Ethnographic design research in West Bengal

We finished our ethnographic design research with West Bengal. The preparation was very chaotic; we were having great difficulties to find people to interview. At last our friend Sunil Barik from Delhi introduced us to a wonderful couple from Kolkata who helped us very much.



Alike Tamil Nadu, West Bengal has a kind of self-sufficient social life where people enjoy local and regional relationship without the need for extending their relationship to other states or countries. Among the people we interviewed we found that they had less of interaction with other states or cultures. Nevertheless, Bengali’s are warm and welcoming people.

Arjun and Shankhamita, are youth entrepreneurs in Kolkata. They helped us in reaching people for our study, occasionally translating interviews in Bengali language. Arjun’s family lives at the centre of Kolkata. Their house is very pleasant and reflects the cultural richness of the family.

We have now taken more than 100 interviews in North India. Most of the time my wife, Melina conducted the interview in either English or Hindi for around 45 minutes. The quickest interview we took was for 22 minutes and the longest was more than 3 hours, but both interviews were rich and insightful. Time is not a factor.

During the interview I took down notes, recorded the conversation and took number of environment pictures. In villages, people use slangs what makes the communication difficult. In these cases, we took the services of local interpreters who participated to the discussion and corrected any miss-interpretations. For conducting the interview we had a large set of questions structured in such a way that we could get the key information at different levels of interview. This protocol is the fruit of extensive research and testing we did at the initial stage of our initiative.



Arjun is a kind of person who can appreciate anyone’s personality and views without judgment. He is a good human being and knows a huge diversity of people he meets across his business activity. We asked him to introduce us to various people from high to low level background, so that we could get a true picture of the Bengali population. Arjun is an excellent orator; realist by nature. I like very much the way he depicts his culture with coldness and admiration.



Bengal has been deeply influenced by the communist culture. Many people give importance to the government and do not like when you present your initiatives as “private”. That makes our research difficult since it is important for us to understand the aspirations of those people and how they want things to evolute. After they understand the social benefits of our project they were willing to speak.


We found Bollywood pictures very efficient to understand how people project themselves in future. What are their social aspirations and dreams? Sometimes people’s choices totally contradicted what they said in response to our interview questions and provided clues to understand the choc points.


Thanks to McDonalds for allowing us to interview 2 of their busy staff members. Awful things have been written about this company’s work culture; on the other hand we found their work culture as a positive impact on their staff’s willingness. Farah told us how her job has made her more confident in life. She has higher expectations towards the future and plans for a better life. In Kolkata also the corporate culture has an impact on people’s life.



It is difficult to finish an interview without a group picture. Children were inquisitive to know what we were doing around but it is always a pleasure to share our experience with them. Bengal would remain one of the best places we have seen in India.



We had the great pleasure to take the interview of Mr. S. K. Das who has been the MD, CEO of several group of companies in India. Mr. Das has passion for progress and prosperity for our country. He is an ardent writer. Quite of his writings, short stories, poems, articles on management have been published in leading journals and newspapers. He has also received awards in Delhi in 1991 and 1996 for excellence in Industrial Management. After retirement in 2002, he is associated with several groups as Chairman / Vice Chairman of Board of Directors. At the age of 73, he is still active and continues to advice industrialist and political leaders like Mr. Ratan Tata, Dr. Debesh Das. He also has the privilege of correspondence with Mrs. Sonia Gandhi. Besides his career as a businessman, he has also helped more than 400 people in getting employment and means of subsistence through his association.



Sumit has a double Masters in History from a reputed university. He could work for some university or a multinational in Kolkata but he prefers to concentrate on what is really important for him. Sumit gives tuition of Indian history and spirituality. He takes only students who are really passionate about the subject and can appreciate the transcendental value of his teaching. Sumit told us how to re-interpret Indian classical history in the modern world. What lessons we have taken from Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and his disciples. He also paints and sculpts images of gods and deities according to the tradition of his gurus.


We would like to thank the below mentioned people who have enormously helped us in realising our research in North India:
Amit - Hyderabad
Arjun and Shankhamita - Kolkata
Arun and Maggie - Mumbai
Ashish and Monu - Jaipur
Saurabh’s family - Siyana
Sonam’s parents – Pune
Sunil - Bangalore
Sunil - Delhi

We meet hundreds of wonderful people from various backgrounds and culture. It is materially difficult to keep in touch with everyone but you stay in our hearts forever.
You all are most welcome to Bangalore!

If you would like to be informed about the publication of the North India Consumer Trends Report, drop us a line in this Kovent’s contact form

Ethnographic research in North India

Our ethnographic research took us to Siyana a small town located at 3.5 hours from Nizamuddin railway station. We were staying at my friend’s place whose parents live there. From the roof top of the house we could see the green belt that delimitates the town.

Most of the people in Siyana have small businesses; one of the main businesses was agriculture. Electricity comes few hours a day only. People who have better standard of living can afford to have invertor or generator to keep the machines and fans running. Of course, no one uses air conditioner as that would be too expensive. We had a walk around when we reached the town. We were not accompanied with any local fellow. People were looking very strangely at us since they understood we are not from the town. One person came and asked us where we are from? As we started speaking with him more people joined with 1000 of questions. We had to run away as our presence was generating traffic jam in the market. Still we had a nice visit and enjoyed interacting with the local population.

We started with our research the first day itself. The family who received us were very helpful in introducing us to people around. Being in a small town it was easy to reach a large diversity of profiles from business people to employees, teachers, workers, farmers, etc. In Siyana, people hardly get opportunities to speak with outsiders. So, they were very much interested to speak and know about us. Many a times it happened that youth guys came up to asked me to speak about my country. This made our work pleasant but longer since we had to establish trust and build relationship with people before starting any interview or field observation.

The first interview we did was in a small village around Siyana that caught the interest of everyone. Ayan the person we interviewed was comfortable in speaking in front of everyone. This type of interview shared with the community had an advantage.
It helped us in understanding the difference between individual motivations and what is commonly accepted by the group. More than anyone else, villagers need to justify their behaviour to the community they belong to. Ayan considered himself as a rich person since he worked for a corporate company for a couple of years. He explained to his community the social necessity of having a fashionable lifestyle working at ICICI Bank.

Villagers were explaining us the interest and necessity of having multiple sources of income in the family. Ayan cannot think of closing his business even if he gets a permanent job at ICICI Bank. “Job is a short term solution; you never know how long the company is going to run”.
Villagers have 4 to 5 regular businesses they pass on to each other as time and opportunities come. Basically, more you go at the bottom of the pyramid more the source of income is diversified. Since many people have lost their faith in the corporate world the small business thinking gains the interest of the overall population.

Middle class behaviour is quiet predictable in towns and villages. Being at the edge between modernity and tradition, middle class are pushed in developing strong ideas about what is good and what is bad. Mostly, they are well informed and leave less space to subjectivity.

At one evening we had the great pleasure to attending a party given for a new born baby. There was nothing traditional but Bollywood music, food and drinks… we all had great fun. Coming back home was an adventure since there was no light anywhere. We had to walk in queue behind uncle’s torchlight till we reached home.

After interviewing 34 people in towns and villages we went to Ghaziabad, New Delhi and Gurgaon. My wife Melina felt in love with Gurgaon shopping malls. The most happening place she found in India so far.

In towns and villages people’s lifestyle evolutes in a linear way. It is always a kind of compromise between tradition and modernity and the whole family follows a similar pattern with different level of understanding.

But in New Delhi people follow a pattern that is much more based on their individual life experience. People’s lifestyle is the fruit of a long process of individual liberation where personal reflection matters a lot.

“I have reached this level of thinking because of…”
“I had to change something about myself and I did it…”
“Knowledge is painful you can never stop rethinking the world around of you”
Etc.

People have no fear in experimenting themselves to access to a better way of being. This long process for discovering the “Who am I?” is very much influential on their way of living.

Kovent’s North India consumer trends will speak about how the “Who am I?” attitude influences consumption pattern in North India. What are the keys factors to implement innovation and respond to consumer’s aspirations? Innovation always question consumers; our next report will provide you the right question for the right user group.

Family continues to occupy a central role in people’s pre-occupation. But, there also we found new behaviours in all layers of the society. We used a set of pictures representing Bollywood actors and actresses in different roles and personality. It is interesting to see how people reinterpret family values in today’s society. How they project their role model from the past to the future.

Our North India trip was a wonderful experience. We interviewed 83 peoples with 62 hours of recorded interview. There is a report available on http://www.kovent.com/

Ethnographic research in Maharashtra

We took the train from Chennai to Mumbai. It was a very long journey of around 24 hours. Our son Zaidin enjoyed waking-up in the train instead of his house with so much of people and noise around. He was happy being the attraction of everyone around for a day. Personally, I wanted to see the landscape between Chennai to Mumbai, what you can never see while travelling by plane. We went through so many small towns and villages, kilometres and kilometres of land totally deserted.

We reached on 23rd March and started interviewing people the next day. Since we lived in Mumbai before we were not surprised to see how different the interviews would be from South. Our researches in North India leave more space for individualism, intellectual reflection and dream comparatively to South India that always sticks to reality.

The interview protocol in North includes many subjects related to personality and self expression. We are still testing the relevance of our questions remotely before starting a long series of travel across the North Indian states. Thanks to Quillpad, the translation of our interview protocol in Hindi has become much easier.

The pre-research included 2 sorts of techniques focus group and individual interviews.

The place we are conducting the research is Kurla (West). Initially Kurla was a peaceful village away from Mumbai with beautiful residences and churches. As Mumbai grew, Kurla became part of Mumbai suburbs and Kurla got very much populated.

On one side of the village is the church, at the other side is the mosque. In between there is a couple of temples. Different communities co-habit easily with each other particularly the youth for whom friendship has no boundaries.

Children are doing their first communion these days at Holy Cross Church. There are many chapels in the village where people gather at the evening for religious activity and prayer.

These pavilions let you imagine the kind of lifestyle Christian people were having few decades ago in this area.

Most pavilions have been replaced by smaller habitation as the village got more populated.

Hindus have couple of temples in the village. Their population is lesser and mostly from Maharashtra.

The Muslim area is dominated by green colour. Even boards are written in Hindi and Urdu characters.

Near by Holy Cross Church, Kohinoor city is taking shape. The round tower is Kohinoor’s shopping mall. Behind will be the business centre and nearly 1500 habitations.

As of now there are very few people living in Kohinoor city that is still under construction. I am curious to see what the atmosphere will be after Kohinoor’s population joins the area.

Colgate's Suraksha Chakra growing strong in rural India

Rapid change in lifestyles, improving infrastructure and rising income have altered consumption patterns not only in urban but also in the rural areas. Growing demand for high-quality personal care products has been one of the main reasons for the shift in consumption patterns. In the past, product marketing has remained primarily an urban phenomenon, but in recent years due to the increasing education levels and increased awareness created through media, the rural market has been growing as well. Increasing brand consciousness and expanded disposable incomes are jacking up the appetite for these products.



Companies have long realised that to increase sales volume they will have to reach outside big cities. In several categories, rural India accounts for the lion's share. Rural households form around 72% of the total households in the country. Spending in this segment is growing rapidly and consumption patterns are closing in on those in urban areas.

Today, no consumer goods company can afford to forget rural market which is a very big part of the Indian consumer market. You cannot build a brand presence in India until you have the strategy for reaching the villages. Companies that have figured this out are doing better in villages than cities. The potential is huge for companies that develop effective rural marketing strategies. Up-gradation of products is being witnessed on fast-emerging consumption pattern in rural areas. Local and branded products are getting replaced by national brands and low priced by high priced.

Several European and US companies have been making inroads into rural India for years. Among the U.S. firms, Colgate is one such company that has made considerable headway. The company has been long known to dukaandaars and merchants in rural India.

Colgate is one of the leading providers of scientifically proven oral care products in India, including toothpastes, toothpowder and toothbrushes. The company is spending on advertising according to its market share and leadership position it enjoys and is conscious about what it costs.



For marketing to rural consumers, you need to persuade them to try and adopt products that they may have not used before. A company like Colgate has to convince people to change to toothpaste instead of using neem twigs to clean their teeth, which was the traditional practice. This is difficult to do and requires patience and investment by the company. It's not like getting someone to switch brands.

Rural India presents huge opportunity for the company to grow its market. Therefore, Colgate continues to focus on expanding its rural distribution. They keep conducting various programmes with massive rural sampling and seeding exercise for Colgate, targeted at non-users and infrequent users of dentifrices.



In rural areas, people use neem and other substances for cleaning their teeth. Even after keeping the products low priced, people were not willing to use the toothpaste. Hence, Colgate conducted a research to show that neem sticks don’t do much for oral health as they only massage the gums, which even a toothbrush can do. For upgrading these users to use toothpaste, which also generates demand for toothbrushes and to penetrate deeper into rural households, Colgate is constantly conducting oral care awareness programmes. It also actively participates in local festivals.

Colgate resorted to keep their products low priced than its arch-rival, Hindustan Lever. As a result, Colgate Gel, Total, etc. are priced marginally lower than similar offerings from HLL. Colgate's dominant position in toothpowder and lower-priced products has helped in increasing sales. This is significant as rural market growth rates for FMCG products have been higher than urban market over the past years.



Colgate has been also quite active on the new products front. The company launched Cibaca Top and Colgate Herbal, two low-priced brands targeted at the semi-urban market. Colgate's low price offers have also helped to enhance usage levels. The shift in consumer preference from gel-based to white toothpastes, has also worked in Colgate's favour, since the company has traditionally been the market leader in this segment.

Colgate’s commitment to deliver superior quality products and their aggressive investments in brand building has been well received. To be continually rated as one of the top brand in an increasingly competitive environment, is a reaffirmation of the trust, loyalty and confidence reposed in Colgate by millions of consumers across India. Today, every second user of toothpastes uses Colgate and one out of every three toothbrush user’s brushes with a Colgate toothbrush.



With rapidly evolving consumer preferences, Colgate has been spearheading changes across different product categories through a series of product innovations. The company has launched a series of superior quality oral care products with trend-setting innovations at affordable prices. It includes technologically advanced toothpastes, a herbal toothpowder and a series of specialty designed toothbrushes. All these products are having strong consumer acceptance.

Today, Colgate has become an essential part of daily oral hygiene and therapeutic oral care. It is one of the most widely used and recommended brands by dentists.

Gandhi, the father of modern India, believed that the country's future lay in her villages. These days, every major business group that plans to move into the hinterland would agree. However, the level of affordability in rural India is low. For consumers to buy products, you have to first put more money in their pockets. Create a virtuous circle of raising rural incomes which leads to increase in consumption. This new business culture I am talking about is not charity or philanthropy. It is about doing business with social benefits. It will help us to sustain the economy and bring in lots of human satisfaction to all of us. You can't think of success just in financial terms. Getting goodwill and recognition in the rural market is also not a small asset for any company.

Ethnographic research in South India

Emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, India and China have a strong tendency of imposing their view on the global economy. Today, understanding social trends and cultural insights has become essential for innovating new products and services in emerging markets.

We have been doing ethnographic research in South India for the past 3 months. The states covered are Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu with Puducherry being the lone Union Territory. Our objective was to capture new comportments and needs of the population there.

We applied a human-centred marketing approach to understand:
1) What really matters for the South Indian consumers?
2) What are their difficulties in the fast moving economy of India?
3) What would be the axis for sustainable livelihood?
The results we found were very different from one state to another. For instance, Tamil Nadu remains to be the impenetrable traditional state of South India.

The anthropological study we did includes our analysis about the South Indian population, their way of customs, their views of today’s society and way of living considering their situation and earnings. We interviewed people of all ages, background, castes and income levels in small towns, villages as well as metro cities.

For reaching the population, we were enormously helped by a few NGOs. Great credit goes to Sigaram Service Society and Welcome Society who introduced us to the locals and helped us in getting the required population count and data. We were guided so that the interviews we held were smooth and understandable on both extremes. We conducted nearly 70 qualitative interviews with people from different age groups having different income levels. From people who sustain their life in huts to people who are wealthy enough to afford a modern lifestyle. We asked them analysing questions related to their customs, mode of living, etc. to collect data. We found around 21 consumer profiles of people belonging to various families starting from the poor to middle class to the rich.

It was nice to share experience between anthropologists and social workers from South India. We are convinced that NGOs can play a major role in developing clever business model in emerging markets. We look forward to extend our partnership with multiple NGOs all over India and across the globe.

The project has a valuable market analysis to know the pulse of every kind of individual residing in South India. It helps you in understanding social trends, consumer segmentation and how they can be leveraged in product innovation and brand strategy. It offers plenty of opportunities to create new businesses in emerging market.

There won’t be any underground work needed for any company who plans to start a new market in this part of the sub-continent. This research will be available on our website from 15th Feb'2009 along with a movie clip speaking about the interest of investing in emerging markets.

Like this interview was in a slum with a very poor family. Some people thanked us for taking their interview and said they really enjoyed sharing their feelings.

Reality is far from what we think. People who share similar ideology sometimes have a totally different lifestyle. Reversely, lifestyle does not predict a consumer’s mindset.

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