Creative Marketing for Rural India
...argeted since the merchants who operate such places are quite mobile. · Companies with sufficient resource could use delivery vans which could serve the dual purpose of taking the product to the customers in every nook and corner of the market and also enable sales promotion. On the other hand, companies with fewer resources can go in for syndicated distribution where a tie-up between non-competitive marketers can be established to facilitate distribution. Coca-Cola has evolved a hub and spoke distribution model to reach the villages. · There exist cooperative societies such as dairy cooperatives, credit cooperatives etc. which are linked with higher level societies at taluk, district or state level. These societies have an arrangement for centralized procurement and distribution through their respective state level federations. Such state level federations can be motivated to procure and distribute consumable items and low value durable items to the member societies for selling to the rural consumer. · Public Distribution Systems (PDS) covering the entire country can be utilized for marketing consumables and low value durables. · During off seasons, fertilizer dealers do not have much business. They can be motivated to deal in consumer products as many of them have a clout in rural areas and also extend credit to the farmers. Agricultural off season which is the harvest time will also be the peak demand season for consumables and durables due to income generation. · Involving Self Help Groups in distribution - HLL’s Project Shakti is a joint partnership model with Self Help Groups (SHGs) for rural women. The SHGs have chosen to adopt the distribution of HLL’s products as a business venture. Armed with training from HLL and support from government agencies and concerned NGOs, a typical Shakti entrepreneur conducts business of around 15,000 per month. As most of these women are below the poverty line and live in extremely small villages(<2000 population), this earning is very significant and is almost double of their past household income. For HLL, the project is bringing new villages under direct distribution coverage. (2) AFFORDABILITY With low disposable incomes, products need to be affordable to the rural consumer, most of whom are on daily wages. PROPOSED STRATEGIES · Price can be kept low by, low unit packing, example, shampoo and detergent sachets, paisa packs of tea, etc. Godrej recently introduced three brands of Cinthol, Fair Glow and Godrej in 50-gm packs, priced at Rs. 4-5 meant specifically for Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh — the so-called `Bimaru' States. Hindustan Lever has launched a variant of its largest selling soap brand, Lifebuoy at Rs 2 for 50 gm. Grameen-Phone, a Dhaka-based company, has developed a strategy for marketing cell phones to the 35,000 villages in Bangladesh. It has set up women in the villages as agents who lease phone time to other villagers, one call at a time. In India, telecom majors like Reliance can also use this strategy to tap the rural markets. · Avoiding sophisticated/fancy packing can bring down Price. Use of tightly sealed polythene sheets to pack biscuits is an example. · Using refill/reusable packs can also bring down prices. In addition, the packaging material should preferably lend itself to reuse in rural areas. Coca-Cola has addressed the affordability issue by introducing the returnable 200-ml glass bottle priced at Rs 5. · Value engineering can be applied to evolve cheaper products, by substituting costly raw material with cheaper one. Britannia use value engineering and replaced costly milk protein by cheaper Soya protein for its biscuits, which it introduced under the name ‘Probisk’ in rural India. (3) ACCEPTABILITY The third challenge is to gain acceptability for the product or service. Therefore, there is a need to offer products that suit the rural market. There are four types of products found in the rural market: - · Nationally branded products (Rin, Lifebuoy, Lux, etc.) · Regional branded products (Pon Vandu/Golden Beetle in Tamil Nadu) · Locally manufactured unbranded products · Imitation products (LifeJoy, Funny and Lovely, Bonds Talcum Powder, etc.) Depending on the product and its characteristics, there may be scope for redesign or modification of products for the urban market to adapt them for the rural market. The need for rethinking on a product specific to rural demand lies in the fact that there are numerous imitation products in the rural market. These imitation products are the look alikes of the original product, i.e. the packing and printing (the background color, size and style of printing brand names) and are priced much cheaper than the original product, many times at 50% of the original product price. Rural masses are illiterate, and identify a product by its packaging (color, visuals, size, etc.), so it becomes very easy for counterfeit products to eat into the market share of established brands. The retailer also gets a large profit on selling counterfeits and hence is biased towards them. PROPOSED STRATEGIES · Due to the ease of affordability Small Unit Packs with the advantage of low price stand a good chance of acceptability. Examples are shampoo and detergent sachets, Vicks 5 gm. tins, 75 gm. Lifebuoy, 25 gm. Colgate toothpaste, etc. The smaller packs are also convenient for the retailer to store due to limited shelf space. · Low Priced Packs can be used to sell premium products, like Brooke Bond’s Taj Mahal introduced an inferior blend under the name Janta Blend to be sold in the rural markets. ITC’s Hero containing blended tobacco is priced just for the pockets of the rural consumers. · Keeping the rural lifestyles in mind New Product Designs can be made. For example given their adverse working conditions, PVC shoes and chappals are ideally suited to rural consumers. Nokia 1100 with a built – in – torch was launched keeping in mind the frequent power failures in rural India. Since many households don’t have proper bathrooms and much storage space therefore in addition to manufacturing toothpaste sachets Colgate also capped them for storage convenience. · Products meant for the rural market should be sturdy enough to stand rough handling and storage. Rural consumers prefer heavier dry cell batteries than lighter ones, because heavier weight to them means more power and durability. Philips modified their radios and mono two – in – ones by making them bigger and louder so that rural consumers felt that they were getting ‘value for their money’. TVS-Suzuki’s motorcycle AX-100R had wider tyres and also a thicker coat of paint to withstand the rustic rural conditions. · Rural consumers want Utility Oriented Products. They are not much concerned with the product appearance and sophistication or frills. LG launched a stripped down version of its TV called Sampoorna. · A combi – pack is a packaging innovation in which related products are packed together and sold at economy prices. Colgate has successfully employed this strategy by offering a toothbrush with a 30 gm. toothpaste for Rs. 8.50. · Brand Awareness in rural areas is fairly high. A brand name and/or logo is very essential for the rural consumers, for it can be easily remembered. Many a times, rural consumers ask for neeli tikki in case of detergent washing bar or laal sabun for Lifebuoy. Marketing efforts must therefore be supported by education. · To counter the threat of imitations, firms could adopt packaging that would be more difficult to replicate. · Marketers need to be sensitive towards the requirements of the region they are trying to sell in. Like vegetarianism is a very big issue in certain rural areas. So marketers could make a green product, which should be vegetarian in nature. · Because of the lack of electricity and refrigerators in the rural areas, Coca-Cola provides low-cost iceboxes — a tin box for new outlets and thermocol box for seasonal outlets. · The insurance companies that have tailor-made products for the rural market have performed well. HDFC Standard LIFE topped private insurers by selling policies worth Rs 3.5 crore in total premia. The company tied up with NGOs and offered reasonably priced policies in the nature of group insurance covers. (4) AWARENESS Mass media is able to reach only to 57% of the rural population Creating awareness then, means utilizing targeted, unconventional media including ambient media. The most important thing in rural communication is that one has to integrate three things as one communicates: communication (the exposure to a message), trial or demonstration (convincing) and final sales. PR...