Perfume consumption in India

Perfumes have been important in India for millennia and so have the stories connected with them. The perfume business in India is worth billions. A background from which the Indian perfume industry can be understood in terms of the Berger's STEPP model, the consumers' cognitive schemas, consumers' behaviors, and the story of the product, brand, and their customers' stories. Three sets of themes—product perceptions, concerns, and consumers' lifestyle—are identified, each with their own sub-themes that are antecedents to perfume purchasing behavior. Segments in the Indian perfume market are also identified. Each consumer segment has their own behavioral nuances and they consider different aspects of the perfume product taking into account their own income and aspects of the three themes and 19 sub-themes. It is important for perfume marketing managers to consider each aspect of the STEPPs modeland for the Indian government to locate and develop a “Place of Perfume” within India that will eventually challenge the region of Grasse in France as the global perfume marketplace

Self-brand congruity and brand communication

Brand communication through advertising plays an important role in developing strong brands in emerging markets, especially in India. This chapter investigates how ethnocentrism moderates the effects of advertising adaptation levels (globalization, glocalization, and localization) on Indian consumers' ad evaluation and self-brand congruity. It uses self-brand congruity to explain the psychological reasons behind the Indian consumers' preferential patterns of the levels of advertising adaptation. A 2 (local celebrity, global celebrity) x 2 (local verbal cues, global verbal cues) full factorial between-subjects experiment is set up with 219 Indian consumers. Ethnocentrism is measured at the individual level. Results show that highly ethnocentric individuals respond more positively (attitude towards the ad and self-brand congruity) to localization and glocalization advertising strategies compared to a globalization strategy, while lowly ethnocentric individuals do not respond differently to these strategies. The practical and theoretical implications as well as suggestions for further research are discussed. </jats:p