When preparing for this trip nearly everyone asked me what India had to do with getting a master’s degree in advertising. This seemed like an odd question to me. Shouldn’t it be obvious? Hasn’t nearly everyone heard about the growth of the “BRIC” countries, the four largest emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China? Then I remembered that it was only since I had begun taking the courses in this program that I fully realized the power of what the growth of these markets meant to the world.
So then I would explain that the purpose of this trip from an educational standpoint was two-fold. The first was for us to gain insight into the advertising practices within an emerging economy. The second purpose of this trip was to provide us with an experience of cultural understanding in which we would become fully immersed in the lifestyles, customs, beliefs, and behaviors of a culture vastly different from that of our own. This cultural immersion would help us to better understand the nature of progress in these burgeoning countries. Both of these aspects will greatly serve us in the future as we pursue jobs working with or for multi-national corporations.
Although I knew exactly the purpose of the trip and I could give examples of things we would be seeing and doing, I had no idea just how powerful a learning experience seeing these firsthand would be. From a marketing and advertising standpoint, I feel truly enlightened by this experience. The following is just some of the great insights I have gained while being here.
Part of what makes the BRIC economies so important for the future of the world economy is the sheer size of their populations. As we learned from Professor Atul Tandan, India, the world’s largest democracy with over 1 billion people.
As an American, those numbers are hard to grasp. What’s even harder to understand is how a country with over 500 million people living on less than $2 per day, could represent the largest consumer class in the world. Over 300 million Indian people have become part of the consumer class and segment will only continue to grow as the largest portion of the population, over 600 million people, are below the age of 25.
Although a far cry from what we consider the middle class by American standards, this Indian consumer class stands to have a HUGE impact on the world.
As Americans there are several things about the growth of the Indian consumer market that are difficult to grasp. This is largely because the U.S. has been on the forefront of technology development since its inception. Our economy and consumption grew gradually as technology improved. In a developing economy like India this is not the case.
In The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, C.K. Prahalad outlines why this segment is so powerful. One the examples he gives is the connectivity that is present in this class. At this point there are over 850 million cellular phones being used by the Indian population. According to Atul, in India, there are actually more cell phones than there are toilets! Another example Prahalad points out is the way in which this consumer class embraces technology. As per the TAM Annual Universe Update – 2010, India now has over 134 million households (out of 223 million) with television sets, of which over 103 million have access to Cable TV or Satellite TV, including 20 million households are DTH subscribers.
This is something we witnessed while driving through Delhi. Although you cannot see them in the photo, the slum pictured below actually had two digital satellites mounted to the top of either end.
More to come…
Definitively Danielle 
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