60 years of Independence... The changing face of Indian consumer

Post Independence ie in the early 50's and the 60's the Indian consumer had very few choices when it came to buying any product. Most of the provisions and groceries were sold as commodity. A whole of lot the population use to queue at fair price shops to get their share of rice, wheat and pulses. This is because the govt had a tight control over distribution food and grains. There were very few brands across category. Some of the brands that one can remember and are still iconic brands in today's time. The popular brands are Horlicks in white beverages , Lifebouy and Cinthol in the toilet sopas, Caltex and Esso in the fuel category. Coke and Fanta in beverages. Bombay Dyeing and Binny's in the textile category. Colagate, Binaca and Forhans in tooth paste. Ambassador cars in the 4 wheeler cateogry. Dunlop and Firestone in tyres. GEC, Orient and Rallis in the fans, Philips and Murphy in radio. But beginning 70's this has changed and more brands entered the market across various category.


The 70's was the time when the Indian consumer was still had few more choices in terms of brands. This is across most categories except in the case of some of them where there was a choice of buying a brand but there again the brands available were very few. Also with limited promotion and advertising the saliency of the brands were very low and as a result the consumer was not aware of them. In some of the category it was a single brand dominance. Like for example in the case of cement it was just ACC cement. ACC was seen has the generic name for cement. Similarly in the case vansaspati ghee there was only dalda and dalda was very synonymous with ghee another classical case of generic branding. Groceries were still sold has a commodity right from salt to atta . In the case of salt it was sold on cart by the local salt seller which was available in both crystal and powdered form.

In the early 80's the concept of buying brands was instilled in the minds of Indian consumer. People slowly moved from buying commodity to brand. This was thanks to the introduction of colour TV's during the Asiad games and the use of TV as an powerful medium to reach the audience. Several new brands came into existence in the 80's. In the soft drinks category we saw the emergence of brands like Thums UP and Gold spot. In the watch section we saw the re birth of Tats's going into wrist watches again by launching TITAN. The entry of Titan really shook the watch market and the once monopoly brand HMT took heavy beating. Today the brand HMT is virtually non existent . The 80's also saw the entry of new car called the people's car under the brand name Maruti. A govt initiative today this brand is popular among many Indian motorcar owners. In spite of new and global brands arriving Maruti has stood strong and managed to stay ahead. Another brand which did wonders in the 80's was VIMAL from Reliance. When it came to sarees the brand was the first choice of many Indian woman.

But it is in the 90's that the Indian market changed leaps and bounds. The introduction of liberalisation by the Govt gave ample opportunities to various industry. The launch of private TV channels gave a new dimension to media. The entry of more channels enabled to reach more consumer and the conumermism boom started. People became more conscious and very keen only in buying brands. This also helped in growth and birth of more brands across all category.
That trend is still continuing and there will be a healthy competition in the market. Lets now examine and look at some categories where more brands have arrived in the last 60 years.

Given below are brands that existed 60 years ago and brands that are today.

1950
Airlines Indian Airlines
2007
Jet, Kingfisher, Go, Spice jet,
Indigo, Paramount, Deccan
1950
Cars Ambassador
2007
Maruti, Hyundai, Mithubushi
Lancer, Cheverlot, Benz, Palio
1950
Cement ACC
2007
Ultratech, Jaylakshmi, Prism,
Ambuja, India cements.
1950
Watches HMT
2007
TITAN, Rolex, Tissot,
1950
Beverages Coke
2007
Pepsi, Fanta, Slice, Appy, Frooty
Thums Up, Sprite,
1950
Tea ; Red Lable
2007
Girinar, Tata tea, Wagh Bakri,
Society
1950
Sport shoes :Bata
2007
Power Nike, Rebeeok, Fila, Liberty ...
1950
T- Shirts:Dawn
2007
Nike, Allen Solley, Benetton,
Crocodile, FCUK

In almost every category brands have emerged. But in the end all these brands will survive if they are able to bring in innovation and match the consumer tastes in the area of fashion, technology , quality and finally the price.