Functional Literacy: A new lens

(A word to the readers - this article has nothing to do with cycling but is something that everybody can think on)

A Background

Socialization, for humans, begins as early as when the brain begins to recognize faces. Consumer socialization soon follows suit; taking cornflakes out of a particular box every morning for breakfast, putting shoes, with three stripes across its face, on your toddler’s feet every morning etc are some of the simple and often considered trivial aspects that go a long way in shaping how an individual behaves as a consumer.

Every step that we observe and interpret serves to make our lives easier. This is mostly done through “Heuristics”, mental shortcuts that aid us when presented with a situation. When we look at a chair, we know what it is, we know of its uses, how it’s made, etc only because we have seen and heard of it earlier. This is how the human brain is wired to work and also the reason why an individual blind from birth will not be able to interpret visuals he receives from new found sight.

Heuristics is what makes the concept of “Functional Literacy” worth a pretty good look at. While Literacy may be easy to define, that of Functional Literacy would vary on a large number of factors and of course, a few imaginative minds. To simplify things here, Functional Literacy in a typical consumer environment would mean the basic skills required to be able to read product labels that differentiate offerings, the ease with which an individual navigates around in a shop complex, being able to calculate value of units rather than the pack size, totaling costs of purchased items etc. Having had an “Education”, if effective, would resolve any conflict mental heuristics has with cognitive rational processes. This means that an individual would then be able to create more complex but better decision processes  

How important can this term be for us?

We have more than 12% of the world’s consumers and approximately 70% of those reside in rural areas. In rural India, the total income has doubled from what it was in 2004-05 growing at a CAGR of 12%. Urbanization is rising rapidly. FDI norms on multi brand retail, albeit some riders, is on the verge of being opened up. The bottom-line is that soon, a large number of people will have access to large format retail outlets and hence, it would be safe to assume that a large number of customers who visit these stores could be “low” on functional literacy; this is not to say that such customers are not present today but the importance of this segment will rise manifold.

The Big Deal

Research has shown that people “low” on Functional Literacy tend to behave differently than individuals not “low” on this aspect. The behavior displayed by such individuals can be broken down and analyzed. This will benefit such consumers by bringing them into the mainstream and help organizations make a “mark” for themselves when competition skyrockets. The sad part is that almost all such studies have been conducted outside India. Knowing how we are, it would be naïve to assume that the same outcomes would hold true here as well.

From Cognitive Predilections to Trade-Off models, from Decision Heuristics to Coping Strategies for certain situations, all of these present immense opportunities. Eventually, the outcome of such consumer research would lead to the crafting of better products and service environments. It would lead to the creation of “seamless” thought and physical processes that empower all entities involved.

If we can successfully understand the “consumer” and the level of “integration” required to ensure a low turbulence shift of such consumers to the mainstream, the resulting Insights will truly be winning.