Consumer surveys in India

Just got back from a two day trip to Bangalore where a friend and I conducted consumer surveys in colleges, malls and IT parks. Interesting lessons learned. Some of the below are specific to India and have cultural underpinnings.

- There are a zillion biases in surveys. There's no perfect survey. If you think a survey is perfect, you just haven't thought hard enough.

- Smokers are easy fish. They are your best friends. Be prepared for a lot of passive smoking if you are on the road asking people questions. I think this one has to do with a person's mindset when he is smoking. Simply put, he is much more relaxed compared to a person who isn't smoking.

- If you want to get hold of working professionals who don't smoke, an option is to find them while they are on their way to work. They'll come to work at noon but won't have a couple of minutes to spare for your earth shattering survey. And yes, you are to blame for them reporting late to work so save those arguments even remotely hinting on logic for later. There's a simple solution. Walk 100 yards away from the entrance and get their inputs by walking with them to their workplace. Works well.

- At malls, we made a conscious effort to survey a healthy proportion of women. Pretty challenging if you are a guy and are there by yourself. The first thought when you approach the fairer sex is "Here comes another one. Dream on...sucker!" or a toned down equivalent. It's difficult to get them to think otherwise and they aren't to blame entirely for this behavioral paradigm. The ISB branded notebook that I carried helped rid this bias to a certain extent. Also, get a girl to accompany you or try interviewing couples.

- At the least, appear to be comfortable and in control. A smile goes a long way. You're poking yourself in the eye if you appear disconcerted or uneasy. Key word is "appear".

N-i-ro

I've seen and listened to Niro, the one with an 'i', the one that doesn't burn and one whose lectures are brilliant! We were fortunate to get two standout professors for the OB course this term.

The first impression

Yet again I witnessed how important the first impression is and how, on occasion, it can blur people's objectivity. A great first time success story at an act not easy to pull off will result in continued adulation for durations longer than the act merits. If one can make a good first impression, people respond by giving more credit than is due.

The Rajni cult !

A couple of weeks into term 4 and the faff courses are actually starting to get interesting! Is it really the courses or is it just me getting indoctrinated?

The OB professor had us indulge in a fun exercise in the session about culture. We formed the Rajni cult!

Sustainable Marketing - Really?

As an engineer by education and profession, it's not surprising that I am at ease with quantitative content and am a fish out of water in marketing. Marketing comes across as a bunch of paradoxes, too fluid and amoeba like to put any meat around anything or have any sort of structure, sometimes too obvious and sometimes brilliant too. For instance, I came across this line "Marketing questions the assumption of rationality by classical economic theory by factoring in fairness". Often times, I also see that it relies on "fooling" the customer or creating a misplaced perception. This in my opinion, is not something that is sustainable. Even if it can't be said that people are getting smarter every day, one can't deny that mankind is advancing every day and with increased computational power at the disposal of a customer (read internet, mobile phone yada yada...), marketing will become an increasingly harder game to play. Numerous pricing models will break down if there is information sharing amongst customers. With word of mouth advertising in social networking and increased technology penetration in everyday life, the game just gets harder. With the non-linearities that exist today, can marketing successfully factor in consumer behavior and be sustainable?

And some more...

In some kind of weird bacchanalian orgy, I have decided to write after quite some time. For the next year, I will mostly be writing about my time at the Indian School of Business (ISB). Yes, student life ishtarts again.

There, I said it, now, Google, do your thing and make sure you direct traffic to this page.

Golden temple at Sripuram

On the way back from Yelagiri, I stopped with family at the Golden temple at Sripuram. The usual followed - tickets for a fast lane and a regular lane, information about more pujas for pay etc. However, it wasn't hard to notice that this temple was a little different from the rest once I walked in. The temple was spic and span with a nice wide walk way and neatly trimmed grass all around and very quiet. What impressed was the first billboard to the right of the walk way which in effect said one might question building a temple as opposed to a school or hospital and went on to say that the temple provides the wisdom to build many schools and hospitals. Though I don't necessarily subscribe to the logic, what impressed me was that they were willing to accommodate questions about the construction of the temple. Many more billboards I mostly rated good to impressive followed and touched upon integrity, hard work and the importance of giving. I enjoyed the 20-30 min stroll to the main sannidhanam and back the most. The founder also runs a correction centre, a hospital and doles out water from the temple to the city of Vellore during summer months. I haven't seen his balance sheets or any of that kind of stuff online, so I can't say much more than this - When people are willing to accommodate questions about their own faith, it discourages extremism and promotes peace.