BANGALORE: The Nielsen Company (Nielsen) and McKinsey & Company (McKinsey) announced the India launch of NM Incite, a global joint venture between the two companies.
The JV has been created to help leading companies harness the power of social media intelligence to drive superior business performance. NM Incite gives companies the capabilities to better understand value and take advantage of the rich insights made possible by social media.
Nielsen president Piyush Mathur says, "Social media is a fast developing platform for consumer opinion and can emerge as an ocean of insight for brands that care to listen. NM Incite aims to help marketers understand this media better and leverage it for growth".
McKinsey will contribute to client capability building and expertise in the areas of marketing and sales, organization and service operations. McKinsey serves multiple clients and has developed proprietary knowledge and distinctive insights in areas such as digital marketing, marketing ROI, word-of-mouth marketing and consumer purchase behaviour.
McKinsey head sales and marketing practice India Sahana Sarma says, "We evolve our consulting methods based on our client requirements. Social media is increasingly becoming too powerful a marketing tool to ignore it any more. This joint venture will help us in delivering to our clients the key to unlock the potential of social media.
"Social media in India is where search used to be three-four years back and brands who take early positions will definitely stand to gain. Only eight per cent of social media users in India have not read a product review in the last 12 months and 77 per cent have visited a product website after reading a review on a social media site. This gives an idea of how extensively the Indian user is interacting with brands online," added Mathur.
NM Incite is headquartered in New York and is led by CEO Dave Hudson. NM Incite looks to build upon the social media and online brand metrics, consumer insights and real-time market intelligence of Nielsen BuzzMetrics to transform business operations including product development, marketing, communications and customer service. With the creation of this new venture, BuzzMetrics becomes wholly a part of NM Incite.
Impact of social media on consumers : To gauge the impact of social media on consumers today, Nielsen Online conducted a study among 800 online consumers in India, and the study revealed that 70 per cent of all social networking users access it everyday. It is interesting to note that only two per cent of the people surveyed are not on any social networking sites. 4.7 million messages were posted in the last one year across the top 25 Indian forums.
One in two people, across all age groups, have interacted with a brand on a social networking site in the last one year and 57 percent have reviewed at least one product in the last 12 months. Three out of four people have read expert reviews on consumer electronics/ durables in the last one year, with the highest reviews in the category done by 41-45 year olds. Three out of Four teens has become a fan of a brand online. More women read expert car reviews than movie or clothing reviews.
Online reviews are influencing decision making today. 77 per cent of the users visited a product‘s website after reading its review on social media. 52 per cent of those who read online reviews about a product bought it. Seven out of ten people who bought a product used online reviews as the main or only source of information.
As expected variation in social media usage can be seen across different age groups. 37 per cent of heavy social media users in India (who use it multiple times a day) fall in the age group of 21-30 years. The most likely age group to click on an ad on a social networking site is the 31-40 year olds, with 69 per cent of those surveyed in this age group having clicked on an ad on a social networking site. 89 per cent of the 15-20 year olds access a social networking site everyday and 60 per cent of them spend at least half an hour on social networking each day. A quarter of the social media users in the 15-20 age group read expert reviews on the stock market.
Contrary to popular belief, more women read expert car reviews than movie or clothing reviews. Only eight per cent of the total social media users surveyed have not read a product/ service review in the past one year. So we see that social media has become an important factor in the consumer decision making today and NM incite aims to decipher this space for marketers.
NM Incite advises senior executives and delivers measurement, tools and new processes to drive organizational transformation. The initial areas of focus are measuring and improving marketing effectiveness, product launch optimization and customer service experience.
NM Incite will work with the expansive ecosystem of interactive, marketing and strategic communications firms and other technology and social media companies to implement client solutions, help shape future offerings and develop new metrics.
"Our clients recognise the importance of social media today. They are now on the lookout for an opportunity to harness the potential of this rapidly evolving medium. NM Incite will help companies do this, by leveraging on the wealth of social media expertise that Nielsen and McKinsey bring to the table," says Mathur.
