Volume XXXIX • Number 10  • October 2009

Role of Retailing and Growth of Hypermarkets in India

Liberalization of the economy in the nineties and the entry of large players in the retail business have brought the retail industry into spotlight. Big players and national retail chains are changing the rules of the game. After supermarkets, departmental stores and convenience stores, Indian retail has seen the concept of hypermarkets coming of age. The hypermarkets are not new to the western countries. Players like Wal-mart, Metro have established hypermarkets in many countries. In India, the hypermarket concept is in its nascent stage. Retailers like Pantaloons and RPG have started hypermarket operations and they are having plans to expand aggressively to all the regions of India. A large number of international retailers have evinced interest in India, despite the absence of favorable government policy for foreign players.

Destination Hinterland : In's  And Out's of Branding

With about 75% of population living in the villages and generating nearly half of the national income, the rural market is increasingly playing a very important and decisive role in the Indian marketing environment (Bargal, 2004).this market offers a cornucopia of opportunities to companies who venture to brave it. These rural markets exhibit linguistic, regional, cultural and economic disparities, and hence, are considered to be more complex to deal with than the urban markets. As branding can make or break a product, marketers have to take immense care in positioning a brand for rural market, as, often the traditional route to market entry and brand building employed in the urban markets do not provide the desired outcomes. Thus in order to make its presence felt corporate need to understand the needs and psyche of the rural consumers and tailor-made their offerings and the brand building initiatives according to the dynamics of the rural markets.Through this paper an attempt has been made to understand the ever changing dynamics, challenges and bottlenecks faced by the marketers and suggesting a gamut of innovative promotional and marketing activities which would help in creating distinct brand image and evoke positive brand associations.

The symptomatic Indian malaise of a “chalta hai” attitude towards product design is a matter of concern. Why is it that in this exultant era of India shining we are yet to find Indian products that ravel design excellence? There are so many examples where attention to design details has fallen through the “not knowing and therefore not doing gap”.Good product design should reflect an obsessive attention to detail. There’s no point touting amorphous marketing promises on branding and identity of the final product doesn’t reflect these in the actual customer experience. The recommendation is not to over-engineer the micro-architecture of every product- if the concept is to be a financial success, design has to balance issues of cost and profitability- but to avoid the very real danger of getting caught up in the seductive appeal of the Grand Idea at the cost for ignoring the myriad micro details that add up to a value-creating whole. Yes, innovation is about the big picture, the amazing new insight, the grand concept, but if the soul of the idea is not mirrored in the body of the product, then what you have is a promise that lacks integrity.

Measuring Brand Recall in Print Media Advertising : A Study of Selected Brands of Personal Care Industry

Evaluation of effectiveness of advertisements is always a major task before the advertiser owing to changes in the market environment. Making the advertisements and placing it in appropriate media is of great importance to realize the ultimate objective. Brand Recall plays a very important role in advertising for boosting more sales. This article is based on the study of evaluation of the print media advertisements of selected brands of Personal care industry for measuring advertising effectiveness in print media. Data analysis has been carried out at 5% significance level of the selected brands with respect to personal variables. It has been found that there is significant difference between the recalling ability of the respondents. Recommendations are given in the form of suggested model for the enhancement of ad effectiveness in print media.

Healthcare Services Accreditation As A Brand Positioning Tool : A 'b Loop-Dozen A' Model of Emergency Medical Services (EMS)

Indian Healthcare Industry is currently estimated to be about $23 billion and is likely to grow to about $60 billion by year 2012.With the coming of the era of Globalization, the Healthcare Service Sector is getting patients from the US, Europe, Asia and other developing and under developing nations .Healthcare is one of the largest service sectors in India offering employment to around four million people and it witnessed a growth rate of 12 percent per annum in the last four years. The Healthcare Sector is now giving full emphasis on getting equipped with specialist doctors, trained paramedical staff, latest equipment, liberal use of IT, hygienic environment, comfortable and updated infrastructure to keep it more relevant and customer friendly.

The World is becoming a common market place in which people, no matter where they live, desire the same products and life style was a theory propounded by Levitt in 1983. This led to the thought of transforming the world into a homo cultural market place. It is presumed that customers can be persuaded by the same advertising appeals and value irrespective of the culture they belong to. Brand and brand image could be standardized without any problem across countries. This could lead to significant saving in producing advertisements. According to Dahl (2005), it could also lead to saving of time and money with respect to cost of design. Most multinational companies feel that international brands should create a global image. By purchasing it, they will receive the same benefits whether it be life style, status, convenience or financial. Global consumer culture positioning (GCP) through a recognized set of symbols can enhance meaningful advertisement (Alden et. al, 1999). Standardized advertisement based on multi- cultural segment can be implemented (Gram 2007). Global advertisement in the world is particularly found in Luxury products, cosmetics, perfumes, and watches (Belche and Belche, 1998).

Privatization is the key word after liberalization. Every sector has tasted the success of privatization; broadcasting media is not an exception. The changing face of audio-media after privatization has been studied in this article. The study considers the different factors which are popularizing the audio-media among the respondents, contribution of FM channels towards teaching and social welfare, attitudinal change of the listeners, attitudinal change of business houses etc. The period of study is from 2007 - 2008.

With the globalization and liberalization, the service sector has been witnessing a lot of changes. Life insurance companies require immense distribution strength and tremendous manpower to reach out to such a huge customer base. This distribution will undergo a sea change as various insurance companies are proposing to bring insurance products into the lives of the common man by making them available at the most basic financial point, the local bank branch, through Banc assurance. This paper aims to assert the concept, “Banc assurance” - a term coined by combining the two words bank and insurance (in French) - connotes distribution of insurance products through banking channels. Banks, with their geographical spread and penetration in terms of customer reach of all segments, have emerged as viable sources for the distribution of insurance products. In India, as elsewhere, banks are seeing margins decline sharply in their core lending business. Consequently, banks are looking at other avenues, including the sale of insurance products, to augment their income. The sale of insurance products can earn banks very significant commissions. However, the evolution of bancassurance as a concept and its practical implementation in various parts of the world, have thrown up a number of opportunities and challenges. Hence, there is a need to analyze the strength, weakness, opportunities and threats (SWOT Analysis) in the context of bancassurance experiment in India.

The present study seeks to examine the opinion of 200 respondents about their preference and satisfaction towards Restaurants. The respondents were selected by simple random sampling in Coimbatore city of Tamilnadu. The relevant data on demographic characteristics, awareness, consumption pattern, opinion on the services rendered, the factors considered in selection of the restaurants were collected with the help of a structured questionnaire. Majority of the respondents do not frequently visit the same restaurant and they are aware of the restaurants through their friends. Majority of the respondents agree and are satisfied with the services offered in the restaurants. Taste and quality are the two important factors considered in selecting a restaurant. The chi-square analysis shows that the personal factors of the respondents does not have a significant influence on the items preferred in the restaurant, and occupation has a significant influence on the occasion for visiting the restaurants. By applying ANOVA it was found that there is no significant difference among various personal factors in the level of average satisfaction score. The results of “t” test reveal that there is significant difference between the respondents “visiting the same restaurant and different restaurant” in the average satisfaction score.