TNS China

Mobile Life

It is believed that when the Christian cavalry first appeared in the new world the pagans thought that the horse and the rider was one person. Visitors from outer space on seeing the modern humans with a mobile phone glued to their faces, or a blue tooth head set in their ears, could well also think that the mobile phone is really an integral part of our bodies. We surely seem to rely on it almost as much as we do on our organs. We use the phone to talk, send messages, chat with friends, take pictures, read news and books, listen to music, watch movies, and even transfer money. Many would argue no other recent invention has transformed the mankind to the extent that mobile phone has.

It has not just enriched the lives of the well-heeled - allowing them to use Facebook, watch Youtube and read the New York Times on their smart phones, it has empowered the poor in developing countries through countless applications - helping them to use a mobile phone to check the weather forecast to plan the sowing, check prices for their crops and even transfer money to their families and loved ones. To women it has become a safety device, encouraging them to go out and work, while providing peace of mind to their families. Secondly, unlike in many other ways, it is not the West but the Chinese and the Indian mobile phone users who are leading the way in discovering innovative and life changing ways of using mobile phones. Convergence, much talked about in the West, saw more success in the East - emerging market consumers are less likely to be able to spend money on multiple devices and use the mobile device not just as a communication tool - but also as a education device, a personal organiser and as an entertainment centre.

While PCs remain the most frequent conduit to the internet, a large number of consumers in China use a mobile phone to access the internet. In fact a significant number (over 50 million) only use a mobile phone to access the internet, as they do not have access to PC based internet. Mobile internet in developing countries, therefore, is driven by two horses - it is not just the urban rich who use their smart phones to access the net, it also consumers in smaller towns and rural areas, whose only access to the web is through the mobile device.

Understanding how consumers use mobile phones, what motivates their usage and what more do they want to do with them is of enormous importance to those who make the phones, those who provide the service and those who design the applications that run on the phones. The transformation of the phone into a media vehicle makes it of interest to anyone who wants to reach the consumers with their brand messages. This makes the phone of huge relevance and importance to any company and any organisation which has anything to do with the consumers.

While we understand a lot about how and why people use mobile phones, the technology is continuously outpacing our understanding. TNS’ Mobile Life: Global Technology Insights ((discovermobilelife.com) is an annual investigation into the mobile market place, in it’s sixth year Mobile Life: GTI is designed to keep a constant finger on the mobile consumer's pulse (or rather their thumbs and fingers which they use to do make their phones do the most amazing things possible). Mobile Life: GTI measures what consumers do with their phones, how often do they do it, where they do it, when they do it and most importantly why they do it. Understanding the motivations, mood and feelings consumers experience while engaged in various mobile activities is important to understand so that the marketers can match the tone of their messages with the emotions experienced by the consumers when engaged in various activities. In this way the messages are less likely to be seen as intrusive and received more enthusiastically.

What will be the future of this marvellous little device, which helps us bond with other human beings, gives us peace of mind, assuring us of the security of our loved ones, entertains us, navigates us and even helps us earn a livelihood? Mobile Life:GTI is the only truly global study to investigate these areas. With a coverage spanning 42 countries and 34,000 consumers, it offers unparalleled understanding of the consumer relationship - functional as well as emotional - with their mobile devices and a sound basis for a wide range of marketing decisions.

For more information on this study visit discovermobilelife.com

Written by Ashok Sethi

Ashok.Sethi@tnsglobal.com

Down the rabbit hole in the new year

While China celebrated and welcomed the year of rabbit this month, Vietnam was heralding the year of the cat. It seems to be a case of Chinese whispers in which the rabbit got transmogrified into a cat while travelling South, and resulted in the Vietnamese ringing in the year of the furry feline rather than the swifter rabbit.

Journalists who like to compare China with India, will need to note that unlike China there is no single Indian new year, and like the usual diversity in India, the different provinces, communities and religions celebrate their own new year. Comparing the economics of the two countries, and seeing the raging inflation and softening stock market in India, many worry that if it is the year of the hare in China, let it not be the year of the tortoise in India! But some economists feel that India will be the winner in the long run - China's boom could be a case of "hare today, gone tomorrow". Others, however place their bets on China, where sustained investment as well as focussed and efficient governance continues to drive the country towards new economic achievements and providing a better quality of life to its citizens.

The greatest human movement in the world in China triggered by the new year, in which over 300 million migrant workers and others working away from their homes, head back to be united with their families, often results in anxiety and frustration. The eagerness or even desperation to get home, particularly pronounced among the migrant workers who have often left their children home in the care of their grandparents, is particularly pronounced. The competition for train tickets is particularly fierce and media has been full of stories of people queuing overnight only to be told when they reach the ticket window that all tickets to their home town are sold out. One sufferer of this fate was Chen Weiwei, who is utter desperation and frustration at failing to secure a place on the train home, stripped himself naked in the ticket office, forcing the authorities to provide him with tickets for him and his family. How were the authorities able to produce the tickets, when the ticket windows declared them "sold out" was a subject of much speculation in the Chinese blogosphere.

To the marketer, Chinese new year is the time to ease the consumers of their hard earned money, particularly exploiting their desire to return home laden with gifts for their parents, children and extended families. A health product called Nao Baijin, particularly exploits the sentiment urging consumers to buy super large, decorative festival packs of the magic pills to gift their ageing parents. Other marketers use the occasion to reach out to the consumers with promotions (as successfully done by the search engine Baidu - asking consumers to search for "hong bao" or the "gift envelop" to participate in a contest) or ride on the emotional bliss of uniting with or communicating with the loved ones (as done by QQ - China's most popular internet messenger).

While going home to meet parents can be joyous occasion, some young people also dread the parental inquisition and pressure for tie the knot and produce a grandchild for the parents to look after. Some have started resorting to hiring a member of the opposite sex masquerading as a potential marriage partner to ease the parental pressure. The phenomenon of hiring a girl friend to take home for Chinese new year, so that the parents are assured that their son is well on its way to a life of stability and marital bliss, inspired a new television series called "Zu ge nu you hui jia guo nian" or "Hiring a girl friend to take home for new year". 

Written by Ashok Sethi

Ashok.Sethi@tnsglobal.com