In a community of over 6,00,000 Jammers, it is intriguing to see that:
- Though Kohli is the young ultra successful skipper of the Indian team, Dhoni wins the hearts and minds of Young Indians when it comes to the IPL by over 50%.
- 63% of the haikus on the General Elections 2019 are positive, leading to 2x times where Young India chooses the politician over the party itself.
- While 9% of the haikus associate owning a car to freedom, over 22% of Young Indians associate it to a dream - a dream of providing for their parents.
The first of the Schbang X HaikuJAM Young India Report 2019 delves into topics that are currently a priority to the youth viz. the Indian Premier League, Election 2019, Beauty, Listening to Music, Owning a Car, Chai vs Coffee, The Next Holiday and Instagram. What Young India has passed off as just poetry, with the help of the analytical tools the platform uses, marketers are onto a revolution to understand this dynamic generation of Millennials and GenZ-ers. The insights drawn from these haikus are revealing the subconscious feelings of these young minds. The full report can be accessed here.
Other key takeaways from the report:
- Beauty - Young India feels that beauty is something that is more about what you feel inside as opposed to the result outside. We need to remember that this is a cross section that's skewed towards a higher SEC so for the mass market this lesson may not completely apply. Having said that premium brands now need to start focusing on how their products improve self-worth, accentuate what's inside consumers' hearts by giving more definition and how consumers' eyes and lips are able to better tell the stories of their souls.
- Listening to music - Music for India's youth is something that they escape to when they're feeling lonely and really taps into helping Young Indians figure why they're feeling lonely. So music is expressing for them what they're feeling but can't say.
- Next Holiday - The biggest revelation from this was that the youth are treating holidays more like a gateway to catch up on sleep with “Sleep” being associated with Holidays 1.5x more than “Exploration”. In an age of digital overdose, the youth is looking for a digital detox with the ‘Fear Of Missing Out’ (FOMO) slowly becoming the ‘Joy Of Missing Out’ (JOMO). For hotels, the insight of providing a home away from home to catch up on rest could be a powerful communication to go after.
- Instagram - Young India is seeing value in the quick, self-destructing Stories more than the content on the news feed. This is a clear indication for brands to focus on creating engaging content for Stories since it also offers many options to interact with audiences. However, the emotions of anger and disgust to the platform are slowly increasing as compared to last year. Is it a sign that fatigue has set in and Young India is already on the lookout for the next-big-thing?
- Chai vs Coffee - Coffee is associated with a sense of Feeling Alone 5x more than Chai, with chai being associated with a sense of community. While talking about Chai, Starbucks is the only brand that features in the analysis. Is it a sitting opportunity for Starbucks to do a chai-centric campaign since a majority of their imagery is built around their coffees? But ironically, when it comes to Coffee, Cafe Coffee Day scores higher than Starbucks in brand mentions by almost 25%. Guess the homegrown brand still resonates better with Young India.
Schbang is an Independent Integrated Agency focused on delivering effective communication for brands and HaikuJAM is an app-based platform where the new generation comes together to create short format poems to express themselves. Here is an agency that thrives on data and an app that drives the data. Bringing the two strengths together this venture created a report that reflects what Young India feels and how they can be effectively spoken to, using the insights.
Talking about the report, Akshay Gurnani, CEO, Schbang said, “This report is not just getting the pulse of the millennial generation, but has some eye opening revelations on varied topics. One such revelation was how this generation seeks vacations to catch up on their sleep and not exploring a new locale. In today's time of a digital overdose, this is their digital detox. These perspectives is food for thought for all brands and marketers out there, who are trying to tap into these young minds. It’s an interesting time to be in and we hope this data is the start of something new.”
The times are changing, every brand, every agency and every individual is in the race to know Young India and it isn’t an easy feat. India is onto a marketing revolution and this report is just the start.
