The Knowledge to Decide

Quirky chai cafés in India like Chaayos are now replacing the dominance of Coffee shops like Starbucks, Barista and most notably Café Coffee Day. Established in 2012, Chaayos boasts of close to 40 stores and hopes to expand to 75 outlets by mid-2018. Owned by Sunshine Teahouse, Chaayos has opened stores in Delhi, Mumbai and Chandigarh. Bengaluru based Chaipoint and Mumbai based Tea-trails are the local competitors in the market. Unlike Chaipoint which has 94 stores so far, Chaayos invests in repeat customers. A 24/7 store in Gurugram and 7am stores to serve breakfast are their top-selling retail models. What brands and retail models will come to dominate India’s chai café industry? https://www.spireresearch.com/newsroom/spirethoughts/indias-novel-tea-cafe-industry/

High volume online shopping makes it difficult for US regulators to keep track of overseas manufactured items, effectively putting customers at risk. E-commerce has enabled popular products such as fidget spinners and vaping machines to win huge numbers customers without the help of any big brands. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) took a year to put new safety standards on hover boards after it entered US markets. Five months later, ten hover boards were recalled as their lithium ion battery packs were likely to catch fire or explode without warning. Should buyers beware or can cross-border e-commerce be made safe for consumers? https://www.spireresearch.com/newsroom/spirethoughts/cross-border-e-commerce-comes-with-safety-risks/

Taking a cue from a Japanese bank – Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ – Indian banks plan to use robots with artificial intelligence. Kumbakonam-based City Union Bank launched India’s first robot on-site assistant, known as Lakshmi. The robot imitates human action, thereby reducing the response time to customers by up to 60% and improving accuracy tremendously. The bank became the first to deploy robots that can perform repetitive, high volume and time-consuming tasks, raising productivity and efficiency. Will artificial intelligence enable banks to use robots on a mass scale? https://www.spireresearch.com/newsroom/spirethoughts/indias-first-banking-robot/

As Singapore continues its drive to promote cashlessness, automated tray return systems might soon become a regular sight at hawker centers. Customers will be asked to make cash deposits which are refundable when they return their trays. Would customers be willing to accept digital refunds? Japnit Singh, Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Spire Research and Consulting, shared his viewpoint, published in Today Online’s news portal. Automated tray return systems could be rolled out across 25 hawker centers. Patrons going to hawker centers such as the ones in Marsiling Mall and Bukit Merah will have to shell out cash to make deposits of SGD0.50 and SG1 respectively for each tray they take. These deposits would be refunded upon the return of the tray. In a separate development, Ez-Link cardholders can also use their cards to pay for drinks and food at 1,000 stalls in over 30 hawker centers from April. An integrated cashless hawker center experience may entice customers to

No marketer wants their brand message to be out of sight and out of mind. But with multiple media platforms and so many upstart brands crowding alongside old, established ones, what elements work best to ensure successful brand recall? And how important is recall as a factor in a brand’s success? Though brand recall is deemed to be one of the most important factors influencing buying decisions, recall alone is not enough for brands to soar. Marketers need to ensure that there is a strong linkage between the advertisement and the brand, so that consumers can connect to the specific brand of a product, rather than the generic product category. The importance of brand recall A high brand recall would indicate that the product is easily recognizable. It is more than about recalling the name. It is about connecting the name with the message. For instance, one would relate Disney with “fun, family entertainment”, Nike with “authentic athletic performance”, and Starbucks wit

Identifying VIPs with strong purchasing power is crucial to retail success. More often than not, retail staff fail to do this in time. Facial recognition technology can help prevent this. But does it put our privacy at risk? With high-spending customers making out-sized contributions to retail profitability, it is increasingly crucial for retailers to provide personalized customer service the minute a VIP customer sets foot in the store. For instance, Katie Holmes reportedly spent USD100,000 on a fashion makeover and USD14,200 on lingerie alone in 2012! This is where identification technology can play a role. NEC, a Japan-based ICT vendor, has developed an identification application based on a facial recognition system – comparing the individual’s facial features against its database, and sending prompts when a match is identified. The initial purpose of the application was to help identify terrorists and criminals , but it was subsequently adapted to the retail setting.

With intensifying levels of competition, there is a need for brands to have a strong recall factor, using effective messages that resonate with customers. Inspired by Spire Research and Consulting’s in-house publication,  SpirE-Journal , Marketing Magazine Indonesia invited Spire to comment on the factors that are crucial in establishing as well as maintaining brand recall. No doubt, consumers are spoilt for choice in today’s markets. As brands vie for customers’ attention, it is vital to have strong recall so that your brand gets to the consideration stage – especially since consumers may be influenced to visit websites or social media pages of brands at the point of consideration. And the key to strong recall is a message and positioning that resonates with the consumer. As long as customers are able to connect with the brand, there is a high possibility of an effective brand recall amongst competitors in the same product category. There are various methods that help market

Mobile and digital banking are now the drivers of rural banking. Many banks in South East Asia are intensively reaching out to the rural unbanked population. Jeffrey Bahar, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Spire Research and Consulting, shared his views on this growing industry trend in FST Media. Bahar observed that many banks in Indonesia are now targeting the unbanked. Only about a quarter of the Indonesian population has access to traditional banking services. Besides, with Indonesia’s mobile phone usage running at over a 100 per cent penetration rate, it is natural for banks to offer mobile financial solutions to the unbanked. To better target this market, some banks are partnering with microfinance institutions to enable the unbanked to sign up for a bank account the paperless way. These institutions would then help users to conduct banking transactions via their mobile devices. Indonesia’s central bank, Bank Indonesia, has launched a pilot program, ‘Mobile Payment S