Innovative process made Slim–nielsen People’s Awards a success: Pant
As the SLIM – Nielsen People’s Awards draw nearer, the Managing Director of Nielsen, Sharang Pant shares his views, giving us all a detailed description of the process that makes the SLIM – Nielsen People’s Awards the only one of its kind in Sri Lanka.
Aptly known as the ‘People’s Awards’, the winners of each category are selected based on a nation-wide census conducted by Nielsen.
Discussing the manner in which Nielsen captures the differences between socioeconomic, gender and age when evaluating a brand, Pant explained that the survey is conducted across a statistically derived demographic sample in the country.
The sample design takes into account the gender and age (15-60 years), proportions, the urban and rural population across all provinces and spreads across all Social Economic Classes. Thus, giving all brands an equal opportunity to be chosen by the Sri Lankan public. He also added that for the past few years, SLIM – Nielsen has added Youth Award Categories for brands specifically targeting the age group 15-24 years.
When asked what the current overall consumer trend was, Pant responded, “While cultural aspects still remain similar over years, some aspects of consumer behavior and choices are now being impacted by trends like urbanization, digital economy/ internet exposure and general changes in socio-economic demographics. These trends impact the design of the SLIM – Nielsen People’s Awards and we make necessary changes to capture these trends. New award categories have been introduced to reflect some of these trends. For an example we have added a Fashion and FMCG Retailer category for 2018”.
According to Pant, the biggest positive outcome of the past 12 years of these awards has been the fact that the general citizens recognize Nielsen in association with these awards. “They do not necessarily know Nielsen and the business we are in. But the mention of Nielsen reminds them of the awards and respondents are willing to participate. This goes to show that the awards are firmly entrenched as an annual event in their minds and not just the brands and personalities, but even the average citizens look forward to knowing the winners every year”.
Pant also divulged that Nielsen receives some positive inputs from respondents, which they look to incorporate into the design as appropriate.
“I would say both are equally important. While brand advertising or communication helps in creating awareness, if the brand does not perform or deliver on consumption experience, consumers are quick to give up on them. At the same time, brands that have established the quality perception can possibly survive with lower spend on advertising as they have managed to build a strong image and consumer loyalty. This explains why we see winners in some categories that win purely based on equity built over the years despite lower ad spend or innovation”, replied Pant when asked what would be more influential in the decision of the consumers: the actual product experience or the impact of brand advertising and communication.