REVIEW: DISCORDANT DEMOCRATS: ARUN MAIRA (Penguin Books India)

As I read through Arun Maira’s book, the month unfolded with a number of high-pitched disagreements around the world. In India, quotas and reservations were a hot topic, as was an apparent divergence between the Prime Minister and corporate chiefs on executive income and distribution of wealth. Self-appointed moral police disapproved the expressions of a student of art, while, elsewhere in the world, suicide bombers expressed disapproval of foreigners on their soil.

We are surely not the first to wonder why, after millennia of physiological evolution, societies around the world are still stuck in the same, predictable response: where disagreement (on an issue) translates into disapproval (of a person), more often than not leading to conflict that is frequently violent.

The need to accept differences and the use of democratic dialogue as a process to close the gap is the basis of Arun Maira’s Discordant Democrats. While the book is largely about democracy in India, Maira draws from events, personalities and initiatives around the world to make the case for democracy as the only reasonable mechanism to manage diversity in society, and dialogue as the only reasonable mechanism to sustain it.

This is embodied in a quotation that is commonly attributed to French philosopher Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” In fact, Maira goes beyond free speech to the need for mass dialogue. While free speech typically stops at the “right to express different opinions”, dialogue is about the free “exchange” that can move people closer. Dialogue, unlike debate or argument, is not about sticking to one’s own point of view but about parties reaching a consensus through a process of mutual expression and understanding.

When comparisons are made between Communist China and democratic India, democracy is presented as the millstone around the neck of India’s development. India has a demographic diversity that is among the highest in the world, and a body politic that is among the most fragmented. It is the disagreements among the various segments, interest and pressure groups that some people often hold up as the biggest hurdle to India’s economic and social progress. On the other hand, the advocates of “democracy in action”; may hold up noisy debate as the true expression of desires of individuals and small, otherwise powerless, groups. And there is little common ground between these two groups.

But, as Maira writes in the preface: “This book is about democracy and about consensus: two ideas that cannot but be associated with India. Indeed, one must wonder whether India could be one country without democracy or without consensus.”

Maira takes a middle path, in differentiating between the “hardware” and the “software” of democracy. He describes the hardware as the mechanisms that we are all familiar with — the Constitution, devolved institutions and the framework of free and fair elections, whereas the software is dialogue and deliberations. The democratic hardware enables the freedom of divergent expression. But it is the democratic software that enables a convergence to consensus and the emergence of a functional rather than dysfunctional society.

This is an important distinction when we examine the relative success or failure of countries that are all apparently democratic in structure. Most elections may be free and fair, but are the results later really representative of the electorate’s wishes? From what we can see around us, the hardware of democracy is robust, but there needs to be greater emphasis on the software.

Maira devotes the latter part of the book to tools that he calls Weapons of Mass Dialogue. Using topical and real-life instances of the dialogue mechanism being applied, he takes the reader through the steps of creating a common aspiration, exploring and identifying the thought anchors of the parties in the dialogue, framing the situation and then arriving at a solution.

As a comparison, the example of a Native American tribe comes to mind. To resolve conflict between members, the tribe follows a structure that requires a member to silently listen to the other’s views and then express that person’s views back to him until he or she concurs that the listener has completely understood what has been said. Only then does the first listener get the opportunity to express his own views, while the first speaker only listens and then reiterates what he or she has heard.

This mechanism may appear lengthy in most modern debates, but when we are dealing with issues as complex as the evolution of our cities or the uplift of disadvantaged castes and socio-economic classes, do we really have any other option?

Our genetic response to crisis is hard-wired from our days in the wild: fight or flight. While the latter is clearly “escape”, the former is also an “exit” because it shows an inability to deal with a discord to a mutually satisfying result. We need to expand this to a trinity of responses that includes “unite” – an integrative process that can help cope with the complex and interrelated world we live in.

The tools may look contrived and slow to those championing the cause of “action” there are few alternatives to dialogue. But in a world where discordant democrats do not often listen to each other, Maira’s Weapons of Mass Dialogue are definitely worth a try. Here it is on Amazon.co.in.

EXCERPT:
We want action. And we want democracy. Sometimes, in despair, when that speedy action is difficult in democracy, he seemed willing to forsake democracy. But that is a cop-out. We have to find a way to have both – speedier action and more democracy. Once again, a very important “either-or” choice is raising its head. We must convert it into a ‘both-and’ solution. As Einstein said, we cannot solve the difficult problems that we face with the same thinking that led us into those problems. Rather, we must look into the theories-in-use that are causing the problem, and develop a new one. In this case, the problem with our theory-in-use of how people can work together to resolve problems that they are all part of. The call for an authority above them, “insulated from the intense pressure of democracy” – a dictator or expert that they would be willing to unquestioningly delegate upwards to – is giving up on the further evolution of humanity’s democratic enterprise.

[Here’s the book on Amazon.co.in.]

Two separate incidents recently reinforced to me the need to know and understand the customer intimately, and to have the ability to respond to that knowledge with the appropriate product or service.

One was the experience an acquaintance had with the tea-vendor at a Mumbai railway station, who had segmented his tea-concoctions by the train (and its passengers), customizing to their regional tastes.

The second was a music concert sponsored by a well-known motorbike brand. The audience was largely off-target and the event was clearly not successful for the bike brand, though the audience and the band itself had a great time. As the creator of the department store and the American inventor of the price ticket, John Wanamaker’s once said: “I know half of my advertising money is wasted, I just don’t know which half.”

It’s funny, how gut instincts and home-grown wisdom may quote often seem more successful than planning through facts and figures.

This is partly a function of India’s complexity as a country and a market.

Traditional marketing discipline calls for categorizing customers into segments that are similar within themselves, and distinct from each other. It assumes that there are large or at least measurable numbers of distinct groups of customers Within each group, the customers are assumed to behave and buy in similar ways, which are quite distinct from the other groups in the market.

The reality of life, of course, is that in any market, segments are almost always an artificial construct. In fact, it is becoming more difficult to find large segments that are cleanly demarcated – what’s more, in markets worldwide, customer segments have been blurring into each other.

The Indian market takes this complexity to another plane, and savvy marketers know this from personal experience. India as a market is anything but continuous or homogenous. This diversity is brought out by a media-group’s advertisements series on its radio-channel that make the point about India being a country with 145 festivals in a calendar of 365 days. Or as I’ve often heard Kishore Biyani and others say, in India the mix of language, food and culture changes every 80-100 kilometers.

Let’s face it, most mass products that are marketed in the same way across the country, are handled that way due to manufacturing or distribution economics. Some may even be handled uniformly due to the lack of marketing imagination. It is certainly not due to customers across the country being identical.

How well we can understand the dimensions and the differences can mean the difference between success or even survival and abject failure.

Here is an article that describes the benefits and pitfalls of consumer analyses in India. (Slicing The Market)

[Note: With a 6 MB filesize , the download may take a while if you have a slow connection!]

In my view, India and China are two countries that can change companies.

Most analyses of “consumer India” are led by affluent analysts primarily based in the biggest cities. These incomplete analyses are followed avidly also by international companies to draw up their India strategy. Most do not even scratch the surface of the diversity of the country, let alone customize the approach.

There are reasonably large and distinct consumer segments in India–many are alien to most companies based in the developed markets, because they have been extinct there for several decades.

The companies that seem to be succeeding are the ones who don’t come in expecting a billion-plus market (or even a “percentage” of that) hungering for their brand/product just as it is sold in the US or Europe. They are the ones who take the time, and show the patience, to understand the specifics that their target segment in India is looking for.

They are the ones who are prepared to to the extra mile in tailoring their offering to India. Some may even launch new products in India and then take them elsewhere.

If you’re prepared to discard the filter of the history of developed markets when looking at India, then opportunities abound.

Fresh out of a meeting with a large international retailer this morning, I would like to share something that I mentioned to them: that the Indian market is not as large as it seemed to most people 2-3-5 years ago (whatever base figures they may be using to calculate potential market size); neither is it as small as it seems today to brands that entered the market 10-15 years ago.

There are significantly different dynamics at play, which make the Indian market totally different from the growth curve you might have been accustomed to in the history of the US, Europe, or even more recently, China.

However, some fundamental realities remain common on the consumer side:

• Given choices, consumers will choose

• Given better environments, consumers generally will migrate to them

• Given lower prices for comparable products, consumers will compare, and choose not to spend beyond what is necessary

• A better merchandise mix will win out over a narrow / poor mix

The realities of real-estate costs are the same for everyone–whether the retailer is domestic or international. Domestic retailers may have an advantage in being able to move quicker on closing deals but foreign retailers may have deeper pockets to play with.

Politics remain the same as well–China opened its markets to investment by foreign retailers after allowing its domestic retailers to grow in scale; Eastern European countries may raise the occasional stink about the lack of competition when two foreign retailers decide to swap assets; even in their home markets, Wal-Mart and Tesco face determined opposition. In India we’re seeing just another version being played out.

All this, while everyone is mostly fighting for the top-tier consumer. There is a wider market out there, my friends, a very different one that needs to be understood well, together with its implications for your business model.

Normal human tendency is to label what one doesn’t understand. And so we call the younger members of society by various names – youth, teens etc. By putting them into categories of age, we claim complete understanding of what they are, what moves them, and what they want, in effect adopting convenient disguise for the fact that we actually don’t have a clue.

My personal favourite term is “tweens”. In my dictionary, tweens are that magical, difficult, weird age somewhere in the region of 10-16 years, give or take a couple of years, when one is not quite an adult to be allowed an opinion, and not quite young enough to be indulged one. I believe that is why rebellion is the hallmark of the tweens and the teens.

Let’s look at the broad segment of the young (under 20) population – about 450 million individuals in India are estimated to be below 20 years of age. 105 million individuals are in the age group of 15-19 years, already in their early years of discretionary consumption. About 112 million individuals are in the 10-14 years segment – within 5 years many of these will be making career choices, and in another 5 years most would have already begun earning and spending. Imagine the power of the tweens and the teens.

However, this is not one homogenous mass of youngsters who think in the same way. Some, of course, will be a typical marketer’s delight – gulping heavily-advertised colas and wolfing down pizzas and burgers at a birthday party with their pals, while demolishing each other on the latest game console. Others may only be aspiring to acquiring a fraction of such a lifestyle in their later years. Many – too many – will not only not have these things, but may not even be able to dream of a lifestyle that looks much different from their parents.

Some are motivated by firang lifestyles, and may look at the earliest opportunity to apply for a student visa in the west. Others are surprisingly loyal to the idea of staying within the country, and actually contributing to progressing it. An increasing number find their “Indian skin” very comfortable to wear, even while moving in rhythm with a semi-westernized lifestyle.

They’ve got a whole bunch of different ideas about relationships. To many, career options are always wide open and whoever works for life in one job may have no other options. Yet, when it comes to personal friends, the buddies from pre-school may still be the ones they hang around with.

Clearly age, then, is not the key differentiating or grouping factor. Neither, it would seem, is income or education. SEC segmentation more or less breaks down when dealing with the youth. There are many, possibly hundreds of segments for a marketer to deal with.

“What’s hot” may change every week – if it’s really hot, it may stay around 3-4 months. RDB ( Rang De Basanti ) was a protest against the society the young are inheriting, and its candle-light march was emulated for many a cause. But Munnabhai is cool today, and Gandhigiri is now the road to follow. On the other hand – are these really two sides of the same coin?

Some very global trends catch on very fast, while others are uniquely Indian.

So how does one make sense of this kaleidoscope? How is a marketer to predict what will appeal to the most consumers? How can we lead the consumers into our store, to our brand counter, to the product that we want to promote?

If I were to pick one learning for the youth market that made – and still makes – youth markers successful, it is the fact that they do not predict fashion and trend. They do not attempt to lead the consumer but follow diligently. They identify the opinion leaders, identify with them, and understand what’s hot with them. Then they place their bets – a lot of them, well-spread out. Sure, not all of them are right, but it’s a whole lot better than trying to predict fashion 8-12 months in advance.

An equally critical step is to let go of the trend even as it is being picked up by others. After all, if you’re really with it, by now you ought to have identified the next hot trend rather than flogging the same horse that everyone else is on.

Here a newsflash, the youth are bright, for all the appearance of vacuity; extremely opinionated, despite the apparent boredom they display; fully-charged up with the current domestic social concerns and a clear view – well-informed or not – of what’s happening around the world.

We’ve seen some successes in the Indian market, with a few companies being at the forefront of trying to understand and cater to the youth with offerings that are innovative and promotions that talk to them in their language. And yet, most companies are still working at them in the same mould as they were a decade ago, while others are simply trying to transplant strategies that worked in another country.

The largest market opportunity in decades is going a-begging. What’s going to be your platform to make the connection? What’s the relevance of your message? Unless you’re listening to the youth, they’re unlikely to be listening to you.