Bharti Airtel Limited, India’s biggest cell phone company recently highlighted the demand patterns of the urban and the rural consumers and its impact on their balance sheets.

The company officials say says rural demand is still strong despite a global economic downturn and widespread drought at home. Growing consumer demand in rural areas — where about two-thirds of India’s population still resides — is a major reason the country has been able to weather the global economic turmoil better than most countries.

Sanjay Kapoor, the deputy chief executive officer of Bharti Airtel, said climbing demand from new customers, most of whom are outside major cities, is showing few signs of slowing. Bharti Airtel said profit rose 24% in the latest quarter.

Bharti’s optimism is an encouraging sign for those who have bet heavily on countryside consumers continuing to thrive. Over the past year, many Indian and foreign companies marketing everything from shampoo to refrigerators to motorcycles have begun seeding rural areas with sales offices, hoping to ride a fresh wave of consumer spending.

The unexplored rural markets, according to the company is where the market and growth lies.

Bharti Airtel’s profit climbed 24% in the three months ended June 30 to 25 billion rupees ($510 million) as its revenue rose 17% to 99.42 billion rupees. In terms of new subscribers, it was Bharti’s best quarter ever as it added 8.55 million customers.

Advertising Industry has been most affected as most of the companies have slashed their advertising budgets. In India, traditional advertising still dominates the creative accounts. The new mediums i.e. Internet, mobile phones and video form a very niche part of the budgets.

The growth for the advertising industry will come from the new markets in Asia and Latin America, said Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP, the advertising and marketing communications conglomerate. He also mentioned that growth will be powered by new media such as the Internet, mobile phones and video.

India, scores high on new media and consumer insights, which are the emerging trends in the media and communications industry. Currently, clients spend 12-13 per cent of their budgets on online media, while users spend 20 per cent of their time online. So, the Internet is still under-used, he says. While newspapers will not die, the print media is in trouble as the balance shifts more in favour of online.

With around 400 million mobile users in India, the mobile phone is also going to become more and more important.
The recent global downturn has just highlighted the fact that new media and new markets are equally important.

The emergence of Online medium has led businesses to adopt increasingly valuable strategies that would enhance their balance sheet numbers.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – digital marketing tools are being practiced by SME’s as well as MNC’s to tap the online medium.

A recent report from digital marketing intelligence firm ComScore revealed that the number of global online searches increased 41 percent, growing from 80.5 billion searches in July 2008 to 113.7 billion searches in July 2009.Google websites saw the highest amount of searches – The 76.7 billion Google searches seen in July 2009 mark a 58 percent increase over the past year.

Google now enjoys a market share of 67.5%, leaving competition far behind. Yahoo and AOL follow the market leader.

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, HDFC-Home Loans, Apna Paisa are some of the financial institutions who practice SEO as well as SEM. FMCG companies have also recently joined the online medium to connect with its consumers.

Johnson & Johnson, India’s leading healthcare products company, on Thursday announced the launch of its global beauty care brand ‘Neutrogena’ in the domestic market with an aim to be one of the top five companies in India.

The brand has been launched after a lot of research in the skin care segment and analyzing the industry trends.

Prachi Desai of Rock On! fame is the brand ambassador of the brand, showing off the young and energetic brand which has been in the global markets for over 40 years and offers over 400 products in the international markets.

J&J Vice-President (Marketing), Ms Tina Mistry, told reporters “Our plan is to establish the brand in India. We will keep assessing the market but as of now our focus is on our skin care range that we have introduced,”

SRK has credited one more brand to his name. He will endorse Colgate-Palmolive, which is a key player in the oral care category in India.

The deal between the FMCG Giant and SRK was signed on Tuesday, according to a source familiar with the development. The actor is associated with more than 25 brands and is amongst the highest paid celebrities, as he commands anywhere between Rs.3 and 9 crore for a brand endorsement. ICICI Bank, Dish TV, Nokia, Hyundai, Linc Pens, Compaq, Sunfeast, Emami, TAG Heuer, and Omega are some of the brands that he adds value to.
Speaking about his association with Colgate, Manish Porwal, CEO, Percept Talent Management says, “The masses love SRK and Colgate is a brand that reaches out to the masses. SRK is considered a family man and Colgate too is a product for the entire family. Colgate considers many things before signing on an ambassador and his positives will override the negatives like him being a chain smoker.”

Even though movies and Cricket may not be working too well for the superstar, he is still hot property for endorsements.

Tata Tea, the largest tea manufacturing company in India intends to revamp its identity and get a complete makeover in terms of a new enterprise. The Tata Tea is in the process of building an enterprise with a turnover of $10 billion,10 times the current figure, five years from now.

Tata Tea owns four global brands—Tata Tea, Tetley, Good Earth, and Himalayan. While Tetley is already a worldwide brand, Tata Tea and Himalayan are strong brands in the Indian market and Good Earth a strong player in the US. The company plans to focus on distribution to make the brands global.

Percy Siganporia, managing director, said the company would continue to expand in Russia, CIS, the Middle East, South America and South Africa. International consultants are currently working on the rebranding strategy, as well as the new name and logo of the company, which would be finalized over the next two-three weeks.

The company aims to have one cohesive company which would then monitor the operations across the globe.

BMW Financial Services India will be a subsidiary of BMW Group, headquartered in Munich, Germany. BMW Financial Services was established in 1993 and presently has subsidiaries in 31 countries besides India and is active in more than 60 countries.

BMW Financial Services India will be launched by BMW Group as a subsidiary. The services will be operational in the country by the mid of 2010 and will be headquartered in Gurgaon.

The financial services aim to strengthen the bond between the brand and its consumers. The brand will offer solutions for Retail automobile financing for BMW customers and multi make customers. The step has been taken after reviewing the automobile industry trends and also due to BMW’s achievements in the sector.

The financial services provided by the company will serve as a boon to the premium clientele served by BMW who require exclusive and flexible finance solutions.

The Mahindra Group, who recently bought a stake in Kinetic, the Pune-based two-wheeler manufacturer has decided to restructure the two-wheeler business. M&M had acquired the Kinetic Group for a whooping Rs 118 crore in July 2008.

According to the sources, Kinetic scooters will still be manufactured, but rebranded as Mahindra-Kinetic from now on. Facing the axe are scooters such as Nova, 4S, Blaze, Kine; mopeds such as King100, v2, the iconic Luna; and motorcycles such as Stryker, Comet and the Kinetic Aquila.

The move is an outcome of market research conducted by the new management of the two-wheeler business, which suggested that the company would need to reinforce the Mahindra brand strongly if they want to establish the group in the competitive two wheelers space.

As part of the restructuring, the company is doing away with the Kinetic branding for new models being launched by the two-wheeler joint venture. At the time of announcing their partnership, the Mahindra group had said they would use a Mahindra Kinetic co-brand for all two wheelers to be sold by the joint venture.

M&M is not only gearing up to compete with current scooter market leader Honda Motorcycles and Scooter India but also Hero Honda and Bajaj, hinting introduction and fresh portfolio launches ahead of the festival season in the latter part of this year.