Rural Communication

The most important element in rural communications is that you have

to integrate 3 things as you communicate:
Communication (the exposure to a message),
Trial or demonstration (convincing)
And final sale.
If these three elements can be integrated into one timeframe, the cost
effectiveness then gets measured on different platform. When you
measure the effectiveness of, say television, you dont measure on
these elements.
So there is a concept of touch and feel within the communication
itself that you have provide as you create communication for rural
consumer...
When rural marketing started way back in 1982/83 in a focused
manner, you could ask any advertiser, Have you done rural
advertising? And the answer would be Yes we have. What have
you done? Wall paintings, van advertising.
Today there is hardly any van advertising. There are about 47000
haats in our country.
In Maharashtra there are 4000 haats and there are 5 types of haats in
broad terms. So you can create channels.
Everything that we did over the last 4-5 years was for the first time.
So channels are in plenty. Its a battle of the ability to notice, create,
use and build on that.
One of the characteristics of rural consumer is the variability in
income size and patterns. Somebody gets daily wages while
someone else earns weekly salaries.

Yet another might be paid on a monthly basis. Given this scenario, it

is often said that if a rural consumer buys daily, he has 365
opportunities in a year to switch brands.
In an advanced market like America where the product is brought
only once a month, you get 12 opportunities to change the brand. Do
you see that as an advantage or a problem?
Changing brands everyday is certainly a possibility among rural
consumers. But that is due to a bigger problem of brand recognition.
For example: there may be 20 varieties of LUX look-alikes and 82
varieties of Nirma and other look-alikes and so on and so forth (Like
when find the r missing and it say Nima).
The challenge is to create communication that would help the rural
consumer in recognizing brands, logos, visuals, colours etc. so that
he or she actually buys Lifebuoy and not something else. But I dont
think so thats happening.
When you look at the urban retailer versus the rural retailer, there are
a lot of differences between the two. What role does a rural retailer
play as compared to the retailer in urban markets?
In urban sector, by and large the retailer has become more of a
conduit. The levels of influence vary from one category to another.
For example, in color televisions category, the retailer still plays a
very critical role.
So you find that in consumer electronics, even in the urban sector,
the retailers extent of influence can be as high fifty percent, when it
comes to brand choice - and this phenomenon is observed right
across socio-economic classes.

Even a well read person, who is abreast of the latest products, has
seen the commercials and has also met people using those products,
can still change his choice of brand at the retailers
recommendations.
The rural retailer influences more and is more important than urban
retailer because urban consumers are more educated, exposed to
media etc.
Philips as a brand has been around for about 70-75 years - but we
still get the radios with a double l (Phillips). So duplicates or
spurious products exist not just in FMCG but also in durables.
Also the retailer is influential in every single product category in rural
India simply because in he extends credit to most of his customers.
The customer buys from the retailer on credit - now the moment you
have a khaata with the retailer, he exerts an influence on everything
he buys - soap, toothpaste, tea - everything.
On the other hand, our learning has been that there is no effect of
other influencers (like Sarpanch or other senior leaders) on
consumers, especially in FMCG purchases.
Research suggests that a rural retailer tends to stock very few brands
within each product category as against an urban retailer who keeps
as many brands as possible.
Earlier personal products salesperson would just go around, say once
in a month, whereas the foods salesperson would go once in a week.
Now, streamlining the entire distribution such that all the categories
would be sent in one van so, the retailer has more choice.
And also in a village, unlike in a city, if you extend credit, one shop
will try to store as many categories as possible.
According to some findings, the rural retailer stocks few brands in
each category.

This may have important implications for a company and its

managers because whoever reaches the market first gets the share
of the market.
The rural retailer may keep say x amount of area or space for a
certain product category and he wont keep more than one or two
brands. So unless you reach there first and re-stock at frequent
intervals, you have no scope.
The other important thing that has happened is the retailer today has
far more shelf space than he earlier. For example, he can simply
hang shampoo sachets around - all he needs is a string. In general,
pack sizes are also shrinking, so he is able to stock much more.
There are different kinds of retailers. There are shops within the
village and their stocking pattern, their clientele - people who buy
from there - are very different from the shops which are not located
inside the village, say, along the main road.
Then there is a third kind of market which is called the kasba market
or the tahasil market. For the shops within the village, their stocking
pattern is very much dependent on the kind of investment the retailer
can make in a one-time purchase.
So they should focus on building a relationship - they have to be in
touch with the retailers at the rural level.
India is a very large country with far flung markets, different socio
cultural aspects, income levels, educational levels, long distances
etc. The rural retailer does not stock huge quantities so that you may
supply him only once in a month.
There are 7,000 odd feeder markets in India. But certainly FMCG
brands are very important task ahead in terms of being able to build,
create and sustain the relationship with retailers who matter.
Currently there are largely in touch with the wholesalers.

Hindustan Lever covers about 70,000 retail outlets. It is not the

coverage but a new innovative approach you must create.
So what HLL may like to do is invest on mobile vending or invest into
very unconventional, very new and innovative approaches, otherwise
it will be very difficult because for every HLL brand there are 10 or 15
imitation products, and they cannot be fought because of the price
difference.
So it is accessibility, availability and visibility at the local shop.
As a matter of fact, it is not so expensive, if you look at it this way.
In all these 800 towns, if you were to put 5 hoardings at five different
points - railway station, bus station, or district magistrate court or a
sub-judges court or main chauraha, the post offices etc. so, if you
identify 5 spots where a key message can be conveyed, that would
be a very effective way of communication which wont cost as much
as television and print media.
In rural markets, brands are non-existent. They identify FMCG by
three things -primarily by color, visuals of animals and birds and by
numbers.
So a 555, 777, pila hathi, lal saboon - these are the kind of terms with
which they identify brands.
They buy those three things: colours, numbers and visuals. So it is
very important for us to understand that if you are talking about
communications, media, marketing, branding - a lot needs to be
done.
There are number of cases which suggest that to sell brands in the
rural market, it is necessary to simultaneously educate the
consumers.
For example, villagers were found using shampoo for brushing teeth,
toothpaste for washing hair, and these are real life examples, not
stories being created. They dont know what these shampoo sachets
stand for. So if you have to create brand communication, marketing
efforts must be supported by education.