Dainik Bhaskar influence purchase perspective of four-wheelers

DB Corp and Lumiere Business Solutions shed light on the topic ‘Role of women in the purchase decision of a four-wheeler vehicle’ during a press meet on 18 September at the Four Seasons Hotel, Worli, Mumbai. The takeaway from the meet was the newspaper industry and print is growing and print outreach is in a position to boost other industries. The evidence presented howed the possible growth over the next few quarters.

19 Sep 2018 | By Abhishek Muralidharan

Satyajit Sengupta, Smita Arora, Kaacon Sethi, Deepa Soman, Prasoon Pandey (l-r)

Kacoon Sethi, chief corporate marketing officer, Dainik Bhaskar Group said, “There is a lot of data that we have on the markets which are now becoming larger spaces for consumption. There isn’t enough information which is available for the marketers who are only looking at things such as brand tracks and other similar parameters. It is our responsibility to transfer our understanding and the learning of consumer behaviour to a larger set of people that we work with, such as planners, buyers and also give insights to the advertiser.”

Sethi explained that researches were conducted in cities such as Ahmedabad and Jaipur through focus groups as well as interviewing couples. All the respondents were from the segments such as NCCS A+, A1, A2 and B1, within the age groups of 25 to 35 years and 36 to 46 years, comprising women with career as well as housewives.
 
Deepa Soman, the managing director, Lumiere Business Solutions, said, “Women, whether housewives or professionals are being seen to be proactively taking on more responsibility influencing the “right choice” aligned to the entire family’s needs. I believe, in a way, this signifies a certain ‘soft power’ that the family may not fully acknowledge but is definitely indispensable in the ultimate car purchase decision.”

Soman highlighted the pivotal role that a woman plays in planning the budget and finance of the house as she focuses a lot on savings while keeping a track of the monthly expenses. The highlights also involved women’s utilisation of time, to go through online reviews, analyse previous experiences of the brand, give uplifting inputs on car accessories such as seat covers and also on the aspect such as car colour.

Satyajit Sengupta, chief corporate sales, Dainik Bhaskar Group said, “Today, women are being seen to play a strong supportive role in every choice being made within the family. This is a key takeaway to be used in creating targeted communications for automobile and other high-value purchases which were earlier thought to be made by men. The women are the influencers who are backing final purchase decisions and hence cannot be ignored in any communication by corporates”.

“We are observing that marketers about six years ago, only wanted to test automobile advertising with men. So, there is a blind spot there in a much-limited sense which is completely missing the plot on the big role that a woman plays,” added Sethi.

Soman also spoke about the leverages of the internet to collect data in order to participate in a discussion and informed decision-making, which enables women to be self-assured and driven by internal motivators without any external validations.

Dainik Bhaskar Group is urban India's leading newspaper group and has six newspapers with 66 editions. The group has a total readership of 1.26 crores in Urban India.