Introduction to Rural Marketing The first five years of the new millennium will belong neither to the urban

markets which have reached saturation and where margins are under pressure not to the export markets, which suffer from inadequate infrastructure back home, and uncompetitive prices overseas. It will belong to rural marketing.

RURAL MARKETING

In the India context, the word RURAL is so much associated with agriculture and farmers that rural marketing tends to be seen as a marketing of inputs or outputs related to agriculture.

What is Rural Marketing?

Rural marketing is a function which manages all those activates involved in assessing, stimulating and converting the purchasing power into an effective demand for specific products and services, and moving them to the people in rural area to create satisfaction and a standard of living to them and thereby achieves the goals of the organization.

Rural v\s Urban

OCCUPATION: Rural:Cultivators n few non agricultural pursuits. Urban:manufacturing,trade,com merce,professions

Size of community
Rural:open farms & small community are vly corelated Urban:urbanity & size of community are +vly corelated

Density of population
Rural:density of population is lower than urban

Mobility
Rural:social mobility less.More migration from villages to town. Urban:social mobility inreases with urbanity.

System of interaction
Rural:less numerous contacts per man.Predominance of personal & relatively durable relations. Urban:Greater complexity,superficiality & standarized formality in relations.

Although the melting of the urban rural divide will take a while, this is not for want of the availability of the means but for want of the rural consumer's mindset to change; which has its own logic, which is driven by tradition, custom and values that are difficult to shed,

Attractiveness of rural market

Rural markets have become the new targets to corporate enterprises for two reasons : 1. Urban market has become congested with too many competitors. 2. The market have reached a near saturation point.

Various factors which have made rule markets viable:1. Large population 2. Raising prosperity 3. Growth in consumption 4. Life-style changes 5. Life-cycle advantages 6. Market growth rates higher than urban 7. Rural marketing is not expensive 8. Remoteness is no longer a problem

Now for some facts and figures. The Indian rural market today accounts for only about Rs 8 billion (53 per cent - FMCG sector, 59 per cent durables sale, 100 per cent agricultural products) of the total ad pie of Rs 120 billion, thus claiming 6.6 per cent of the total share. So clearly there seems to be a long way ahead. Time and again marketing practitioners have waxed eloquent about the potential of the rural market. But when one zeroes in on the companies that focus on the rural market, a mere handful names come to mind. Hindustan Lever Limited (HuL) is top of the mind with their successful rural marketing projects like 'Project Shakti' and 'Operation Bharat'.

Clearly the main challenge that one faces while dealing with rural marketing is the basic understanding of the rural consumer who is very different from his urban counterpart. Also distribution remains to be the single largest problem marketers face today when it comes to going rural. "Reaching your product to remote locations spread over 600,000 villages and poor infrastructure - roads, telecommunication etc and lower levels of literacy are a few hinges that come in the way of marketers to reach the rural market

In 1998 HuLs personal products unit initiated Project Bharat, the first and largest rural hometo-home operation to have ever been prepared by any company. The project covered 13 million rural households by the end of 1999. During the course of operation, HuL had vans visiting villages across the country distributing sample packs comprising a low-unit-price pack each of shampoo, talcum powder, toothpaste and skin cream priced at Rs. 15. This was to create awareness of the companys product categories and of the affordability of the products.

Khaitan fans' ad on a horse cart

The greatest challenge for advertisers and marketers continues to be in finding the right mix that will have a pan-Indian rural appeal. Coca Cola, with their Aamir Khan ad campaign succeeded in providing just that.

"Yaara da Tashan... ads with Aamir Khan created universal appeal for Coca Cola

"Yaara da Tashan..." ads with Aamir Khan created universal appeal for Coca Cola Coca-Cola India tapped the rural market in a big way when it introduced bottles priced at Rs 5 and backed it with the Aamir Khan ads. The company, on its behalf, has also been investing steadily to build their infrastructure to meet the growing needs of the rural market, which reiterates the fact that this multinational has realised the potential of the rural market is going strength to strength to tap the same.

For HLL, a one rupee or a five rupee sachet or the Kutti Hamam (the small Hamam) helps in giving the consumers a trial opportunity. While it does help in generate volume but not in terms of values. "Till the time that volume value equation is managed better. Ultimately, the ball lies in the court of rural marketers. It's all about how one approaches the market, takes up the challenge of selling products and concepts through innovative media design and more importantly interactivity.

Amul is another case in point of aggressive rural marketing. Some of the other corporates that are slowly making headway in this area are Coca Cola India, Colgate, Eveready Batteries, LG Electronics, Philips, BSNL, Life Insurance Corporation, Cavin Kare, Britannia and Hero Honda to name a few.

Interestingly, the rural market is growing at a far greater speed than its urban counterpart. "All the data provided by various agencies like NCAER, Francis Kanoi etc shows that rural markets are growing faster than urban markets in certain product categories at least. The share of FMCG products in rural markets is 53 per cent, durables boasts of 59 per cent market share. Therefore one can claim that rural markets are growing faster than urban markets

Satellite dish antennas reach rural India

In 2000, ITC took an initiative to develop direct contact with farmers who lived in farflung villages in Madhya Pradesh. ITC's Echoupal was the result of this initiative.

So the fact remains that the rural market in India has great potential, which is just waiting to be tapped. Progress has been made in this area by some, but there seems to be a long way for marketers to go in order to derive and reap maximum benefits. Moreover, rural India is not so poor as it used to be a decade or so back. Things are sure a changing

Typical shop in rural India stocked with sachets, etc