The Finishing Touch!!!

So now I complete this blogging season by focusing on one of the important topics that we started with, The Pester Power. I have clearly expressed in all the blogs the importance of Pester power and how it helps all the marketers, product developers etc. However one of the important and necessary thing has not been so far discussed.

Is pester power good or not ?

As far as pester power does not create any mental agony and family tensions, it is always good from marketing perspective. However, one of the ethical discomfort is that of making the parent to shell out unwanted money due to this effect and thus feel bad, not for buying a product which they may not be using, but for this unwanted money drain.

So, how to avoid it ?

So it is quite important at this juncture, for me to suggest parents some aspects about the Pestering Power and how to avoid them from happening, so that parents don't fall in fight with sellers!

These are just some arbitrary suggestions which may or may not work well any particular individual, but is generic enough to suit for a wide range of audience.

• It is better to calmly explain the children "The value of money", rather than directly shouting at them for some pestering.
• When you say no, mean it. If your kids know that you will eventually cave in they will keep trying. This can be the hardest thing to do. But just remember you are saying no for a reason. :)
• Even in case of saying no, try to show your child you understand how they feel. This is important that as once the child knows that you understand for her/him, they may possibly not pester again.
• Get away from the habit of buying something every time you go out and If you know your child will start asking for a new toy, take one of their favourites in your bag to distract them. :)
• Ahem, Don’t say yes unless you mean it! Since, the word "Yes", is very precious, don't ever utter the word unless you are very confident of saying so.
• I think that no behavioral modifications are really necessary in changing this behavior which has existed in humanity for eons. Following only these simple points while going for shopping is sufficient!!!

Parenting in US

Now that we saw the parenting characteristics in India and about the developments and the changes that happen in India, let us now focus on the impact of parenting and its effects and affects for the young children in United States, to just understand the variation and similarity
with the global scenario.

In US, examining the impact of Parenting, developmental psychologists have found themselves on the defensive. It was a bit strange to find that the parents had little or absolutely no influence on the characteristics of their children. In particular in majority of the cases, parents lack to shape the children's personality and long-term development. Putting together evidence from several areas of psychology and sociology, an US Researcher Harris concluded that " Personality in US is shaped by the experiences children have outside the home--in particular, experiences with peers--and that any similarities between parents and children are due to shared genes and a shared culture". Her ideas garnered widespread media attention, including an oft-cited article in The New Yorker.

True, that is what the things that are actually happening in the United States. Children are more influenced by the peer activities and most of characteristics get molded only with the peers, while in contrast in India, children's behavior is influenced majorly by the activities done at home or the profession and occupation of the parents. In many cases in US, the children when they are mostly at home, their character gets molded by the activities of their parents and their occupation.

The major researches done to find the importance of parenting in US, came with the following reasoning :

• Along with parenting style and disciplinary approaches, parents influence the schools their children attend, the foods they eat and even the neighborhood--by choice or circumstances--in which they grow up, but this can be only until a very young age, much lesser than that of the Indian Scenario.
• Today, however, most researchers have become more sophisticated in their theories and studies and examine parenting as one of many factors influencing child development.
  

"We now see parenting less in terms of simple parent-to-child influence, and more as a set of interactive processes whereby parents and children react to each other and influence each other from the moment a child is born," writes Stanford University's Eleanor Maccoby, PhD.

• The behavioral genetics work finds that genes account for as much as 50 percent of the variance in certain behavioral traits and that siblings' shared environment--the home and parenting--has little influence on these traits.
• Maccoby, unlike other researchers, shows that a given parenting style can have different effects on children with different temperaments.
• The result is that parenting can function to make children in the same family different rather than alike.
  
  In terms of academics, some eminent research studies suggest that 50 percent of the variation between high-and low-functioning children results from influences that occur before children enter school. But even the half that results from influences after children start school may be mediated by family factors. For example, some prominent researchers find that social skills, including a child's ability to sit still and concentrate, have an effect on academic performance. So does it in anyway suggest that parenting has got to do with children's academics and obviously their career ? Research are yet to prove that!

SOURCES: Article "How do Parents Matter ? " in American Psychology Association website, www.apa.org

Parenting and Children

So far, I have been discussing on pestering and all activities that are in a way or more related to the pestering process.
Now we shall focus on the following topics:
1. Parenting from the traditional Indian Scenario.
2. Changing characteristics of parenting in the present scenario and to identify the causes and effects.
3. To identify if there is any similarity or paradigm shift in parenting culture of NRIs settled abroad.



Traditional Indian Parenting: Traditionally Indian parenting revolves around the fact that, parents take utmost interest in all decisions which the child makes. It was more towards Hyper-Parenting, but the area where such scenario prevailed were restricted to:

• Marriage
• Place of work
• Type of work
• Religious Ceremonies

These can be mainly attributed to the fact that, the society was quite conservative. In addition to this, the decision making of the children were controlled probably in their early adulthood where, the children meet a lot of people and increase their societal conduit.

Present Scenario:

In present day scenario the things look quite different. We find that, there has seriously been a paradigm shift. The children feel, they have a lot of freedom and independence and try to achieve whatever they admire.
Even here there are a few cases wherein, Hyper-Parenting works like:

• The school where the child joins.
• Arranging for tuition classes.

These two are only some of the illustrative reasons,there can be more too. As such, the point is Hyper-Parenting works perfectly during the early ages or the formative age of the children. The present generation majorly cannot be restricted by the parents on the bride/bridegroom to choose or the profession he/she wants to take and so on.

Let us now try to identify the causes and the effects of such paradigm shift in the behavior of the Indian parents. Firstly, the increasing awareness about everything in general through mass media has made the people to think in more broader sense. Secondly, the growing economy with higher growth potential in not one, but many sectors, increased the people's opportunity in any sector that they want to work with. For eg: the cliche of India people thinking that only Government jobs are lucrative has been demurred with the growing opportunity and pay of software jobs. Thirdly, in many houses both the parents themselves have started working, thereby the amount of time that they spend with their children is reduced and even if not both parents are working, the "quality time" spent has reduced for sure. One reason can be the growing proliferation of TV Serials!

Well, then what about the NRIs ? How are their parenting characteristics looking like ? We shall find out in the next post , the Behavior of Indian NRI parents and how that varies with the Present Indian Scenario and even with the present scenario in foreign countries.

Pester Power and Purchase

After so many discussions on identifying the types of marketing opportunities and substitutes for Pester Power, we now look at the most important which is nothing but the purchase process. As such it is very important for the marketers to identify the cross relation between the Product's involvement and the brand preferences for the product as specified by the customer.

Let us now understand it conceptually by focusing on the "Pester Power Influence Matrix" for all the product varities and understand how it affects the Pester Agents in finally concluding their purchase process.

The Matrix is specific to the Indian consumers and it is quite peculiar to find atleast some products in each of the quadrants for any of the product variety. Thus, we find that for the Pester Agents, i.e., the young children, the products having high brand preference and high brand influence includes, Gizmo's, Games, Movies etc. As such from the previous blogs also we find from the sales figures that these product ranges command maximum expenditure from the Indian children in general and Tweens in particular.

Some of the important inferences that one can infer from this Matrix includes:

1. Identifying the product tyes having the Lowest Brand Preference- Lowest Influence and thereby not wasting the advertsing expenditure on targeting the young children.
2. Identifying the High Brand Preference - High Influence category and thereby thereby targeting exclusively these children in order to make them like our brand and become loyal to our brand.
3. Identifying High Influence - Low Brand Preference criteria and positioning our new brand or re-positioning our already existing products thereby making the purchase process and long term loyalty also being developed.
4. Identifying the products or services with a low influence and high brand preference, so that the marketers can then keep working on making the product

More on Tweens and Marketing

We have tried and discussed some of the psycho graphic characteristics of Tweens at length in the previous blog itself. In this blog we will look at more marketing insights for the marketers as far as Tween market goes. TWEENS

In every segmentation, we may find that there will be sub-segmentation done, in order to understand the segment of people carefully, Similarly, many marketers have developed some psychograhic sub-segments for analysing the characteristics of the Tweens. Some of them are as follows:

1. Edges– Anti fashion, independent trendsetters, re-invent old products, thus the Edges are group who prefer to make their own independent decisions and make new trends.
2. Persuaders- New trends, cool, style conscious
3. Followers- Follow persuaders, low self esteem, not cool
4. Reflexives- Lack self esteem, seek social acceptance. Thus their purchase will be mostly towards what other people in their society buy or tend to buy.

Moving further, let us look at some of the core values that are very sacrosanct atleast as far as the modern growing Indian tween children are concerned. We have also briefly described some f their values in some previous blogs as well.

The characteristics exhibited by the Tweens include following six major attributes.

• Fear: Fear of monsters or the fear of going around in the dark, can lead the Tweens to make some decisions and not make some other decisions.
• Fantasy: Dream or the fantasy of attaining the power and spirit of any great super hero makes the children to behave in an entirely new way. For Eg: Children, jumping from the terraces saying that they have attained the power of Shaktimaan and trying to imitate all his characteristics.

• Stability: When there is some level of peace and sanctity at home, the behavior of children will be different from when there is always fight, minor tiffs at home.
• Love: Modern day children have started showing signs of love and likeliness for all products and people from from a very early age onwards. This value is the most crucial since, it helps to identify the values that are important for the Tweens and identify if it varies with short spans of time say, within a few years.
• Humour: As with this age, these children have a lot of humour and they enjoy and nourish all sorts of humour.
• Mastery: Rather than Jack of all trades, these children prefer to be Masters of all trade and would enjoy to master in all the expertise as they prefer to have. Having supreme power and the ability to control are highly important for these children

We will further discuss all the other characteristics and involvement levels of Tweens in various activities that they involve in the next posts . :)

SOURCES:

1. Tween Power, article from Business Today, January 1, 2006

2. Research Insights and Frameworks from www.insightory.com

Tween Marketing

It is now very important to understand the different age groups of children and to identify if there is some usual changes in the characteristics and lifetsyles habits and behaviors. Many researchers have found that such segmentations are possible and that majorly gives rise to age group segmentation as follows:

We shall now look specifically at the "Tweens" lifestage which is quite significant. Tweens are quite important for marketers in a sense they a mix of both Kids and Teens. They have a composite combination and as the people change with changing times, it is very much possible that the children directly go towards the Tweens segment even skipping a separate segment called Kids, since they want to experience the thrill of being a Teen even at Kid's Stage.

Specifically this term refers to the children of age group 7 - 14 years and this term was popularised by Limited Too and Justice Ltd. Now the following illustration makes the point clear on why Tweens must be the target market for marketers.

What and How Much Indian Tweens spent on (Rs. in crores)

Thus it really makes sense in the Indian context to view this separate market which can contribute a lot of sales. As the table shows, the expenditure on Gizmo's and other electronic substances like Sony PlayStation, etc. amount to a whooping figure of 4650 Crores!

The highest expenditure happens in the apparel industry and most of the Ready-made retailers have profited in such opportunities. Thus there are now separate range of dresses for young girls called "Barbie" dresses and more of aspirational clothing has also become the talk of the town!

An excellent illustration of this fact is that, Saravana Stores, one of the low cost Readymade Garments retail giant in Chennai, for marketing its Aishwaryam range of sarees has gone in for, including even "Tweens" as shown in the AD. Thus the Tween market importance is being identified by the Indian Majors and all the marketing opportunities have been clearly utilised. In addition to that, as this advertisement shows, a new emerging range of textiles with creative designs for the tweens has also come up. This is more often to meet the latent demand of the tweens, rather than creating a new market, because,

the basic characteristics of the Tweens includes being extraordinary, trying the new and latest flavors and designs and basically to experiment with all possible deviations from the ordinary!

Not alone Textiles, almost all branded snacks and other Food products have also gone in for such paradigm shift in their way of thinking after understanding the potential of Tweens. We shall discuss in the next post about the sub-segmentation of Tweens and analysing the Core values of Tweens, their level of high and low involvement in purchase criteria and the level of brand loyalty that they have. Basically, I mean In-depth marketing study of Tweens!!!
SOURCES:

1. Wikipedia.com

2. Business Today, article on "Tween Power", dated January 1, 2006.

Beyond Pester Power

We have so far focused on how marketers target young kids with Pester Power effects and we have also seen how this has a deep impact on the sales of the products advertised in such manner. Now it is very important to identify if, Pester Power is the only method of targeting children. If you ask me, I'd say, it is obviously not!! Yes, Pester Power may be sufficient for creating the purchase process but not for sustainable basis like creating a brand consumer base. So, let us look at all the other options available with the Marketers for targeting in Brief

1) Street Marketing: This is a type of buzz marketing wherein, the marketers try their stint at advertising their products on streets and try to reach the young audience. It can have a response, especially from the young audience, since they are most vulnerable to watching, rather observing with clear acumen what is happening in their surroundings and can respond quickly based on the needs and the necessities.

2) Building Brand "Name" Loyalty: This is very peculiar way of addressing the young customers. Care should be taken here to note that, it is not Building Brand Loyalty. It is building brand "Name" Loyalty. Thus the children must be influenced to have a clear understanding of the brand name and have higher recall and recognition about the product advertised. Though, it has some relevance to Pester Power, but since children can make a purchase on their own, having the brand loyalty, it is very important to have it. This is particularly more important for the product launches which the marketers want to create a lot of attention amongst the young audience. For eg: Airing the Bingo Ad, during the cricket world cup, a large number of times definitely has created a brand recall and Brand "Name" Loyalty among young audience, if not actually the "Brand Loyalty".

3) Complimentary Samples in Schools: It is very important to bring in complimentary samples in Schools, as during the course of their education children read a lot of stuff and come to know a varied levels of facts and information. So imparted the qualities and attributes of the target product in school itself will definitely make a leveraging chance for the marketers. For Eg: Milo usually gives a free sample of drink(With Cold Milk) to school children in most of the Schools in south India , at a rapid phase even in between the times when the classes are going on. This is a good alternative marketing strategy for reaching the children.

4) Internet Marketing: With a rapid proliferation of Internet and other high technology and mass media, marketers have started reaching these means of communication also. The advertisements like yahoo featured Ads saying that new mail ID can be created in your own name with name@ymail.com or name@rocketmail.com grabs the attention and aspiration of the young minds to create their own mail IDs.

5) Marketing through Adult Explicits (Pornography): Another important area of business is marketing through the adult explicits, since many a research suggests that sexual materials grab a lot of attention fro the kids and the teens equally. Thus launching or advertising any products with sexual contexts can make a huge business for the company. This may not be any ethical way of conducting business, but definitely makes the marketers churn huge revenues.

So, in the present generation, a careful selection of targeting strategies and way of approaching the kids is quintessential to reach the children in the most ethical ways.