| Its been the basis of a thousand stereotypes, and survived half a century of independence. The differences between the north and south are apparent in generation be as well |
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LIFE in Indias biggest cities is not as uniform as one would imagine it to be, and the 15-year-olds
growing up in these have significantly varied choices. Its no secret that Bollywood has, at best, a meagre following in Chennai given the clout of the local film industry, but we found differences in other aspects as well in many of these, Chennai and Bangalore showed more similarity to each other than they did to the rest of the country. Which is not to say each city does not have its own peculiarities too. For instance, snack foods rank highest in Chennai as the most shopped for category; while sports goods figure prominently in the list in Bangalore-they are not as popular in any other metro. Even national brands with a countrywide footprint seem to find more favour in certain places, very often the city they are headquartered in. But there are other, more inexplicable choices.
Among soft drinks, for instance, Maaza, rather surprisingly, tops the rankings. Whats even more intriguing is the fact that the major drive for the mango flavoured drink from the Coca-Cola stable comes from Chennai and Bangalore, where 26% and 31% consider it their favourite, giving it a national score of 20%. Even in advertising, the most popular ad campaign, Surf Excel, gets a much more whole-hearted response in Mumbai and Delhi than it does any place else, with 21% and 17% voting it in. Reebok is another instance of the South forming a market of its own-while its the second most favoured brand of clothing nationally, it owes a good deal of its position to a high ranking in Chennai and Bangalore at 15% and 14%, respectively. Pantaloon is a good example of a national brand which is a regional favourite; while Kolkata posts very unenthusiastic figures for most other brands of clothing, it gives Pantaloon a resounding 14%, a testament to the
popularity of the brand in the dry where it started by opening its first store.
The trend is apparent even among the favourite car brands-headquartered in Delhi, Honda is that citys most preferred brand with 33% opting for it. In Chennai, on the other hand, its Hyundai-even though Shahrukh Khan, who is brand ambassador for the very popular Santro, does not charm the kids in the city-the car company has an impressive 20% backing it. (In Chennai, though, Ford has just middling appeal, despite the fact that the brand is based out of that city.) Toyota enjoys similar vogue in Bangalore, voted as the favourite car brand by 22%. Then again, Reynolds pens work best for Chennai.
Even more intriguing are the similarities between the North and the South-the teenagers of both Bangalore (89%) and Chennai (90%) prefer traveling within India, and choose a destination thats relatively close to the Hometown for a vacation-Ooty (34% for Chennai, 12% for Bangalore), Teenagers in Delhi, Mumbai and especially Kolkata would prefer to go abroad if given the chance; and Goa is the dream holiday spot for the kids from the first two cities (27% for Delhi and 29% for Mumbai). The experiences these kids have are different even in terms of technology. For instance, more south Indian kids have video games-ownership levels for Bangalore and Chennai are high at 57% and 62%. Kids in Chennai and especially Bangalore are more likely to access the internet from their educational institutes than counterparts in Delhi and Mumbai.
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