AdAsia 2011: "The shopkeeper has been ignored": Kurush Grant

In the final session on day one of AdAsia 2011, titled "India 2020", moderated by Pankaj Ghemawat, global strategist and author of 'World 3.0', Kurush Grant, executive director ITC, Sanjay Kapoor, chief executive officer, Bharti Airtel India and South Asia, and Ravi Swaminathan, managing director and regional vice president (sales and marketing), AMD South Asia, gave their views on brand India.

Kapoor said, “When we look at India, 500 million people are below the age of 25 and another 160 million are below the age of 30. That makes us a very young country. The unique feature about our youngsters is that they don’t believe in savings, which means the consumption is very high.”

He also spoke about Airtel’s Hello Tunes concept, and how that made Bharti Airtel the most successful music company in India.

On brand India, Swaminthan said, “Forget building brand India. Build a great country, the rest will be taken care of.”

ITC’s Grant brought about the importance of the shopkeeper in a highly digitalised world. He said, “The shopkeeper has been ignored even though 90% of the interactions take place through the shopkeeper. More emphasis should clearly be placed on the shopkeeper.”