The Indian Retail market is booming at an accelerating rate, and is s expected to increase to USD 750-850 billion by 2015. Food and Grocery is the largest category within the retail sector with 60 per cent share. (Source Deloitte).

But even as we celebrate the pace at which retail growth is taking place, Shopper Marketing,
an essential aspect of how brands connect with their shoppers/consumers, seems to be lagging behind in the Indian scnenario. 

With the rise in modern trade, the need for Shopper Marketing has gained significance in recent times with brands and retailers looking at Shopper Marketing as a powerful tool to engage with the shoppers and understand them better. Yet, there is a severe drought  when it comes to hiring talent in the area of shopper marketing.

Why is it so tough to find the right shopper marketing talent at a time when the retail space is look as exciting as it does? Here is what professionals in the field have to day:

‘No ready made talent‘

Rahul Saigal, President, Geometry Global

The reality is that the industry is so new that we don‘t have ready-made talent in the market. We recruit for the shopper marketing division from the advertising industry sometimes. But the fact is that the brand world is very different from the shopper world. And those coming from the consumer marketing world - the consumer world and shopper world are very differnt - don‘t understand intuitively about the requirement for churning out the right shopper marketing solution. Also, it is difficult to find courses dedicated to shopper marketing,  but may be that will emerge in the future. And mind you, shopper marketing is only a small part of Consumer Marketing.  

The only option is to recruit from among those who have shopper marketing experience on the agency side. And there are very few agencies in the space, so the pool of talent becomes extremely limited. That is the reason why finding a shopper marketing resource is incredibly challenging and difficult. You can‘t get it from the client side as brands themselves don‘t get it, the existing talent in shopper marketing is thus very small.

‘Shopper marketing is rooted in experience‘

Pradeep Ramakrishnan, Head - Strategy & Insights - TracyLocke India

Shopper Marketing should be an integral part of any marketing course, but it can be taught only up to a point.  It is rooted in experience and requires a trained mind heart co-ordination and this can only evolve with time. What one needs to do is to get the basics right at school and be willing to spend hours just observing. It is definitely not a one day job.




‘Need to go beyond one-off programmes‘

Haresh Nayak, Managing Director - Posterscope Group

According to a recent Nielsen Survey, there are two main reasons for the lack of shopper marketing capability: lack of training and lack of talent. So may be there is a need to add that to the marketing syllabus.

And I would say, don't just'train', because in our experience transferring skills back to the office requires a lot more. One-off programs usually add very little value and leave the students with no knowledge. Programs should be supported with coaching from the manager and be seen to be part of a total syllabus with supporting manuals and coaching support.

We are currently trying to create awareness within the existing client base that we have by bringing the insights of shopper marketing to their ongoing projects. This is also helping us build some local case studies of how shopper marketing can work equally well in the trade.

‘Create lucrative options to attract talent'

Bharat Vermani, Director, Saatchi & Saatchi X

There is no major institute providing shopper marketing to youngsters. There lies the challenge. Professionals from abroad  are coming in and training which is expensive. We are depending on foreign talent to come and train us.

Besides, we train our talent by introducing them first to the basic topic of category and then to conversion and translation of sales. For a good learner of shopper marketing, it should take a couple of months to work out a decent strategy for any brand. Unless brands adopt shopper marketing as their strategy, they would not be in a position to groom shopper marketing professionals, and they will keep thinking of it as an expense.

Searching for the right talent for shopper marketing is going to remain tough as it is still new and the potential needs to be tapped in its entirety. The way ahead is to not go out looking for right talent, but instead to make shopper marketing a lucrative option for the talent. As the market for shopper marketing is still in its nascent stage, there is hope in getting the right process in place in terms of hiring. Also, one must not forget that talent shortage  this area is a problem faced by multiple countries and awareness, better guidance and coaching will certainly result in positive results.

Summing Up:

• Need for independent training programemes designed by marketing professionals who have had on-ground experience interacting with shoppers

• Brands must provide enough on-field experiences to fresh marketing executives who can be groomed as Shopper Marketing professionals

• Break-down of marketing budgets on the part of brands to intelligently allot a portion for shopper marketing

• Collaborative partnership between the brand and the retail agency retail solutions provider with mutual sharing of case tudies and observations so that a well thought-out  shopper marketing  strategy can be charted out.