INDIAN MARKETERS BULLISH ON BRAND PERFORMANCE

 Indian marketers seem to be optimistic about their brand performance in 2013 as 85 per cent of them surveyed expect their sales to be higher than last year's, says a study.
According to the Ipsos Asia Pacific Marketers Outlook 2013 study, 43 per cent of Indian marketers surveyed said their companies had performed better than expected in 2012, in terms of sales. Around 33 per cent said that it was the same as the previous year and about 24 per cent believed it was worse than excepted.
The study said Indian marketers plan to focus more on building greater brand loyalty, return on investments (ROI) of their campaigns with better quality and insights from agency partners.
The survey has three fundamental objectives - to gauge business performance for 2012, to understand the outlook for this year in terms of business performance and marketing investment and to evaluate current trends in marketing actions and strategies.
"Understanding target audience and working on a shared strategy were top performing capabilities in 2012 but are less prioritised in 2013, while measuring campaign effectiveness and creative marketing solutions are the top priorities this year for Indian marketers," Ipsos India Head (Marketing Communications) Biswarup Banerjee said.
The study noted that 68 per cent of respondent believe that the key challenge of Indian marketers in 2013 would be improving overall marketing effectiveness and enhancing ROI measurements. This is followed by building greater brand loyalty (61 per cent), developing more integrated marketing strategy (60 per cent) and to further develop the potential of digital media platforms like social networking sites, blogs, mobile (57 per cent).
They expect better quality insights and creative thinking from their agency partners. Indian marketers think social media would take up a higher role in marketing communication plan.
The report said that 70 per cent of Indian marketers and 59 per cent Chinese marketers' have plans to shore-up their overall budget for marketing investments in 2013. For 2013, one-third of the marketers would be working on a budget between USD 1-5 million. Moreover, consumer product companies are likely to have a much larger budget.
The study was conducted among 372 marketing professionals belonging to different industries in the Asia Pacific region, out of which 30 per cent respondents were from China and 19 per cent were from India. In India, a majority of respondents were from consumer products, finance and healthcare industries.