Maruti Suzuki India Limited launched its new digital campaign ‘Arena Journeys’ on the occasion of International Women’s Day to celebrate the growing number of women drivers and influencers in vehicle decisions across the country. The campaign features four short stories by women filmmakers of India. These stories are in sync with the brand’s philosophy of ‘Joy of Mobility’ celebrating women taking the steering wheel.
“Our objective at Maruti Suzuki is to give joy of mobility to as many people as possible and all our business is built around this objective. The larger objective is the joy of mobility to as many Indians as possible. People generally understand this objective as transportation, going from point A to point B. But we are talking about mobility in a larger sense and the journey of life. The journey of overcoming ups and downs in life is also in some sense of mobility and getting over obstacles and being on the top is also the joy of mobility. We merged and integrated these two philosophies and on Women’s Day; we thought it would be a great idea to have these 4 short stories in video format which celebrate women taking the steering wheel, ” shares Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Officer, Marketing and Sales.
“Women’s lives and journeys are best understood by women. And that’s when we decided to collaborate with some women directors and writers to talk about the joys of mobility stories about women. And we got some of the best women directors with us – Alankrita Shrivastava, Tanuja Chandra, Sonam Nair and Tahira Kashyap Khurrana,” adds Srivastava.
Maruti has collaborated with Terribly Tiny Tales; TTT comes with 55 percent women followers and 90 percent of those are less than 35 years of age.
Srivastava highlights that Maruti Suzuki Arena has sold more than 9,00,000 cars to women buyers. “We believe that we have a strong base of women customers. Interestingly, our research revealed that more than 1/3rd of these women buyers opted for Maruti Suzuki because of the brand value and association.That’s why we started this Arena Journey, and it’s about empowerment and customer-centricity. At the same time, these films are very contemporary, having a positive and uplifting mood to them. “
Consumer insights and market trends
The percentage of women buyers is increasing; for some models, it has gone as high as 15-16%. Overall, in the industry, it is roughly about 8 percent but it’s gone up in the last five years. There has been an increase in the number of women buyers in the SUV segment as well. As per Maruti’s research, there are more women in the workforce now and more women travelling on their own, even driving longer distances to commute to work and otherwise.
Therefore, the usage of cars by women has gone up substantially and this reflects the greater confidence that women have, and more independence they have today. “If you consider the social scenario, there are around 310 million women who are internet users, and this number has doubled in the last five years. There is a greater spending power among women and according to some projections, women will have 50% of the total wealth by 2030, shares Srivastava.
Srivastava also highlighted that women have a much greater influence on the decision-making when it comes to buying a car. Back in the days, some used to think that women would only choose the colour of the car, as they might not be aware of the technology and the product category. According to Maruti’s research, 55% of the male buyers said that the women in their families actively participated in finalizing the car.
As per Srivastava, Maruti Suzuki Arena models such as S-Presso, Celerio, Alto, and Swift have a high penetration of women buyers. Overall, women customers account for almost 12% of Maruti Suzuki Arena sales but for S-Presso, they account for 25% of the sales. The average age of female buyers a decade ago was 41 years and now it is 35 years; almost 50% of the female customers are below the age of 35 years. Notably, 45% of the women buyers are first-time buyers. This represents a significant change. There is a balance between aspiration and functionality for all buyers, but women buyers also seek a lot of trust and pay more weightage to the brand, as compared to male customers.
Women’s Premier League
Earlier, there was a stereotype that women’s sports would be of a lesser intensity as compared but I have been seeing some of these matches and you can’t differentiate so much, opines Srivastava. “WPL is not just becoming popular with the women audience, but with every audience. So, in that sense, there’s great potential and there have been talks of equal prize money in tournaments such Wimbledon, and that is probably going to be for IPL and WPL as well. This fosters equality that you see in society among men and women. And though WPL is a bit recent, I expect its reach to increase rapidly. From a business standpoint, advertisers, who usually consider factors such as audience and reach, will pay a larger emphasis on WPL and other women sports to disperse their communication message to the audiences, adds Srivastava.
CTV and elections
The rise of CTV and digital advertising has Allowed Maruti to have high levels of personalization. “Around 310 million women use the internet, and their usage of digital media is just as high as men’s. Thus, with the increase in advertising expenditures on CTV, OTT, and other digital media, I anticipate a greater focus and marketing spends on personalized marketing for women, says Srivastava.
For Maruti, the total marketing spends was around 1,100 crores last year out of which 32-33 percent was digital.
While addressing elections Srivastava said, “Participating in marketing activities during and around elections will give our communication a good exposure and a large reach, especially in non-urban cities. Our portfolio is very large and a large chunk, almost 44 percent of the sales come from non-urban areas. So, we will undertake communication activities during that time.”