The socialist code of restraint dictated much of independent India's consumer psyche until the late seventies and early eighties. It was a time when per capita income grew by an imperceptible one per cent per annum. A whole generation was raised on a diet of austerity, where thrift was a great virtue, and where anything except basic consumption was frowned upon.

Much of this stemmed from the licence raj, where consumption was literally rationed. Many of us may not remember that the Bajaj Chetak scooter was once an object of desire: you could buy it either through foreign currency off-the-shelf or wait a couple of years! We do, of course, recall the waiting period to get tinpots like the Hindustan Motors' Ambassador or Premier Automobile's Premier Padmini. Right until 1980-81 the per capita income was just under Rs 2,000 (at 1998-99 prices), even while the household saving rate was a high 18-20 per cent. Not surprisingly, it was an era of value for money.

The real impetus for consumption began well before liberalisation with V.P. Singh's 1985 budget that brought down the peak income tax rate from 97 per cent to 50 per cent. Suddenly the people's car, Maruti 800, became affordable, as per capita income grew three-fold to reach more than Rs 6,000 by 1990-91. From that point on, we discarded the legacy of penny-pinching. The consumer was young, professionally-educated, and motivated. Jobs were increasing and thousands turned their thoughts to entrepreneurism.

The world also flooded into our homes in 1991 through cable and satellite television. Newer and better goods abounded: toiletries & cosmetics, durables, electronics, food and beverage, two-wheelers, and cars-a smorgasbord of choice was evolving. The availability of credit made it possible to consume now and pay later, even as consumers reached out for more lucrative, high-yielding investment means to sustain their lifestyle. That, of course, sometimes impaired rationality and led us into scams of all nature: stocks, plantations, non-banking financial companies, to name a few.

Even as consumption grew, its nature remained uniquely Indian. The family remained central to the whole process of consumption, even giving it legitimacy. The Indian consumer may have left mindless thrift behind her, but she will still bargain for basement prices. And as bright new things like mobile phones, automated banking, ready-to-eat food, and the internet enter our lives, the cultural idiom remains paramount in consumption.

The supremacy of the Indian idiom has forced global marketers to cater to our way of life. And so we have Domino's selling Hot Sams (the humble samosa, baked, not fried, stuffed with Chettinad chicken or paneer), McDonald's inventing the Maharaja Mac, and along the way banning two vital ingredients: beef and pork. Those that could not adapt to the Indian way, like Kentucky Fried Chicken, stumbled towards losses-and near oblivion.

Marketing: What Works In India

Quality and globalisation is fine, but what's the discount?

Marketers have discovered, sometimes at their own peril, that frugality is an eternal, omnipresent virtue in India. It holds true no matter what, where or to whom you're selling. McDonalds in India needs the Rs 7 ice-cream cone as a beacon to get the consumer in. And marketers across product categories in soaps, detergents, tea, coffee, even carbonated soft-drinks swear by small pack sizes. Gillette sells its top-notch Sensor Excel shaving blade in a single-pack only in India. Brands are welcome, but the Indian consumer won't pay a premium just for the intangible.

Indians won't throw away anything, so enter Akai and its legendary exchange-led bonanza for colour TVs. And virtually the entire consumer-durable industry, from washing machines, refrigerators, music systems, two-wheelers, even trucks (yes, trucks!) latched on to the exchange bandwagon. And if you want the consumer to change her consumption behaviour, you need to be patient, and use dollops of staying power, much like Kelloggs did. For, the Indian consumer will never, but never, change in a hurry, proof of which is the graveyard of marketers who thought otherwise: instant-dosas, cut-and-dried vegetables, vaccumisers, the list can go on.

Humour, in advertising, is welcome as long as it knows its limitations, for the Indian consumer doesn't allow its heroes and holy cows to be lampooned, much like the controversial Pepsi ad on its arch-rival Coke's endorser, Hrithik Roshan. Cricket cuts across age, sex, geographic barriers, and is used as a potent tool for advertising just about everything. Rebellion of any kind is out, even though individualism is in, but remember that for any high-value purchase-a colour TV, refrigerator, car, even holidays-the target consumer is the entire urban Indian family, not an individual.

-Shailesh Dobhal

The Two Faces Of Indian Consumerism

URBAN: A world of hype, hypermarkets, and satellite television

A good monsoon cheers not just the humble, often illiterate, farmer in the ubiquitous Indian village, but the powers that be in government and corporate India. For a mere one percent increase in India's rural income translates to a whopping Rs 10,000 crore of buying power. Nearly half of India's buying potential resides in its villages, as is clear from the sales figures of India's biggest consumer marketer. Nearly half of Hindustan Lever Limited's Rs 10,948-crore sales come from rural India.

And even though they may appear, on the surface, as different as chalk and cheese, the Indian urban and rural consumer differ largely only in their price-sensitiveness, which in turn reflects the age-old urban-rural income disparity.

RURAL: The reign of the travelling salesman and the painted wall

For HLL sells the same shampoo brands in rural areas, but in low-priced satchets. For others like Videocon (colour televisons) and Hero Honda (motorcycles), the rural differentiation and therefore focus is price. For nearly a third of all stock (till 2001) of premium luxury goods like colour televisions, two-wheelers, refrigerators, and washing machines was accounted for by rural India. Why, nearly two-thirds of all middle-income households in the country (with annual income between Rs 30,001 to Rs 1,25,000) are in rural India.

Where rural and urban consumers really differ is largely in their reach for marketers, both in terms of physical distribution and reach through various media. And it is here, while adopting operational plans, for urban and rural consumers that India seems to be torn right across this urban-rural divide. So even while urban India is toying with international retail models in hypermarkets, discount stores, speciality retailing and the like, tapping the two-lakh odd rural haats (periodic fairs) remains a priority for marketers across product genres. And while cable and satellite television assures a marketer nearly half of all urban audiences, it reaches not even a tenth in rural India. This is a land where wall paintings and terrestrial television (read Doordarshan), still reign.

-Shailesh Dobhal

THE INDIAN CONSUMER: WHAT A LONG, STRANGE TRIP IT'S BEEN