Carat India launches findings of Consumer Connection System 2015

The Consumer Connection System (CCS), a system developed by Dentsu Aegis in 2012, describes the usage of bought, owned and earned media and their roles and functions for consumers.

The Consumer Connection System (CCS), a system developed by Dentsu Aegis Network way back in 2012, describes the usage of bought, owned and earned media and their roles and functions for consumers. Continuing with the same, Carat India has launched CCS (Consumer Connection System) 2015. This proprietary and in-depth research has been conducted across 23 cities, covering a sample of over 12,000 respondents, across all adults within SEC A-C, in the age bracket of 15-65 years, and is also programmed to work with the NCCS classification in India. Overall, CCS claims to have a global sample size of over 400,000, making it the world's largest research of this nature.

To put it in perspective, 'Consumer Insights' are findings about consumer's attitudes, behaviour and brand affiliation and communication behaviour. Consumer Insights help determine the relevant potentials of a brand as well as suitable contact points for communication. Through this large-scale, research-based system, Carat and Dentsu Aegis Network will continue to provide the most advanced understanding of the consumers' behaviour, in terms of buying across several categories, with a deep understanding of the capabilities of over 60 media touch-points, thereby enabling the most efficient selection of media focussed on delivering to marketing KPIs.

The survey threw up numbers which are more reflective of the current Indian scenario, especially when compared with other large-scale industry surveys. The survey claims that car penetration has doubled in the last three years, from 8 per cent to 16 per cent, with markets like Chandigarh (at 34 per cent), Gurgaon (at 43 per cent), Noida (at 55 per cent) and Pune (at 30 per cent) topping the surveyed markets.

The survey also claims that 53 per cent of Indian consumers are now digitally connected, an increase as observed from the last report where the penetration was only 8 per cent in 2012. Amongst the various segments surveyed, students stood out with 68 per cent ownership of smartphones. In metros, 42 per cent of the population uses smartphones / tablets while watching TV, but the percentage in non-metro markets drops to 36 per cent. Chennai, Noida, Mumbai and Pune take the lead here. Access to internet stands at 48 per cent, while 90 per cent of the audience accesses it through their mobile phones.

Digital, today, is no longer just a media delivery option; it defines who the individual is and how and why they exhibit different behaviour patterns. The degree of social behaviour present amongst the different audience clusters can help brands craft their social strategies more effectively. Understanding this environment in detail is, therefore, crucial for effective communication solutions.

Out-of-home is another unexplored media territory. Different environments and formats evince different type of reactions from consumers and knowledge of this is a key to brands' using different messages which can take advantage of this behaviour.

The research design is based on CCS globally, while the field was managed through IPSOS using the CAPI methodology with the questionnaire available across 10 languages and rendered on tablets. Extensive use of technology with aspects like GPS tracking of field teams, daily quality checks and audio recording of field interviews ensured that the data quality and authenticity was maintained. Since the questionnaire is intensive, global best practices and techniques were used to ensure that the data doesn't get compromised by respondent fatigue.

Rajni Menon, executive vice president, Carat, says, "CCS is the most comprehensive single source study available in our market. Apart from having an extremely granular level of touch-point data, it studies the interaction consumers have with media in detail. With increasing ad-avoidance, media engagement, incidence of cross-screen consumption etc. are far more important metrics than reach and time spent. It also answers the most important question that any marketer looks to the media agency for, which touch-points impact the different stages of a consumer's purchase journey, be it awareness, consideration or advocacy. And, this is just scratching the surface of what the study offers."

Ashish Bhasin, ‎chairman and CEO, South Asia, Dentsu Aegis Network, adds, "CCS is a global system which we brought to India in 2012. Through the active use of this research, carried out on an ongoing basis every year, we are able to focus our clients' investments on the most effective media generated by a deep insight into the consumers' behaviour. It is a huge investment of over Rs. 1 crore, annually, and it demonstrates our commitment to get the best understanding of the complex Indian consumer for our clients. The next steps in the pipeline include the fusion of consumer data to digital and TV viewing data, thus making it the only single source system in India. It is investments like these which have been pivotal in making Dentsu Aegis Network the powerhouse that it is, in such a short time. This will be exclusively available to Dentsu Aegis Network clients."

Kartik Iyer, MD, Carat India, notes, "CCS has been a true revolution in media planning. Starting not from a demographic, but from an attitude, the tool enables us to target behaviours across demographics which enables a much sharper result-oriented planning process. The progression of CCS to CCS planner also enables us to plan to client KPIs which, therefore, means that our planning has become that much more result oriented. We are delighted with the value that CCS has been able to add to our planning process and look forward to creating business solutions for our clients that are in line with the current consumer behaviour."