short answer questions

1.what is brand loyalty?

2.define rural market.
3.mention two reasons for slow down in rural development.
4.what is opinion marketing?
5.mention two most popular brands in FMCG in rural India.
6.What do you mean by product differentiation.
7.what is unique selling proposition?
8.define market segmentation.
9.Expand NABARD.
10. what is cooperative marketing?
11.what do you understand by GDP?
12.Give two objectives of market research.
13.Define Marketing infformation systems.
14.Give two socio-cultural factors affecting rural consumer buying behavior.
15.Mention four criteria for rural market segmentation.
16.what are the main reasons for growing attractiveness of rural markets?
17.what is NAFED?
18.What is a regulated market?
19.what is a commodity market?
20.Mention two agricultural credit institutions in India.

Descriptive questions
1. Discuss the problems in rural marketing.
2. Give an account of Indian companies specialising in rural marketing.
3. Write a note on market segmentation.
4. Describe the role of prices in competitive economy.
5. What are the constraints of communication in
rural marketing?
6. Explain the importance of personal selling in rural markets.
7. Describe the functions of central and state warehousing corporations.
8. Describe the role of any four Commodities Board.
9. Explain in detail the factors contributing the change of demand in rural market.
10. Explain the role of Government in pricing for rural markets.
11. Will the market targeting strategy differ from positioning between the rural and
urban markets?
12. Describe the various methods marketing communication in rural marketing.
13. Discuss the objectives and advantages and limitations of co-operative
marketing.
14. Explain the problems in physical distribution of products in rural markets.
15. Explain in detail Cotton and Textile Marketing.
16.Explain the "opinion leaders" with reference to rural marketing.
17. What are the different types of fake products available in the rural market?
18. Explain Captive-Product Pricing v/s Product-Bundle Pricing.
19. Draw a diagram to explain any one distribution model that has succeeded in
rural markets.

20. How can Product Positioning be done in rural markets?

21. What are the political factors that influence in rural consumer behavior?
22. Differentiate a mandi from a Mela.
23.Why do marketers find rural India one of the most difficult markets in the world?
24. Explain how companies have used demographic and geographic segmentation
in rural India.
25. Explain some new distribution strategies and distribution models being used by
companies to counter the problems
of distribution in rural areas.
26. What are the common misperceptions about BoP markets?
27. HUL is reputed to be among the best rural marketers in the country. Discuss
reasons for its success. Explain
any 2 government scheme for rural reform.
28.Explain Consumer Behavior model.
29.Write a note Marketing Information systems.
30.Explain the Indian Agricultural scenario, and how far the cooperatives
contributed for the economic development of India.

Analytical questions
1. What are the components of rural environments that you would need to consider
while planning the physical distribution of fast moving consumer goods? How do
political environment and the structure of the rural society affect the consumption
behavior of rural consumers? Explain by taking examples.
2. By talking to 5-10 rural consumers around your city or to people with a rural
background, collect information on what are the most influential reference groups
for the following products and services purchase decision for the rural consumers.
How is this influence exercised?
Purchase of a tractor
Decision to send a child to high school outside the village
Purchase of insurance
Purchase of household detergent
3. You have been retained by an FMCG company to assess the market potential of
their well-established brand of toothpaste in the rural market in a part of Central
India. Knowing that the awareness of oral hygiene products in the belt is low, the
company would also like you to assess the prevailing consumer perceptions about
toothpaste in general and their brand in particular:
What type of research design would you select and why? Justify.
What are the data collection instruments you would use and why? Justify
4. A leading marketer of personal hygiene product like toilet soaps, shampoos,
fairness creams and hair oil wants to make his entry into the rural markets. For each
of the product categories, what are the possible product, package and pricing

adaptation that be he may have to make? Advise him, giving reasons to justify your
suggestions.
5. Most FMCG companies are today battling with the menace of spurious products. A
nationally established manufacturer of shaving blades and safety razors has sought
your advice to enable him to overcome the problem of spurious brands eating into
his rural market share. How would you advise him? Give justification for the advice
proposed by you.
6. You have been retained by a company producing a complete range of consumer
durables goods. The company has decided to promote the following products in the
rural market.
sewing machines
bicycles
mini generation sets
What are the advertising media options that would you suggest to the company, in
each case and why?
6. On the basis of your understanding of the rural buyer behavior, what sales
promotional programmes would be most successful for
bio fertilizers
launch of a brand of cold drinks for the rural markets
How would you plan the sales promotion effort in each case?
7. One of the key determinants of distribution efforts in the rural markets is the
relative market potential of different villages. You have studied several measures
like the Thompson Rural Market Index, MISH and MRMR. How can marketers use
these measures to assess their inventory and warehousing requirements? Respond
with respect to the following products.
Cooking oil
Battery cells
8.Study carefully the behavioral dimension in rural distribution covered in Unit 12 in
your material. As a marketer, explain clearly the implication of these variables in
planning the distribution of the following products
Black and White TV sets
Biscuits
Branded Tea
9. Collect detailed information on the ITC experiment of e-choupal . Write a note on
the present coverage of e choupal
the current activities being undertaken by e choupal
what is the role of choupal sanchalak.
10.Just a mention of Chik Shampoo gives rise to varied perceptions. To the rural and
semi urban population of
India, it is the preferred daily use shampoo. To the market and its players, the
second largest selling shampoo in the
country.
Chik Shampoo was launched in the late 1980s. In a highly competitive FMCG
category that seemed

impenetrable to most marketers, Beauty Cosmetics (a company that later changed

its name to CavinKare)
identified an opportunity in rural and semi urban India. Combining innovative sachet
packing, strategic pricing (At
Re.l and 50p) and a strong and motivated distribution network, Chik Shampoo
transformed the very nature of
shampoo packaging and usage.
With a tropical climate round the year, it is a difficult task to maintain hair softness
and shine in rural India. The
company developed unique formula - Active Double Conditioners that cut across
age, sex and loyalists of other
shampoos and made them adopt Chik Shampoo.
The company developed a highly successful communication campaign to build its
brand. It was targeted at the
rural and semi urban masses and showcased the possibility of soft and manageable
hair. The iconic Chik Girl in
every Chik Shampoo commercial treated her hair with the shampoo and
demonstrated with almost ease and
confidence her ability to untangle her hair with just a single motion of running her
fingers through her hair. Her
testimonial signature Yun Kiya Ho Gayal became a popular phrase amongst both
girls and women. The
company also went to the rural areas of South India where people hardly used
shampoo or saw TV. Here they
used personal demonstrations. They showed customers how to use shampoo. They
did live demonstrations on
young village boys. After the wash they would ask villagers assembled to feel and
smell his hair.
CavinKare held Chik Shampoo-sponsored shows of Rajniknath's films. They showed
their advertisements in
between, followed by live demonstrations. They also distributed free sachets among
the audience after these
shows. This worked wonders in rural Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. After every
show, our shampoo sales
went up three to four times.
In 2003, Chik Shampoo was declared the winner of the best performing brand in
2003 by AAAI, amongst the top
ten brands in household availability. However after that the brand has begun
coming under intense pressure from
competitors . The shampoo market has been changing in the last 5 years and has
become very cluttered .The
company is facing intense competition from other brands like Sunsilk, Clinic Plus,
Pantene, Ayush, Dabur Vatika,
Nyle etc.
(a) Set new objectives for Chik Shampoo and design a new Promotion Strategy for
the brand so that it can
mating its leadership position
Or

(b) Considering the rural shampoo market today what will be the key internal and
external factors affecting the
price of Chik Shampoo. Also suggest some Product strategies that Cavinkare can
use to help develop the
Chik brand further
11.
Introduction: The bio-agri market in India
India, the largest democracy in the world, is highly dependent on agriculture which
generates almost one quarter of
its GDP and provides two thirds of its people with their means of survival. India is a
nation of small resource-poor
farmers, most of whom do not make enough income to cover their meager basic
needs and expenditures. Sixty
percent of the farming households own less than 1 hectare of land and only 5% own
more than 4 hectares.
Marketing of seeds to this rural population is thus an important activity in the Indian
market. Biotech crops are
being touted to hold some quick fix solutions to the problems of Indian agriculture.
The are being seen as having the
potential to play a role in food, feed and fiber security, contributing to poverty
alleviation and hunger, reducing
environmental footprints in agriculture, mitigating climate change and contributing
to cost-effective bio-fuels.
Seed companies have aggressively begun marketing seeds for the only transgenic
crop1 approved in India so far, BT 2
cotton. They are also lobbying with the government to ensure approval of BT seeds
for food and fiber crops.
These companies are offering farmers' customer service, technical knowledge and
innovative products that are
constantly updated and improved. These services were previously unheard of in the
Indian market.
Companies are beginning to invest vast amounts in state of the art facilities for the
collection, processing, string,
testing and breeding of seeds in different climatic zones across the nation to match
the climate, soil and land of
different segments of framers.
Most of these seed companies use technology developed by Monsanto. These
companies have to pay Monsanto a
royalty per packet of seeds sold.
While BT seeds accounted for a bulk of the bio-agri market, bio pesticides, bio
fertilizers and markers accounted for
the rest. International panacea, Multiplex Biotech and Biotech international are
some of the other major
companies in the bio pesticides and bio fertilizers category. International panacea
reported sales of Rs. 21.17
crore in 2006 compared to Rs. 17 crore in the previous year.
A short history of biotechnology in India Agriculture
Agriculture biotechnology is making disease resistant grains, fruits, oilseeds and
vegetables, and cash crops like

cotton through genetic modification. India has so far approved a single transgenic
crop, BT cotton for
commercial cultivation, while a number of other transgenic crops, including some
genetically modified (GM)
food crops are in the pipeline for approval. Amidst the raging row over use of
genetically modified crops, the area
covered under BT Cotton has surged . BT cotton, which confers resistance to
important insect pests of cotton,
was first adopted in India as hybrids in 2002. "There has been 125-fold rise in area
under biotech crop in India in the
last six years, while globally it is only 67- fold increase in 12 years," says
International Service for the Acquisition
of Agri-biotech Applications, Chairman Clive James. The study conducted by his
organisation shows that 3.8
million Indian farmers opted for BT cotton in 2007 compared to 2.3 million in 2006.
The study also shows that
India has overtaken the US to become the second largest cotton producing country
in the world after China. India,
which had one of the lowest cotton yields in the world, has become a net cotton
exporter, with potentially five
million bales available for export in 2007-08. BT cotton was a major factor
contributing to higher rate of production
from 15.8 million bales in 2001-02 to 31 million bales in 2007-08, it said. The
income of the cotton growers in India
has also increased up to Rs. 10,000 or more per hectare over a period of 3 years.
The study claimed that strong
farmer confidence in the crops with nine of 10 Indian farmers replanting biotech
cotton year on year.
The major states growing BT cotton in India are Maharashtra followed by Andhra
Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya
Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
The study also said that the GM technology alone will not be sufficient to meet the
global food demand and
stressed on adopting an integrated approach to increase the crop yield. The report
suggested that seed marketing
companies should promote a crop improvement strategy which will integrate both
the crops in its approach to
optimize productivity.
The Major Players
Monsanto's technology is still the dominant BT technology used in India. Each of the
seed marketing companies paid
Monsanto Biotech about Rs. 1200 per packet of seeds as royalty. Today approvals
have been given to 16 major
seed companies in India to market GM seeds i.e. Mahyco, Rasi, Ankur Seeds,
Nuziveedu Seeds, JK Seeds,
Nath Seeds, Ganaga Kaveri seeds, Tulasi seeds, Ajeet seeds, Emergent genetics
Vikki Agrotech, Vikram seeds,
Pravardhan Seeds, Krishidhan, Prabhat and Vikram Seeds.
The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee of the government of India has
approved 38 new varieties of BT

cotton hybrids for commercial cultivation in the 2006 season in addition to the 20
BT cotton hybrids approved for
sale in the 2005 season.
Future plans
India first allowed commercial cultivation BT cotton, the country's first GM crop in
2002, leading to protests
from activists, who say GM crops are a health hazard. This delayed approval of GM
food crops.
India's first expected GM food crop is brinjal. Field trials of GM brinjal started in
August 2007 and is expected to
be commercialized by 2009, said C.D Mayee, a senior scientist, and chairman
Agricultural Scientists
Recruitment Board. Among food crops the biggest opportunity is perhaps in rice.
India, second largest rice
producer in the world, is field testing GM rice, and expects commercialization by
2011, Mayee said. In rice,
India is competing with China, the largest producer. China is in final stages of
commercializing GM rice, James said.
BIO-FUEL OPPORTUNITY
Biotech can solve bio-fuel needs of the world. India, the second biggest producer of
sugar, is likely to gain.
India is working towards getting technology for developing GM sugarcane with
better ethanol output from
Brazil.
India is sitting on a stock pile of sugar with output of about 27.5 million tones and a
carryover stock of over 6
million tones against an annual consumption of about 20 million tones.
Discuss the basic objectives of the seed marketing companies. AK Seeds wishes to
enter this market and has
obtained approval to market 3 varieties of BT cotton. Develop a marketing strategy
that will be beneficial to the
company as well as to the farmers.
Glossary:
1 Transgenic Crop - Contains a gene or genes which have been artificially inserted
instead of the plant acquiring the
gene(s) through pollination.
2 BT cotton - BT cotton seeds are genetically engineered to carry the gene from the
soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis.
These seeds have an in-built pest control mechanism created in the cotton plant to
fight against certain pests.