Book Review: India Reloaded (Inside India’s Resurgent

Consumer Market)
Author Name: Dheeraj Sinha
Publisher name: Westland ltd.
Publication Data: First published by Westland ltd 2015
Copyright(C) Dheeraj Sinha 2015
All rights reserved
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN: 978-93-85125-33-7
Typeset by PrePSol Enterprises Pvt. Ltd.
Printed at Thomson Press(India) Ltd.
Summary of the book: India Reloaded

The author itself named the book as “INDIA RELOADED”, with which he defined the Indian

market culture as a completely reprised. It has now become difficult for the marketers to

decipher the flexibility of the consumers in every segment.

According to the author the concept of “Mass Market” is now no more an effective strategy.

The consumer of the country just doesn’t need the product, but also want respect. On the

contrary, they want to be on the safer side and resists experimenting. The concept of mass

marketing practiced by the marketers to penetrate the entire market has drastically failed,

because the population of the country needs esteem in the society, however on the other

hand they are ready to stand in the long queues.

The context of the book states that diversified market is gradually “connecting India”. Once

upon a time in India people used to have unrelated market and unrelated needs but due to

the emerging integration in different cultures of India, more or less people have related

needs. Consumer also are excited to enjoy new taste of different cultures. Also author has

enlighten us with the change in definition of “Conservatism” has changed from era of 80’s to

21st century, from “Muje Peene ka Shauk nhi” to “Chaar bottle vodka” India has some

where lost its innocence. With the phrase author wants to say that the consumers are

attracted towards the western culture and their taste and preference are changing and

consumer is looking for “Feel good/sexy factor”. Marketers in the current scenario are giving

an opportunity to the consumers to show-off by creating such content that may influence

the consumer to follow such that the marketers want to break the stereotypes by setting up

high aspirations for the consumers, from aspiring a aeroplane ride to craving for skydiving,

the marketers are somehow chasing the consumers.

Author says when the work is not done easily consumers tend to find the alternatives

mostly shortcuts for completing the work. The consumers are rigid to accept the reality that

they cannot do any work or cannot use any product due to various factors which marketers

needs to understand, adding to the point the consumers are lethargic or so much obsessed

with “Jugad” that they resist to quality service and choose to fit in a thing in an unorganised

manner. The consumer has the mentality for “JUGAD” in such a way that they know they

will get more for paying less and not getting less for paying the exact amount, by keeping

the factor of service quality as same. In reference from the book many consumers prefer to

go for a local service centre (Jugad) instead of going to the authorised service centre.

Opportunities are increasing as an increasing rate for the marketers because earlier what

used to be the status symbol has somewhere become need for the day and such products

have become mainstream, keeping these factors in mind author, has stated that the

mainstream market is at the saturation level so, if marketers wants to create opportunities

and differentiate themselves they have to tap the untapped market.

Also, the author states that if people behind the marketing strategy is efficient, the change

in behaviour of consumer will not impact the growth of market in the country because it’s

not abut the policies/concepts but the implication of them. Also, it’s the people who drives

the growth not the rules and regulation.

Learning from the book

We understood that the nature of consumers and the way the consumers have evolved over

time. As the title of the book suggests India Reloaded, this book talks about the Indian

Market which is not the same as it was before. The Indian consumer can have different

choices over a period of time, he may be liking one thing at one end and may say no to a

similar thing. Other thing we learnt from this book is that not always the strategies work i.e.

without knowing the consumer even the best strategist may fail in delivering the best

product. Studying consumer is a complicated task and even if we understand the consumer

we can’t ensure that what we studied will remain relevant for a long time.

When people say India is a potential market with a large population more than 1.3 billion

people doesn’t mean that every marketer needs to target each and every person of the

country, because it may lead to failure. The people of different culture, Socio-Economic

Classes and demographics have different sets of needs and desires, which is the main

reason for the failure of mass marketing. India, being such a big market is diversified too.

Everyone has different culture with different taste and preference but are they ready to

adopt different culture is another question and a major learning from this book. Adoption to

different culture creates new market and if we are able to understand the perspective of

consumer towards different cultures, we can create a successful market.

It is obvious that understanding consumer is not an easy task but still the most important

factor for success in the market. Most of the consumers doesn’t know themselves what they

want. Behaviour of consumer may change at any point of time depending upon the

situation. As mentioned above, consumers have evolved over a period of time, so we need
to understand these changing aspects and work on them because what influenced them

before is not effective anymore. As one of the chapter in the book talks about breaking of

stereotypes, clearly makes us understand that the ideologies have been changed and what

was not considered good at a time is now the people tend to follow.

Morale of the book

The purpose of this book is to know the reason behind various business failures and to

prevent business failure with respect to changing behaviour of consumers or the reloaded

consumers. This book was written for marketers and those who aspire to be marketers to

understand the need of Consumer Behaviour and Indian Market.

As we have seen many failures of the products/marketers/companies despite of executing

best of strategies. We can take the many examples from the book to support the above

paragraph. Like the TATA Nano failed because of wrong positioning in the market where

consumers seek status in having a car and the company positioned the car in the market as

the “Cheapest Car”.

The purpose of this book is not just about the failures but the changing ideologies and

purchasing behaviour as well. The book shows the shift of consumers from era of early 90’s

consumer to 21st century consumer. Were consumers are breaking the Taboo of “sexually

liberal, verbally offensive and emotionally selfish. Which can be seen in the famous

television shows like MTV Roadies, Big Boss, and various Webisodes of TVF and AIB as well.

In the current scenario people want to life the life of Ranbir Kapoor’s Bunny Character from

the Movie “Yeh Jawani hai Deewani” and travelling and adventure goals like Hritik Roshan’s
Character from Movie “Zindagi Na milegi dobara”. Thus we can say that this book is totally

based on examples from reel and real life.

Conclusion

The name of the book which has been kept the author is the most suitable title for this type

of content. The author has made valid connections with relevant examples in a layman

language. It can give path to the marketers to understand the behaviour of consumers at

some extent. These 205 pages of the book are worth reading for an individual, marketers

specially because India is a country of religion, customs, ethics and traditions. From this the

marketers can connect how they can deal with all the cultures and always consumer needs

The book is having 10 chapters and every chapter is more or less interconnected with other

chapters, the chapters title are eye catching as well as conceptual. However, it is also

portraying the negative image of the country in some of the examples like “JUGAAD”.

From this book we can clearly infer that “change is the only constant thing in the market”

We as a critic give this book 4/5 rating