Mobile device sale website 91mobiles rounded up its ‘Pledge to Recycle’ campaign last week with over 10,000 pledges. Focusing on creating nationwide awareness about phone recycling, the campaign was launched in May this year in partnership with organisations such as Karo Sambhav, Cashify, Noise, Oppo, Qualcomm and Zest Money. It was conceptualised and distributed by BoringBrands, the digital communications agency. The campaign kicked off with a survey to understand smartphone users’ inclination for e-waste recycling.
Commenting on the campaign, Nitin Mathur, Co-founder & CEO, 91Mobiles.com said: “The problem of electronic waste is a global debate today, and a lot of brands have taken up the responsibility to spread awareness about the cause within their ecosystems. Our campaign Pledge to Recycle was focused at reaching out to smartphone users in the country, and build awareness for e-recycling. We would like to thank all partners for joining hands with us. This campaign has been a great success, and we would like to take up such causes more often in the near future.”
Added Aakriti Bhargava, Co-Founder and CEO of BoringBrands: “Having worked with the startup and investor ecosystem for more than nine years now, we understand the need to constantly innovate and create exciting campaigns for brands.”
Chief Executive Officers of FMCG companies and market research firm are at loggerheads yet again, this time over what is an accurate measure of current growth in consumption.
Nielsen data suggests the industry is experiencing a strong revival now, compared to last year which witnessed the slowest growth in a decade. It estimates that FMCG sales grew 11.8% in the first nine months of this calendar year compared to the 6.8% growth the industry experienced during the same months of 2014.
But CEOs of FMCG companies dismiss these estimates as faulty. The market researcher is overestimating growth and is not capturing pricecuts accurately, they argue. “There are no signs of improvement and the market is not supporting demand revival,†said Sunil Duggal, CEO of Dabur.
“We are well into the festive season and two weeks away from Diwali, but there’s no visible uptick in consumption. The outlook continues to look challenging,†he added.
“Our sense is that demand revival is still a few quarters away,†the chairman of another leading foods maker said. “Nielsen is over reporting growth.â€
Dabur on Wednesday, reported a 5% domestic volume growth during the quarter ended September, but managed an 18.7% increase in consolidated net profit to Rs 341 crore.
During the same period, HUL, Dabur and Jyothy Laboratories all reported sales growth that was substantially lower than the previous year. Godrej Consumer Products, with a slight improvement in revenue growth, was the only exception. Other companies are yet to announce their last quarter results.
Sanjiv Mehta
A fortnight ago, HUL’s CEO Sanjiv Mehta had said that Nielsen has failed to capture sales trend accurately for a year now. It is still showing price inflation when most companies are taking price cuts to post higher volume growth, not value growth, he had argued.
Nielsen though is singing a different tune. “2015 has seen revival of conspicuous consumption. Positive macro environment, lower inflation and consumer confidence is leading to improved consumption across all key FMCG categories,†Vijay Udasi, senior VP, Nielsen India said. Nielsen said price growth rose 3.9% during last nine months ended September compared to 4.7% last year. However, companies including HUL, Procter & Gamble and Nestle have all taken average 10% price-cuts on most products from detergents and shampoo to dairy after commodity (crude oil and LAB) prices declined by 20- 50%. This, in turn, boosted growth for companies such as HUL and Godrej Consumers that saw last quarter performance entirely driven by volume growth.
Consumer goods companies and Nielsen have had a love-hate relationship since more than five years, after HUL first disputed its data in 2009 when Nielsen contradicted the consumer product maker’s internal estimates as well as data from other research firms. Yet, most companies use their data regularly during presentations, especially when it shows an increased market share for their brands.
But some are hopeful. “We remain optimistic that as the economy improves, the FMCG sector should see a gradual uptick in demand,†said Adi Godrej, chairman, Godrej Group, after reporting 9% increase in sales for the domestic market. The growth was entirely volume-led.
Stockmarket analysts are enthused by growing sales, but they are trimming their profit estimates due to price-cuts. Still, the MSCI India Consumer Staples Index is currently trading at a 12-month forward price-to-earning ratio of 32.5x, a.29% premium to its 10 year average.
“Despite sturdy commodity tailwind benefits, the sector’s margin expansion has not been striking. These elevated valuations warrant our cautious stance,†said Nitin Mathur, an analyst at French financial services firm Societe Generale.
The Blue Frog venue in central Mumbai played host to the fourth independently held Yahoo Big Idea Chair India Awards 2013. The flagship Big Idea Chair was awarded to IBS Unified for conceptualizing ‘Hyper Personalization – the world’s first CRM powered Display campaign’ for Tata Docomo. Meanwhile, GroupM agencies won the highest number of awards at the Yahoo! Big Chair Awards 2013. Â The awards this year saw 426 entries from 61 agencies representing work for 137 brands and recognized creativity, innovation and imagination displayed in digital media.
This year, the award invited entries across nine categories: Display Advertising, Online Video Advertising, Social Media, Technology (best use), Mobile Advertising, Search, Digital 360 degree, Content Marketing and the Flagship Yahoo Big Idea Chair. A 11- member jury judged the entries that represented work for 137 brands
On winning the award, Sabyasachi Mitter, Managing Director, IBS Unified said “We are absolutely delighted to have been awarded the prestigious Yahoo Big Idea Chair. Clearly, digital has tremendous potential for innovation, and we are excited about setting the bar high.”
Nitin Mathur
Nitin Mathur, Senior Director & Head of Marketing, India & South-east Asia, Yahoo said “Yahoo Big Idea Chair India Awards has become an important annual milestone for the industry. It always throws up highly creative and impactful work, where agencies and brands are breaking grounds with newer possibilities in digital advertising.”
Speaking on the GroupM wins, Tushar Vyas, Managing Partner- South Asia, GroupM Interaction said, “Over the last year, the digital teams across the GroupM agencies have been winning an award every other day, a testament to the great work and innovations the teams are churning out for our clients. It is great to end the year with six more awards to add to our tally of 204.â€
GroupM Interaction won the Gold for Best Use of Technology for the Heineken Inner Voice Campaign. Maxus India won four awards including three Silvers and one Bronze. The Silvers were won in the following categories, Best Content Marketing Award for the Mentos Riddle campaign, Best Use of Display for Mathrubhumi Printing and Publishing Co. Ltd and Best Use of Mobile Advertising for the Tata Sky campaign. MEC Global took home one Bronze for the Colgate Mahakumbh Mela activity. Added Unny Radhakrishnan, Head of Digital, Maxus, “We are happy for the continuing recognition of our work and also that these awards span different verticals in digital as well as a wide range of brands.â€
In other categories, Viacom 18 won the Digital 360 degree award for ‘MTV India Roadies X’ campaign; Ogilvy & Mather walked away with the Gold for their campaign ‘Blood Search Made Easy’ for Red Cross; PHD took home the Gold for Best Content Marketing for the ‘Ramp Ready Hair’ campaign for Hindustan Lever Limited while the Best Use of Mobile Advertising was clinched by Indigo Consulting & Leo Burnett for the ‘Donate your Caller Tune’ campaign for World Health Organization; IBS won the Gold for Best Use of Display Advertising for ‘Hyper Personalization’ campaign for Tata Docomo; Ogilvy & Mather took home the Silver in Video Advertising Category for Cadbury Bourneville and IProspect Communicate2 walked away with the Gold for Best with Best Use of Search.
Yahoo! India announced the jury for the 2013 edition of the much-awaited Yahoo Big Idea Chair Awards, and we aren’t too happy about the composition. While it is the web company’s prerogative on who should constitute the jury, we don’t think it’s a wise decision to have its own marketing head being part of the judging process. As per the names sent to MxMIndia, we found a mention of Nitin Mathur, Senior Director Marketing – India and South East Asia at Yahoo occupying pride of place, albeit at the end of the list.
While we do not question the credibility of Mr Mathur, who is a seasoned marketing professional having worked with Yahoo since 2007 and earlier with Sapient, Times Internet, Indiainfo.com and Sahara India, the presence of the organiser which is also a media vehicle brings in questions of a possible bias creeping in. Potential winners of the Big Idea Chair award may also be advertisers of the Yahoo platform and therein lies the conflict.
> Manu Jain, Co-founder and Managing Director, Jabong.com
> Nikhil Rungta, Chief Business Officer, Yebhi.com
> Praveen Gupta, Head – Digital Business, Tata Docomo
> Ranajit Ghosh, Head of Media,PR , Digital operation and Brand Essenza Di Wills, ITC Personal Care
The winners of the Yahoo Big Idea Chair Awards India will be announced sometime this month. For more information on Big Idea Chair, check www.bigideachair.in
By A Correspondent [updated]