MarketTools Blog

As we move into a truly global marketplace, major CPG companies are looking to expand their brands’ presence in emerging markets.  The economic growth in countries such as Brazil, Russia, India and China continues to outpace growth in developed nations, driving increased demand for global brands. The push to get products on the shelf for the enthusiastic new consumers in these markets is happening at a frenetic pace.

With this push comes the realization that the “infrastructure” for CPG product movement is quite different in emerging markets. Supply chains are different, alternate channels such as kiosks and open-air markets are more important, marketing spend is far less impactful, and tastes differ regionally. Each of these challenges can give local brands a huge edge over global brands.

While global brands work to address these issues, they face another critical “infrastructure” problem: how to reliably track their competitive performance in emerging markets. Although scanner and panel data is readily available (and for the most part very reliable) in developed markets, there is a dearth of product movement data in emerging markets.  Category and brand metrics are much harder to come by, and the data that is available is perceived to be expensive and not reliable enough to paint an accurate picture of competitive performance.

With the lack of reliable secondary data such as retailer scanner data, purchases in emerging markets are typically tracked through the use of panels and intercepts. These attempts to collect purchase data are quite expensive and notoriously inaccurate ‒ for instance, a product purchased for immediate consumption in an open-air market or kiosk typically does not come with a receipt and there may be no reliable record of its sale. In addition, purchase panels typically underestimate the consumption of lower socio-economic groups who live more hand-to-mouth, and members of those groups are less likely to belong to purchase panels.

The explosion of mobile penetration in emerging countries creates the potential for reaching more consumers representing wider socio-economic ranges than most current methods – and reaching them faster and more cheaply. But as we usher in the era of mobile research we still have much to learn. Eventually the industry will develop streamlined processes and best practices for mobile (just as we have done for online research); in the meantime we must approach this new frontier with patience, a commitment to mobile experimentation and a knack for negotiating the inevitable challenges we didn’t anticipate.

As an example, MarketTools will showcase the results of a competitive assessment in Latin and South America conducted for a global CPG company via mobile survey, in an ESOMAR webinar on May 15th titled, “¡Si! Sim! Making Good on Mobile’s Global Promise”.  We will share in detail how the data was collected and what we learned along the way. 

We welcome you to join us for this discussion – register here: http://www.esomar.org/events-and-awards/events/webinars/making-good-on-mobiles-global-promise.php.  (ESOMAR membership is encouraged, but not required if you register in advance for the webinar. )