MEC presents “Decoding India’s Digital Behaviour”

The study across 16 cities with a 1,200+ sample provides consumer insights to India’s online habits

Jan 18, 2011 03:41:00 PM | Article | Campaign India Team

MEC India has released its “Decoding India’s Digital Behaviour” report. The study, across 16 cities with a 1,200+ sample, is said to provide key consumer insights to India’s online habits. The study covers consumer interaction with traditional portals, Search, Social Networking and Mobile.

Key insights from the report are:

• Search is the most popular activity online. Search is becoming integral to the consumer's purchase pathway for planned purchases. Over half of online consumers do not recognize that text links in search engines is in fact paid search advertising.
• Social Networking is the second most popular activity online. Interestingly, social networking sites are replacing emails as the preferred method of communication for almost half the online audience.
• Entertainment is the third most popular online activity, with music and movies continuing to be the most popular online entertainment activities.

Shubha George, chief operating officer, MEC South Asia, said, “We introduced the Paid Owned Earned media structure last year. Building on this, we have conducted a sizeable study to understand consumer’s behavior in the online world and how and where they are interacting with Paid, Owned and Earned media.”

She continued,  “The digital world today is an amalgamation of multiple digital touch points.  For holistic campaigns, brands need to activate all aspects of digital. And for this a better understanding of the newer digital forms is essential.” 

“With 63 million internet users and 70 million active GPRS users, I believe that India’s substantial digital population is often not given the attention it merits. Lack of credible data regarding people’s consumption of all digital platforms is a lacuna. This study is a fantastic beginning to filling this knowledge gap” said Ben Poole, head of MEC Interaction, Asia Pacific. 

“Decoding India’s Digital Behaviour” is part of MEC’s Food For Thought series which launched in 2009 with published papers and studies on a wide range of topics including the IPL viewership estimates and Celebrity Sensor.  The agency will follow up soon with its research on the impending World Cup Cricket competition and the IPL 4.