Media effect and its measurement in Rural India

A paper presented to
www.exchange4media.com

Submitted by:
Abir Kanjilal (PGPCM-2)
Indranil Das (PGPCM-2)
Rohitash Srivastava (PGPCM-2)
(Mudra Institute of Communication, Ahmedabad)

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
advertiser’s 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 R’s 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 R’s 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 R’s. 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.

Bibliography
1. MICA KIEC
2. Archives of different newspapers like The Hindu, The Times of India, The Economic
Times, Business Standard
3. “Rural Marketing” by T.P Gopalasawami
4. “Advertising in Rural India” by Tej K. Bhatia
5. NCAER data 2001
6. NRS and IRS report
7. Websites: www.greenconsumerguide.com, www.tenet.res.in,
www.worldisgreen.com, www.thehindubusinessline.com, www.oneworld.net,
www.indianchild.com, www.businessweek.com,
www.aarogya.com/Healthresources/Rural/needs.asp, www.cities-lyon.org

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