Understanding: A metamorphose in media habits of Indian consumers

Indian consumers have gone a major transformation in the recent times. Today with close competition and rapid changes taking place in the era of information it is necessary to understand the interaction & consumption habits of Indian consumers. Today's consumers, they can escape ads, they can tune in to a million other channels, they can buy a billion other products, they can publish a blog about a brand, they can have instant word-of-mouth (good and bad) on it from the web, they can be in a store and punch in product information on their cell phone and find out who else has the product and for how much. Questionnaire was used as a research instrument to get feedback from people of different age group. Off late, a number of debates have been going on about the social issues in advertising and the catastrophic consequences of improper advertising have been brought to the forefront. The social effects of improper advertising on various media for all FMCG & durable products generally manifest themselves in the form of an adverse effect on child psychology, human behavior, value system and perception, boost to materialism, rise of consumerism and corruption, decreased integrity and self confidence of women and degradation of relationships in families. This study is an attempt to examine the extent to which these claims are true.