In an interview with Pitch, Simon Ashwin, Regional Head of Social Media, Asia Pacific, Mindshare, talks about the importance of social media in a brands’ life, the Dos and the Don’ts of the medium, the irrelevance of fans and much more… Excerpts: How important is social media for marketers in India? Social isn’t for everybody,…

Beer is the largest segment in the Indian alcohol market and strong beers corner the major chunk of this. Market estimates suggest that strong beers (with alcohol strength of between six and eight per cent) contribute about 80 per cent to the beer market and up to 70 per cent (by volume) of all the…

What’s the Indian marketer’s YQ? Or youth quotient. Youth is contributing heavily to the rapid change in the Indian economy and are fast becoming the darling of India Inc. India is one of the youngest countries in the world today with nearly half of all Indians (approximately 50 crore) below 25 years and more than…

In the consumer’s universe ‘youth’ has gained a very prominent spot and caught the fancy of marketers. If numbers are something to go by, 70 per cent of the Indians are below the age of thirty and nearly 50 per cent below the age of 25 years. Also, estimates suggest that India has a median…

London Olympics 2012 kick started last week and this time the games seem to have generated significant interest among the otherwise cricket centric Indian audience. What is even more interesting is the fact that majority of the audience are keen on watching the Olympics on new media platforms like online, mobile phones and tablets. What…

The scooter segment, which was until recently labeled as a dead category, has once again caught the fancy of two-wheeler manufacturers in the country. Honda Motorcycles, Hero Motorcorp, Mahindra Scooters, TVS (with its brand Scooty) have been aggressive in the segment for the last few years. And the new kid on the block is Yamaha…

In the last few years, coffee consumption has kicked off exponentially in the Indian market and the latest player to offer the cuppa is Swiss brand Coffee World. The company, which is buoyant about its performance amidst the clutter of brands, is confident of staying ahead of established players like Café Coffee Day. Will it…

With the smartphones rage gripping Indian consumers further, the war in the category has become fiercer. No wonder most of the smartphones brands are getting their acts together to get a larger bite of this exponentially growing market. And Taiwan based brand, HTC, is no exception to it. The brand has become very aggressive in…

The war in the alcohol market has been simmering and this time Kishore Chabria seems to be a winner over his arch rival Vijay Mallya. Chabaria’s Allied Blenders & Distillers (ABD) owned whiskey brand Officer’s Choice has overtaken UB Group’s Bagpiper in the Indian market in Financial Year 2012. But this did not happen overnight….

Biscuit is a category that has witnessed increased product innovation due to strong competition in the past couple of years. And of the latest innovations in the chocolate biscuit space is the coffee flavour. The top two biscuit manufacturers Parle Products and Britannia have introduced coffee flavours in their leading chocolate biscuit brands Parle Hide…