reaches a very large number of people, a highly penetrated brand and bought at a frequency. You may have heard that many parts of the country, there is a lot of chai and biscuit happen. So, Parle has taken that occasion pretty well and to that extent that is the reason why it is right on top

     

    In the Indian context where it’s said that India actually comprises many India, can you elaborate on the relevance of the Brand Footprint ranking? Especially the entire Loyalty v/s Penetration debate?

    In my mind, it is really not a debate. Loyalty is important and penetration is important. But if you see growth of brands, the brands that have grown what have they improved on? Have they improved on penetration or have they improved on loyalty? At this point, it is very clearly established that penetration is what is leading to growth. In that sense, there is really no clash. So, therefore it is not a competition. And, the relevance in India for something like a Brand Footprint is very clear that the new measure or the new metric by which brands are getting assessed is actually penetration which means the number of new customers they are having, the extent to which you are able to reach. If that is the case, and if this is becoming a metric globally and in India many brands are taking on it, then there is clearly no other metric which can tell them well enough about their standing apart from Brand Footprint.

     

    Has the proliferation of digital impacted the salience of brands in a country like India?

    If anything, it has only added to it. Brand salience already exists because of the presence in media. Then the presence of these brands on the digital media. Third, the discussion about these brands on social media. If you add all these things together, it is only building salience in my view

     

    And how would you rate the impact of e-commerce. It’s said that thanks to e-commerce, even the hinterland has access to products (if not services) that were not available because retailers wouldn’t stock the products because of low consumption.

    E-commerce at this point of time in our household panel data is a very small percentage. But that said, there are enough sources of information from Kantar itself which state that where and which part is e-commerce growing. Hinterland contributes to a significant percentage of business coming from e-commerce. That is one of the hypothesis is fundamentally those markets do not have access to products because of distribution reasons and other reasons. Since they do not have access by physical availability, they are reaching them through e-commerce is some of the Kantar studies are saying. It is not household panel but it is from Kantar.

     

    Could you elaborate on the term CRP used in the Brand Footprint Study?

    Brand Footprint study aims to assess the performance of brand year after year on a certain set of parameters. The term that Brand Footprint uses is called Consumer Reach Point (CRP). So, CRP is actually a product of the population that is available and that can be addressed by the brand, the penetration, which is what percentage of them have reached by this brand in the last particular year and their frequency. It tries to assess is by what extent is the brand able to touch that household in terms of its usage. So, that is what Brand Footprint tries to measure. Therefore, it is a real measure of consumer behaviour towards your brand.

     

    Your study observes that consumers in India expect brands to contribute to creating a better society. But does that really result in better sales?

    At the end of the day, we are talking about a case if it is only contributing something in society and not addressing the need for which the brand or product was created that would not be the case. But the fundamental assumption here is that there is product parity. So, each product is delivering on a certain promise. Over and above that, if it identifies with a certain cause then that cause affects a certain set of people and they get associated with the brand that is the benefit. Is there a direct correlation to sales? No. But if they do that consistently, repeatedly and if they are seen as doing that, it has a long term impact on sales.

     

  • Josep Montserrat, Global CEO at Kantar Worldpanel and K Ramakrishnan,GM & Country Head, IMRB Kantar Worldpanel talk on the issue

    The Importance of Penetration in a Brand’s Success

     

    At last Consumer Connections 2016 conference, organised by IMRB, Josep Montserrat, Global CEO at Kantar Worldpanel and K Ramakrishnan, General Manager and Country Head – Household Panel at IMRB Kantar Worldpanel spoke with Anuka Roy about how the importance of penetration for a brand to succeed. Excerpts from the discussion:

     

    About Brand Footprint and Penetration

    Josep Montserrat (JM): Penetration is basically about how many people are buying your brand. The metric that we analyse here is how many interactions the consumer has with your brand, and how many times has your brand has been bought by a consumer. It is a matter of penetration: How many people and how often are they buying it? When we analyse that, we see the brands that have raised the number of times buyers have bought them. The top leaders, and the brands that have grown more in terms of consumer reach points, have done so because of increased penetration. Considering the size of the population that we are measuring, which is a billion households, one per cent penetration translates into 10 million people.

    K Ramakrishnan (KR): The basis on which Brand Footprint works is Penetration. It looks at the population size you are trying to reach and the penetration the brand has — at least what percentage of them has had access to your product in the last year, and also how often they have used them. So, to that extent, there is no other ranking which tries to take these into account. They may take some other brand parameters into account, but this one specifically considers the extent to which a brand has penetrated a household. That becomes the biggest point on which it is based, and also the things that makes it different.

     

    On Penetration as a yardstick

    JM: I would say it is much more relevant in India than any other country because here, consumer backgrounds and hence choices, differ depending on geographies. What are the drivers and initiatives that you can put in place in India to win penetration, is different in other markets. Considering penetration of the products and the brand and the population can afford is a key driver for the success of the brand. There is an increasing trend of marketers to rate penetration as one of the key metrics in their scorecards in a way of measuring success in terms of the initiatives they have put in place and more we have clients at the local level and global level, that they put the penetrating and go to the CEOs to see the brand performance.

    KR: Loyalty is important and penetration is important. But if you consider growth of brands, the brands that have grown, what have they improved on? Have they improved on penetration or have they improved on loyalty? At this point, it is clearly established that penetration is what is leading to growth. In that sense, there is really no clash. Therefore it is not a competition. The relevance in India for something like a Brand Footprint is very clear; the new measure or the new metric by which brands are getting assessed is actually penetration, which means the number of new customers they have, the extent to which you are able to reach. If that is the case, and if this is becoming a metric globally — and in India many brands are taking it on — then there is clearly no other metric which can tell them well enough about their standing, apart from Brand Footprint.

     

    On Penetration and Mass Media Advertising

    JM: There is no general rule to see how much mass media advertising has impacted penetration. Of course, we have services and solutions that allow the marketers to understand that by investing in advertising — either digital or offline — what is the effect in purchase behaviours. Not only in terms of sale, but also growth due to new people engagement by the brand, or an increase in buying frequency. Advertising is important because you need to be in the mind of the consumer.

    KR: If anything, it has only added to it. Brand salience already exists because of the brand’s presence in media. Then the presence of these brands on the digital media. Third, the discussion about these brands on social media. If you add all these things together, it is only about building salience, in my view.

     

    First appeared in dna of brands on July 18

     

  • The tool allows brands and advertisers to understand the real impact of individual advertising campaigns on actual sales

    Kantar partners with Facebook to expand advertising measurement service

    By A Correspondent

     

    Kantar Worldpanel has formed a global partnership with Facebook that brings Facebook mobile ad exposure data into Kantar Worldpanel’s Consumer Mix Model (CMM) service. The enhanced CMM tool combines Facebook’s mobile ad exposure data (in addition to desktop) with Kantar Worldpanel’s continuous consumer packaged goods (CPG) purchase data to provide brands with an accurate assessment of the effectiveness of their cross-media advertising campaigns.

     

    The advertising landscape has witnessed rapid change in recent years as brands increasingly turn to digital formats. In April Facebook announced that its advertising revenue had grown by 57 percent to $5.2 billion in the first quarter of 2016 alone, with advertisers drawn to its increasingly large user base.

     

    The tool allows brands and advertisers to understand the real impact of individual advertising campaigns on actual sales and the contribution Facebook and other media have on their return on investment.This in turn will help them to optimise their media planning and ultimately improve the efficiency of their media investment.

     

    Josep Montserrat, chief executive of Kantar Worldpanel, comments: “The partnership allows our experts to build a solid understanding of how advertising works and the role that Facebook plays in a wider campaign context.  Working with Facebook will allow us to inspire even better decisions to optimise advertising budgets and maximise advertisers’ return on investment.”

     

    Patrick Harris, director of Global Agency Development at Facebook, said: “We believe that strong partnerships with our agency partners are key to providing advertisers with the tools they need to measure true business value on Facebook.  We are excited to help inform Kantar Worldpanel’s Consumer Mix Model solution by bringing in our mobile ad exposure data in a privacy-safe way.”

     

    Kantar Worldpanel’s continuous CPG purchase panels are already widely used by the advertising community worldwide to understand the effect of cross-media advertising.  Its measures take into account in-store promotions and consumer loyalty to determine the full picture behind consumer purchase behaviour.

     

    Kantar Worldpanel’s new service is now available in the UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, India, South Korea and Taiwan, with additional Asia Pacific and Latin American countries to follow throughout 2016.