Retail Advertising

When I did my internship with a leading Indian grocery store, my discussions with the business team were peppered with a lot of curious questions. One of them being, why isn't the retailer investing in radio ad jingles and outdoor media, viz., billboards,etc.,. The response I got was very reasonable - the margins in grocery retail are very meagre and moreover being a neighbourhood store format, newspaper inserts and monthly newspaper ads met their customer traffic and average bill value targets.

This was 10 years ago. Indian retail has undergone a sea change since then, and now most of the outdoor ad space is taken up by one retailer or the other, announcing launch offers or season sale. Even the radio air waves have been innundated with retail stores' advertisements.

With the number of players multiplying rapidly, the nascent but fast evolving retail landscape in India has forced major retailers to loosen their purse strings and they are now going all out to woo the customer.

Will all this advertising work? It will, it has. But after the initial hype and hoopla, it is the capability of the retailer to deliver on his promises of assortment, EDLP, and providing the best possible shopping experience to the customer, which would keep the cash registers ringing.