THE RURAL P’S

emotional
cheap

What motivates us to buy any product? Is it fear of the dire consequences that we might
face if I don’t have the product? Is it the emotional connect with the brand that makes me
buy the brand? Is it the guilt that if we don’t buy the product, we might not do justice to the
people we love? Or is it the greed for the feeling of pride that will overwhelm me after we
possess the product? But, do all these emotional triggers take a back seat and only play a
passive role when I talk of rural consumers? But again, all rural consumers are not
misers. They all are not looking for the cheapest product; they are probably looking for the
most value for money. It is not about a cheap buy, but a smart buy.
There is more to rural marketing than just offering LUPs ( Low Unit Packagings ), reducing
a product’s price or making an inferior product and dubbing the national advertisement in
vernacular. It might rather do more harm than good. It is very important to understand the
psyche of the rural consumer and modify the marketing mix so as to be fit to cater to the
rural demographics. Let us have a look at some of the companies, which, made the efforts
to understand a rural consumer, customized the offerings and revolutionized the rural
marketing mix.

1)PACKAGING
There are two reasons why a rural consumer prefers LUPs.
a. Since they do not have a big dwelling place, they might not have place for storage.
b. Many of them earn their wages daily so they can’t spend in bulk.
Let us look at some instances where some of the companies have taken up a strategic
move to introduce LUPs in the market.

HUL - Under “operation Bharat”, they introduced sachets of clinic plus, ponds, close up
and fairness cream to make sachet buying a habit for these consumers. Seeing that the
rural retailers sell the cut lifebuoy cakes to the consumers, it came up with 75 gm soap
cake and later launched 18 gm lifebuoy soap, priced at Rs. 2.
Asian paints - It introduced oil paints in 250 ml packaging, to cater to the rural consumers’
need to paint the horns of their livestock and to paint their buffaloes for selling.

Colgate - Understanding the paucity of space for rural consumers, it came up with caps
for their toothpaste sachets, to facilitate extended storage while usage of its product.
Rural consumers identify a brand by its logo and package color rather than the letters
( attributed to the low literacy levels ). Hence the loud and bright colors on the packaging.

This has, though, not proved a deterrent for the imitation product industry, which hitch-
hikes on the years of brand building exercises of the veterans.

Exhibit : Imitation brands in rural markets

2)PRODUCT
Catering to 70 crores residents in 6 lakhs villages, where the habits, customs and culture
change every 100 kms is equal to catering to 2 demographically rich countries thousands
of miles apart. Customization of products to suit the requirements of such diverse
demographics, hence becomes logical. Many consumer durables companies have just
removed the value added features from their products and relaunched them in the rural
markets. (e.g. Refrigerators without frost free technology, LG’s Sampoorna TV). Though,
changing the product seems to be a time consuming and tedious exercise, it has brought
some mentionable and fabulous results for the companies who have used consumer
insights to bring in these changes.

HUL - Let us see 2 examples of he forerunner in interpreting and gaining from insights
bringing in changes in its product range to cater to the profit storehouse.
India’s 16% contribution to the world population and 28% to world’s hair shows the latter’s
role in accentuating the physical appearance of an individual. Indigence forced the rural
community to use the same soap for hair and skin, since a Rs. 2 shampoo sachet
categorized itself as a luxury item for them. HUL, having taken a cue from this insight,
introduced Breeze 2 in 1, a multipurpose soap for hair and skin !
The premium positioning of Taj Mahal tea did not prevent them from launching Taj Mahal
Janata for the rural markets by using chicory and tapioca flour to decrease costs.

Arvind Mills - Being used to get their clothes stitched, the Rs. 300 price tag on a
readymade entry level jeans was a major deterrent for the rural youth. None other than
Arvind mills executed theinnovative idea of distributing ready to use stitch kits to the rural
tailors, priced at Rs. 195. Arvind mills sold 5 million kits in 2 years !!

Britannia - They launched “Probisk” biscuits which used soya proteins instead of milk
proteins as its ingredient, hence making a biscuit cheaper without altering its nutrition
content.
Hawkins - Unlike in urban areas, the use of coal and wood made the control on the flame
of the burner difficult. To help the rural women avoid hand-burns and facilitate the handing
of the pressure cooker, it came up with a new product with 2 long handles on both sides of
the cooker.

Philips - The rural mindset of “Sturdier the product, more powerful it is” led to their
“Mahasangram” campaign where they introduced larger and louder radios for rural
demographics. diverse

3)PLACE
Complexities galore in these distinctive, yet blended markets of rural consumerism. A rural
consumer who takes 2 years to make a watch-buying decision definitely does not believe
in impulse buying of consumer durables, but timely availability becomes an important
factor in their buying decisions for consumer goods. The following distribution structure
enumerates various touch-points with respect to the rural consumers.
Research shows that on an average the daily sales figure of a shady with average 314
outlets are close to a whopping Rs. 2 lakhs per day and that of an individual outlet is Rs.
874. These rural supermarkets have the potential to challenge all the world’s K-marts and
Wal-marts put together in their size and sales !

HUL - Initiated “Project Harvest”, “Project Bharat” and “Project Shakti” (which utilized the
concept of self help groups) to extend their distribution to the villages with a population of
2000, 1000 and less than 1000 respectively. Each state has one or two Carrying and
Forwarding Agents (C&FAs) who are assisted by Redistribution Stockists (RS), who are
alloted a specific area and are responsible for the physical distribution of the products. RS,
in the vans provided to them cover the areas allocated to them called Indirect Coverage
(IDC). The frequency of the RSs’ visit to these IDC depends upon the kind of business
these IDCs generate.
LG - This is a perfect example of a brand which has maintained a premium positioning in
the urban market and still has managed to cater to the rural markets. When LG launched
its “Sampoorna” TV range, it understood that shops in all the villages wont be profit
centers since a rural consumer usually buys such high-priced items from assembly
markets or from the markets of nearby towns and cities.
There are plethora of examples of co-operative societies ( Amul ), SHGs ( Shakti ), e-
Choupal, distribution in rural financial services, but i will
restrict myself to just touching the periphery of the topic and not dig deeper into
these models.
City
Typically used for very few transactions
Markets

Assembly Used for purchase of durables, high value

Markets items, agri inputs and farm equipments

Used for weekly purchase of household

Haats and Shandies items, e.g. soaps, cosmetics etc.(47000 in
number)

Village Shops Typically used for daily, very low value, low
volume purchases, e.g. kerosene, matchbox
etc.

Exhibit : A village shandy in full bloom

source : Rural Marketing by TP Gopalaswami
4)PROMOTION
When in Rome, be a Roman.ie. When in Rome, speak Roman. To make the
Promotions/Advertisements in rural markets successful, we have to connect instantly with
the consumers. We just have to use the local dialect, but the psycho-graphic inclinations
that a rural consumer has so long been trained to develop should be built upon. The
strategy of shock-and-awe might not be as successful as a flighting teaser campaign that
sinks in easily. Also, a promotion that establishes an emotional connect will lead to returns,
sooner than later.

CavinKare - Appreciating the cost-concern of consumers, it did a pre-launch campaign

where it went to the village schools and gave a free head-wash to children and then
launched its “chic” brand at a meagre 50 paise per sachet. Consumers, having seen the
live results, liked the value proposition and hoarded the shops !
Exhibit : Street plays and promotions by HUL

Exhibit : Non-conventional advertising

HUL - The company has continuously designed innovative promotions to reach the rural
markets.
Lifebuoy in its rural contact program called “Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetna”, where it spread
information on how washing hands can keep diseases away, targeted a population of 5
crores in 15000 villages.
HUL employed Health Development Officers and Health Development Assistants who
went to all the villages and educated the community through lectures and community
meetings.
They returned to the villages after 2 months, offered toys, badges and medals to children
who had made it a habit to wash hands regularly ( read saved “Lifebuoy” soap wrappers )
and a certificate to the children who had won these badges most often.
2. HUL capitalized on the huge gathering of 70 million odd pilgrims ( read prospective
customers ) in kumbh mela - They showed people using an ultra violet wand where germs
and dirt resided on their hands and how regular usage of soap can keep their hands clean.

ITC - The promotion done by ITC during its Hero cigarettes brand launch in 1993 is
unforgettable. In a campaign extended to 3 days, on the first day a person just went on
cycle or a rickshaw saying on a P.A. system “Hero aa raha hai”. On the 2nd day, an
elephant draped in a large “Hero” logo embossed sheet and carrying a huge cut-out of the
hero cigarette packet went through the villages distributing free samples of the product.
And finally on the third day, a video van came to the villages playing popular movie songs
to attract crowd. The campaign was so successful that the villagers actually started waiting
for an event to happen in those 3 days. It was done in u.p. and bihar in october 1993, and
the sales figure reached 175 million sticks in just a matter of months.
There can be many such promotional exercises cited that companies have undertaken to
capture the mind share of a rural consumer. For instance, M&M organized nukkad nataks
and used paintings on the well walls, since people gathered there. LIC has used vans and
puppet shows to sell its policies.. Asian paints painted the house of the Sarpanch and the
post office to show that the paint can stand against time and weather. Castrol tried to gain
its consumers’ heart-share with its “jaago jaago jug jug jiyo campaign” aimed at motivating
the villagers to get together the issues that bother them when their new brand CRB-plus
was not doing well in the rural markets.

CONCLUSION
Competence of a corporation makes it stay in the market, its competitiveness makes it
reach the rural markets and its Customer orientation helps it be successful there. Also,
though the aim seems difficult to accomplish taking the initiative and opening the gates of
innovation can make a corporation reap the benefits of the large and untapped
demographics of India.

4 A's of rural marketing

Adaptability
Availability
Affordability
Acceptability

1. Commitment from the top management: This must be effective and

management must realize that it is long haul and an investment into the
future, otherwise RM will not give long term results. He sites HLL and ITC
examples.
2. Getting a dedicated task force: RM requires a dedicated mindset
which many urban oriented MBA's do posses only if they have fire in
their belly to work as hard as possible to win the rurals and make them
feel the necessity to buy the product . Treating nicely , paying such
 employees well and giving them an indication of their career graphs in
the company.
3. Setting Clear Objectives: It is important to clearly define, in the early
stages, the goals for the RM initiative and whether the initiative is a
tactical effort to achieve increased sales in specific areas during specific
time or build strong equity for the brand in Rural India.
4. Understanding the Mindset of Consumers: Understanding of the
mindset of the rural customer is important for the rural specialist to
come up with a customized plan of action. The Rural market is
heterogeneous with traditions and cultures that vary from state to state,
even region to region in some cases. Most companies equate their
findings from studies based on urban India to the rural segment and
initiate a strategy based on this. Experience shows that the attitudes,
fears, expectations, aspirations, comprehensions of rural customers to
products and brands are different from urban customers. Advantages of
such research are manifold because they give valuable ideas for new
product development to suit the market - (a case in point a refrigerator
with a twelve hour battery backup to take care of the power outages in
rural areas), or new methods of physically reaching out to rural folks,
along with insights into the right communications strategy and delivery
(media) strategy
5. Ensuring availability: In most cases, distribution is one of the biggest
nightmares; the task of reaching products to 600,000 plus villages is a
challenge. TVC's have raised the aspirations of the rural customer and
makes him demand the product from the local shopkeeper, who then
buys the required quantity from the nearest feeder, markets that he
visits regularly for his supplies. Hence feeder markets such as towns and
villages having populations of 10,000 to 15,000 initially must be provided
for to start the first steps towards RM
6. Evolving a Comprehensive strategy: A comprehensive strategy
involving multimedia (including mass media, where necessary) has
better results as compared to those one-off projects with limited goals.
7. Involve the Region: RM is a highly regional subject, with a company's
regional teams being specialists in their respective regions. Involving
them from the word go to ensure ownership of the campaign by the
region, and also getting their insights and inputs in the development
implementation of the campaign is essential
8. Developing full proof plan implementation: Conducting a pilot
survey in one district of a state to gain insights from it, before a national
roll out of a rural campaign is not realistic. To get meaningful results,
both in terms of impact and sales, the pilot must cover at least as few
districts' of the state, if not the whole state. The implementation plan
must be as comprehensive as possible to ensure that all the elements to
be checked out are included in the plan. Implementation of any rural
campaign requires meticulous ground level planning and a thorough
briefing and training of the field level people before execution. Sufficient
time must be given to the agency to check out all the elements, before
getting into the field
9. Provide adequate budget: A decent budget could be spelt out by a
rural specialist, depending on the task and the region. If the budget is
limited, it should not be spread thin by trying to look at too many
markets. If a company feels that it has a bright future in rural markets or
would like to target the rural markets, then it is better to invest today so
that the early mover advantage is gained to reap rich rewards in the
future. But miracles should not be expected overnight, neither should
hope be lost
10. Evaluating the Results: It should be done time to time to know that
the hardworking being done is in right direction or not.