About INgene blog : First ever Indian Youth trend Insights blog

About INgene : First ever Indian Youth trend Insights blog:
This blog explores the detailed characteristics of Young-India and explains the finer & crucial differences they have with their global peers. The blog also establishes the theory of “adopted differentiation” (Copyright Kaustav SG,2007) and how the Indian & Inglodian youth are using this as a tool to differentiate themselves from the “aam aadmi” (mass population of India) to establish their new found identity.

The term youth refers to persons who are no longer children and not yet adults. Used colloquially, however the term generally refers to a broader, more ambiguous field of reference- from the physically adolescent to those in their late twenties.
Though superficially the youth all over the world exhibits similar [degree of] attitude, [traits of] interests & [deliverance of] opinion but a detailed observation reveals the finer differential characteristics which are crucial and often ignored while targeting this group as a valued consumer base. India is one of the youngest countries in the world with 60% of its population less then 24 years of age and is charted as the most prospective destination for the retail investment in the A. T. Kearney’s Global Retail Opportunity Report, 2007. With the first ever non-socialistic generation’s thriving aspiration & new found money power combined with steadily growing GDP, bubbling IT industry and increasing list of confident young entrepreneurs, the scenario appears very lucrative for the global and local retailers to target the “Youngisthan” (young-India). But, the secret remains in the understanding of the finer AIOs of this generation. The Indian youth segment roughly estimates close to 250million (between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five) and can be broadly divided (socio-psychologically) into three categories: the Bharatiyas, the Indians & the Inglodians (copyright Kaustav SG 2008). The Bharatiyas estimating 67% of the young population lives in the rural (R1, R2 to R4 SEC) areas with least influence of globalization, high traditional values. They are least economically privileged, most family oriented Bollywood influenced generation. The Indians constitute 31.5% (A, B,C, D & E SEC) and have moderate global influence. They are well aware of the global trends but rooted to the Indian family values, customs and ethos. The Inglodians are basically the creamy layers (A1,A SEC) and marginal (1.5% or roughly three million) in number though they are strongly growing (70% growth rate). Inglodians are affluent and consume most of the trendy & luxury items. They are internet savvy & the believers of global-village (a place where there is no difference between east & west, developing & developed countries etc.), highly influenced by the western music, food, fashion & culture yet Indian at heart.








Sunday, March 20, 2011

Not rebels, but Mama’s boys and girls- The Hindusthan Times report

It’s a generation that loves television, hang out with friends and shop, enjoys Bollywood films and filmy music, doesn’t exercise too much, isn’t at all enamoured of smoking or drinking and is either hostile or indifferent to drugs. The Hindustan Times Youth Survey 2011 seems to suggest that India’s Gen X is full of Mumma’s boys and Mumma’s girls and reinforces the image of the youth as a conservative group quite comfortable in its own skin.

In movies, Bollywood is the clear choice of this generation – two out of three prefer the fare dished out by Mumbai’s Tinsel Town. Another one in five, say regional cinema is their preferred choice of entertainment. This trend is particularly strong in the south – in Hyderabad, almost nine out of 10 (88%) and in Chennai, seven out of 10 (72%) vote for local cinema.

“Many people in previous generations either thought Bollywood was low brow and, therefore, not worthy of their attention, or were shy of admitting their love for it. But this generation has no such inhibitions. It’s a sign of our growing confidence as a nation,” says Sukhdev Bhattacharya, retired professor of psychology of NBU.

Their choice of music is also decidedly Indian – 56% prefer Bollywood music, 13% Indian classical and 11% Indi-pop. But western music (pop, rock, hip-hop and R&B) is also quite popular – 20% of youth list one of these genres as their favourite.

Sartorially, be Indian, wear Indian is the motto of 18-25 women. A majority (52.9%) wears salwar kameez, but a large minority (one in three) prefers jeans and Ts.

And how do young Indians spend their spare time? By watching TV (34.3% list this as their favourite spare time activity), spending time with friends (18.4%) and listening to music (16.9%). But reading (8.5%), surfing the internet (8.4%) and sports (4.2%) aren’t very popular past times.

Today’s youth is very interested in current affairs. More than 50% of youth read newspapers for 15 minutes to an hour every day. Another 35% read papers for less than 15 minutes a day. But one out of eight don’t read papers at all. Nine out of 10 young Indians don’t smoke or drink. And drugs? It’s not even a topic for debate. Only 12.3% of respondents say marijuana should be legalised, while another 15% believe it should be legalised for medical purposes only.

But youth in Bhubaneswar broke ranks with their peers across the country. A fairly high 37% of males and 32% of females want marijuana legalised. Guwahati (27.5%), Hyderabad (23.5%) and Kolkata (22.9%) are the three other cities where there is a reasonable degree of support for marijuana.

The numbers are not alarming, says Juju Basu, creative director of Contract Advertising. “India’s always had a significant hemp culture. Our sadhus are always smoking it and the hippy movement of the 1960s was very prominent here,” he adds.

If anything, he’s surprised the numbers aren’t higher. The current generation of 18-25-year-olds are, after all, kids of the Hare-Rama-Hare-Krishna generation, and going against the norms of older generations is, perhaps, every youth group’s one driving force.

But one thing that’s clear is that this generation seems to be full of what our parents generally term “good kids”. Rebels with (or without) a cause seem like a thing of the past.

Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/chunk-ht-ui-youthsurvey-topstories/Not-rebels-but-Mama-s-boys-and-girls/Article1-655680.aspx

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Indian youth prefers mobile to Facebook to break the big news-The Hindustan Times survey report

If you needed proof that India has missed the Internet bus, here is one more. The Indian youth does not make big announcements on Facebook or Twitter or e-mail. Instead, it prefers the mobile phone.

This finding was published this morning by The Hindustan Times which conducted as survey of Indian youth across 18 cities. The finding showed that 35.1% of the Indian youth aged between 18 to 25 years gets on to the mobile phone to communicate important information.

The SMS is the next popular device. It is used by 27.1 % of the Indian youngsters to communicate. The two modes add up to 62%, establishing that this generation of Indian youth can be called the mobile phone generation.

Interestingly, person to person communication is still alive, and 22.2% of the youth like to communicate important information personally.

The Facebook, which has emerged as India’s number one social media site, is used by 10.1% of the youth. E-mail surprisingly is not considered as so personal. Barely 3.6% use e-mail for major personal announcements. Twitter too is not too popular, with only 2.2% of the youth tweeting what matters to them.

Source: http://easymedia.in/2011/01/29/indian-youth-prefers-mobile-to-facebook-to-break-the-big-news/

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