Containment zones will not impact the businesses targeted at NCCS A, B and C: Laqshya Report

• Laqshya Media says the impact will be minimal, based on their study of the top 8 cities of India.
• 94% of the purchasing power of the cities is available for brands across verticals, except to FMCG, Food and Housing Brands.

The Government of India announced Unlock 1.0, in effect from 3rd June across cities in India. With this, cities have started normal activities except in the containment zones where business activities are still limited to essential services. The study by Laqshya Media Group tried to gauge the loss of opportunity to businesses posed by these containment zones. Laqshya used SHARP, their in-house Strategic Hyperlocal AI-powered Reach Planner to estimate the size and socio-economic attributes of the population living in containment zones. The primary population in most containment zones are composed of NCCS D and NCCS E segments.

The study looks at a simulation to estimate the opportunity cost if the entire NCCS D&E populations of the top 8 cities were placed in the containment zones. NCCS D and NCCS E consists of 15% of the total population but constitute only 6% of the purchasing power in the metros. This 6% adds up to Rs. 5000 crores across the cities – but most of the money of these segments are reportedly spent on Food products/FMCG and Housing. The range of purchasing power was estimated for each NCCS segment, using a combination of updated data from various sources. The cumulative population and purchasing power of each NCCS segment was calculated for each of the 8 cities and that of the 8 cities as a whole.

“Businesses had come to a halt due to the lockdown in India. But with India opening up in phases this is the ideal time for brands to reboot their marketing efforts. Brands have to re-capture the mind space of their TG with campaigns balanced between awareness and sales pitch. If Brands utilize this time right then they can recover their losses within this financial year.” Atul Shrivastava, CEO, Laqshya Media Group.

The study also presents evidence that traffic is quickly getting back to normal across the cities – thereby bolstering the opinion that the time is ripe to re-connect with audiences that have been cooped up at home with little commercial stimulus.

The final conclusion of the report is that, even if the containment zones are sealed and the entire NCCS D&E population is inaccessible, 94% of the purchasing power of the cities is available for brands across verticals, except to FMCG, Food and Housing Brands. So, businesses of all verticals have the opportunity to re-engage with the NCCS A, B and C segments now, to make up for loss in business incurred in the last couple of months.