Proliferation of channels & publications means one has to spend three times the amount today to impact the same set of audiences, compared to five years ago.

But compounding these are the Unchanging Mind-sets of marketing communications professionals, characterized by:

Overemphasized Demographics

Demographic targeting has long been the focus of marketing efforts – and is even today relied upon heavily as the chief determinant of a brand’s target. In today’s stratified market, this may not be so.

Creative is pursued for the wrong reasons which are inward-looking - effectiveness is left largely to a function of chance.

Reluctance on the part of agencies to go back to the grass-roots and grapple with rapidly evolving market realities; they would rather ‘tweak’ existing learnings and move on…

But most importantly, the buying paradigm has changed …permanently, with an individual’s macro-level attitude – with regard to his larger view of the world, the ethnic background & semiotics of his behavourial existence and lifestyle elements taking center-stage in a brand choice scenario. These softer elements are today far more critical to brand choice than the hard core attitudinal issues we know of so well.