Media effect and its measurement in Rural India

Preface Today, Rural India is the buzzword for marketers. Organisations are shifting their focus towards this huge and largely untapped market. But the problem for them is in reaching out to this huge magnitude of the rural masses with varied social, cultural backgrounds and speaking a few hundred dialects. This paper deals with different ways of communicating with rural masses with higher appeal and impact. The aim of the paper is to try and bring out an efficient measurement of media effectiveness, thereby establishing a hypothesis aiming towards the selection of an ideal media mix for achieving the given objectives. So, this paper will talk about things that are already known but not used for economic purposes before. The paper basically revolves around a model for measuring the impact of the different communication channels used for a brand or product category. Once the model gets established, it will provide mixes of different strategies to advertisers to pick and choose from. This in turn will provide the ability to manipulate the variables of the model for maximum yield at the lowest cost. Media Penetration and the need gap in rural India The growth in conventional media has been quite significant; however, it has not been substantial. Rural India consists of about 127 million households of which only 54% comes in contact with any of the conventional media, like press, TV, satellite, radio or cinema. That means roughly 238 million are waiting to be tapped by the conventional media. No wonder, rural India is a marketer and advertisers El Dorado. It should be acknowledged that different media mix is needed to convey messages to rural consumers. There is a need to understand what appeals to urban customers may not be appropriate for their rural counterparts owing to their different lifestyle. The entire communication and also the vehicles for the communicated message thus have to be different. It has been noticed that below-the-line communication like alternative and innovative ways of communication played a key role in building reassurance and trust, and so it is vital. Changing attitude of the rural consumers: Rural consumerism Due to the increase in literacy rates and the penetration of conventional media, the perception and attitude of the rural consumer is changing, moving towards proper consumerism. Not only this, attitude and consumption habits of rural consumers are also changing and becoming more modern in an urban sense.

A hypothesis: to tap the untapped and measure the effects If the Indian advertising industry is to tap rural India, it has to be firmly grounded in rural perception, values and traditions. It has to draw itself in local colours and modes of communication to make it relevant to the rural masses. It has to gain the trust of the masses by undercutting existing dependency on conventional advertisement on one hand and deceptive and manipulative claims on the other. This should be done with different innovative strategies that should be carried out within the framework of 4-R s, that is, Relevance Reliability Reach Reincarnate innovation We strongly believe that any media vehicle or advertisement in rural India will be successful in terms of influencing people only if those advertisements are able to ensure all of the 4-Rs. Now, for different categories of product, the weights of different Rs should be different, i.e., say, for some category, Relevance may have more impact than Reliability or Reincarnating innovation. However, in some other case, it will be the other way round. This effect will be seen more in rural areas due to lack of information and clarity of the source of the information. Broad strategies of rural advertising The prevalent ways of advertising in rural areas through different existing media and all the alternative and innovative media broadly revolve around three strategies, namely,

Influencer strategy Participatory strategy Show-and-tell strategy

Influencer strategy: The role of the influencer or influencing communication cannot be ignored as far as rural India is concerned. The advertisements that revolve around this very strategy actually depend on the influence of different influential people and/or events in the villages to put across the message powerfully with more effect and purchase intention. An example of this kind of advertisement may be brand endorsement by any influential person in the village like the Mukhiya or the school master. Participatory strategy: Events like different festivals and different games and sports competitions actually have a high participation level in the rural India as other sources of entertainment are very less in those areas. So, these events and shows offer great opportunity to reach rural India cost effectively. Different brands sponsor different events and shows in rural villages which is actually a cost-effective way to advertise with the participatory strategy. Show-n-tell strategy: Many brands are venturing into different ways to educate their rural consumers about their brands and their usage through different shows and events. This kind of initiatives actually create huge awareness about the brand among the interested people in the rural India. Different health related advertisements like Polio awareness and AIDS awareness programmes involve a show-n-tell strategy of advertising. I-Impact model hypothesis This model will take into account the different strategies discussed above and it will work by assigning different weights to different factors of the media, which actually affects the purchase decision and purchase intention. Say, for a particular media vehicle, Influencer effect is = i Participatory effect is = p

Show-tell effect is = s Frequency of the advertising is = f Now, a calculation can be carried out to measure the effect of different innovative media vehicles used by us. Say, for a given category of product, the different aspects of 4-Rs give different results. Now, say the optimum mix (for which the advertisement makes maximum impact) of the different Rs are as: Reliability = x% = Rx Relevance = y% = Ry Reach = z% = Rz Reincarnate innovation = w% Now, different mixes of the strategy, as mentioned above, can attain this optimum ratio of the different Rs. Say, in a particular product category of optimum mix, x% of reliability is achieved from i1 amount of influencer effect strategy and p1 amount of participatory effect and s1 amount of show-and-tell effect with a r1 amount of reach with a frequency of f1. Then, it can be said that Rx = Reach r1 * f1 * (i1 + p1 + s1) Similarly Ry = Reach r1 * f1 * (i2 + p2 + s2) And Rz = Reach r1 * frequency (i3 + p3 + s3) [Reincarnate innovation will not come into the equation because that actually helps in terms of new scopes and innovation and for the existing advertisement to increase its reach or/and frequency. It actually has no impact on the purchasing decision of rural consumers it only makes the platform for a new media or new campaign.] Now, let the optimum media mix that will be most helpful to sale the brand with lowest cost of advertisement or lowest advertising budget, be Mm Then, Mm = Rx + Ry + Rz = [Reach * Frequency {(i1 + i2 + i3) + (p1 + p2 + p3) + (s1 + s2 + s3)}] So, from this equation, we can find and manipulate the independent variables on the right-hand side of the equation. These variables actually evaluate the effect of each of the three strategies discussed above. Then the media planners will get an optimum mix for different media vehicles according to the budget for maximum yield. Deliverables of the I-impact model How the hypothesis can add value to the current situation: -- We will try to come up with some existing and new channels to communicate the brand image and improve brand awareness to the rural masses. This hypothesis is actually dedicated towards increasing the market volume in rural India for a specified category or brand. -- The calculated value of the variables of the I-impact model for different rural media can become a benchmark for rural advertising for different categories. Once experimentally established, it can provide more than one mix of different variables that can give maximum yield for a campaign. We will also be able to manipulate different variables cost effectively for the optimum effect or maximum yield. -- This hypothesis actually has the potential to find and measure the key parameters that affect the purchase decision of rural consumers for a specific category of products or brands. Once those parameters are known and measured, it will become much easier for marketers to market their brands.