How has pandemic changed the brand preferences of urban Indian consumer

Team L&M

Pandemic impacted a 360 degree change in the way we work and live. Many new norms, hitherto unthinkable, have gained permanence in life. No part of life has been left untouched. And among these is consumer behaviour.
To find out how the pandemic changed the consumers’ brand preference during different times of the day, Market Xcel, consumer and market insights company, undertook a survey titled ‘BrandXcel’ to delve deeper into the new emerging consumer, post pandemic, decoding the preferences of the Digi-gen (the millennial and Gen Z consumers). It features the top 50 brands by Day Parts.
The survey ranks the preference for personal care brands high in the mornings, food tech and delivery brands at noon and at night, e-commerce brands also in the noon, and OTT brands at night time.
Colgate, Lifebuoy and Closeup have emerged as the key morning brands, while the afternoon timeframe is dominated by a mix of digital, mobile, food-tech, internet related, payment gateway and personal care brands. Night time includes internet related, mobile, shopping and personal care brands.
In the top 10 brands’ ranking, the age-old favourites have been nudged out by new-age digital brands like Airtel, Jio, Google, WhatsApp, Facebook, Amazon, YouTube and Netflix. Only two grand old brands made the list – Amul and Colgate. Surprisingly, Amazon is the only ecommerce brand in the top 10 and Amul is the only food brand. Tech-based niche enablers like Swiggy, Zomato and Big Basket dominated the 11-20 ranks.
Market Xcel studied over 1000 brands  and looked at the top 100 more closely and derived insights from the study  that included over 8,750 people from the target Group aged 18-55 years and living in the top 25 Indian cities, including metro, Tier I and Tier II. The survey covered all four regions of the country. “We adopted a hybrid approach for data collection that included web-based interviews and in-person CAPI,” says Market Xcel CEO Vishal Oberoi.
“While in our two decades of providing research services, we have always witnessed the consumer evolve and grow with the times, the pandemic in the last two years had us all witness such a paradigm change for the first time. We wanted to be the first to delve into it and also use the opportunity to take a different and refreshed approach to the study. Hence the mapping of brand preference by day parts,” says Manish Narang, Founder, MarketXcel.
Says MarketXcel Executive Director Ashwani Arora, “An assessment of brand ranking offers marketers an opportunity to reflect on changed consumer behaviour. Combined with thought leadership and opinion pieces from few of the country’s best marketing minds, an easy to consume, coffee table book presentation of the survey and its findings will ensure Brandxcel is the blue book for marketers to wade into the new norm.”

TOP BRANDS
Personal care: Colgate, Lifebuoy
Food: Amul, Nestle;
Beverages: Pepsi, Coke
Haircare: Clinic Plus, Sunsilk
e-commerce: Amazon, Big Basket
Automobiles: Maruti, Honda two wheelers;
BFSI: LIC, SBI
Cosmetics: Lakme, Lotus
Restaurant/QSR: Haldiram, Pizza Hut