Understanding ‘Mrs. Urban India’ — attempting the impossible?

A study on Indian women — interesting, considering that advertisers spend a good deal of time on understanding them — and the moment, the deal becomes focussed on the urban class, it gets even better. But this isn’t the first attempt in understanding the segment. So why should ‘Mrs. Urban India’, the first of the series of studies from Lowe Faces, be of any use to anyone?

Well, lets just establish a few details first: Lowe Faces is a regional initiative taken in the Asia Pacific market. ‘Mrs. Urban India’ is a first from what is promised — to magnify the changing mind of the married urban women and get up, close and personal.

Like any good study, Lowe Faces gives the reader a clear indication of what the study has revealed about the sub-sects in urban women. The findings give five distinct segments with more details about the demographic, lifestyle, psychographics and brand skew of these segments. Lowe India has labelled these as Mrs. ‘Hasmukh’ Popular (27 per cent), Mrs. ‘Meri Awaaz Suno’ Attention Seeker (31 per cent), Mrs. ‘Gharelu’ Homepride (18 per cent), Mrs. ‘Pataka’ Cool (12 per cent) and Mrs. ‘Hey Bhagwan’ Moaner (12 per cent).

The man behind the study, T. Krishna, Sr. VP, Strategic Planning, Lowe, believes that this humanises the data, “We are talking about real people and the advertiser should be able to visualise what the consumer looks like.” Krishna had substantial aid from the New Zealand software ‘Espree’. This desktop tool made it easier to crunch the cumbersome data and choose only key parameters that would help in giving a better idea on the segment for presentation in the book.

In India, the ‘Mrs. Urban India’ study has analysed over 10,000 Indian women across 38 urban centres. The database uses Pathfinder’s P:SNAP (Study of Nation’s Attitudes and Psychographics) and the research, done by Lintas Media Group’s research arm, Intellect. The report went beyond demographics and shares a deeper understanding into the psyche of married urban women. It reveals how the forces of change are segmenting consumers.