Daily Milk, Lifebody soap and Fair & Lonely. These are popular brands in the hinterlands of Bangladesh . Don’t they sound familiar to daily brands Dairy Milk, Life Buoy & Fair & Lovely? Well, they not only sound but also look similar to the original brands. These brands are created by manufacturers producing cheap versions of the original brands.

1. Competition in Rural Markets-
Fake or Real?

2. Presented By
Rizwan Mahbub Khan
ID: 12132101051
Intake: 30th
Program: BBA
Department of Marketing
Bangladesh University of Business and Technology (BUBT)

3. 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.

4. Difference Between Rural And Urban
 Infrastructure: The facilities like Electricity, Internet, Roads and Buildings,
Educational Institutions, Financial Institutions, Communication and
Organised Market , Other Facilities differs in urban and Rural market.
 Economy: Here the Economy means, The earning Capacity in a rural
Market. The cost of Living always depends upon their way of earning.
 Lifestyle: The Lifestyle , that is living pattern of both the markets differ a
lot. This can be important factor which influences the companies to think
of when they approach rural market.
 Socio- Cultural Background: Due to the illiteracy level, and Culture
adaptability from long time the rural market always gets differ than the
urban market. The superstition and other belief as well as the way of
thinking towards products and goods differ in these two markets.

5.  Availability or Reach: Due to the areas which are diverted
Geographically and Heterogeneous market the reach is very
difficult. The logistics for rural market is a tough task than to
reach the Urban Market.
 Habits: The daily routine of the people makes them to
cultivate different habits. Apart from due to the awareness is
low in Media terms there will be a difference in the habits.
 Competition: The competition in the market for brands and
Companies always differ . As in rural markets it is always the
channel Partner and Retailer plays a vital role. But where as in
Urban Market Brand Plays a great role.
 Consumer Behaviour: The consumer behaviour is the task for
the task for the companies . The mindset of the rural
consumer is completely different from Urban Consumer.

6. Reasons For Selecting Market
 There are quite a few reasons for the growing interest in rural
markets. A very straightforward reason is the growth of these
markets are :
 Untapped Potential
• The large number of consumers
• Largely untapped markets
 Market Size and Potential
 Unmet Needs/Low Penetration
 Current Consumption a Pointer to Potential
 Increasing Income and Purchasing Power
 Accessibility of Markets
 Competition in Urban Markets
 Consumer Behaviour Changes

7. Fake Brands
 Rural markets suffer from the problems of low
penetration and poor availability of branded
products. Hence, although there exists a huge
demand for branded products, there are no
distribution channels to make the product reach the
customer. This has led to the growth of fake brands.
 Ponds has been replaced by Bond’s talc
 Fair & Lovely by Fair & Lonely
 Lifebuoy by Likebuoy/Lifeboy

8. Types of Fake Brands
 Look-alike- Products where the color scheme on the
packaging material closely resembles that of a popular
brand but the pack carries a different name. Lifeboy for
Lifebuoy, Lalita Amla for Dabur Amla
 Spell-alike- Fakes of original brands packaged in colors
and designs similar to those of the originals but have
names that are subtly and cleverly misspell. Eg. Paracute
for Parachute, Fair & Lonely for Fair & Lovely.
 Duplicates- Exact copies of original brands. The color,
design, and name on the package are the same as those
of the original brands.

9. Why people buy fake
 A few points to note about fake brand buying:
 Fake brands are more affordable, often with a huge
price difference to the original brand;
 Fake brands can have far wider availability than the
real, exclusive brand –especially in the low income
countries where they are made;
 Buying situations such as holidays favour fake
purchases, as consumers are away from their normal
social/legal restraints;

10.  Counterfeits can reflect the prestige of exotic travel (to
fake buying centres) and provide an authentication of the
travel experience;
 Many consumers see fake brands as fun and a form of
popularising the real brand;
 Consumers sometimes believe they are contributing to
the local economy when they purchase fake brands.

11. Reason for increasing Fake products
 Heavy profit
 Low income group
 Low level of literacy
 Lack of Awareness
 Lack of enforcement of law
 Lack of distribution channel
 Lack of transportation facilities
 Available of fake products

12. Major victims for Fake brands
 Consumers: The major victims of fake or spurious
products are consumers themselves who are cheated by
manufacturers of such products again and again. A major
chunk of Indian consumers live in villages also who is not
educated and aware of such practices.
 There are various reasons for rural customer exploitation
 Traditional Life
 Low Income Group
 Low Level of Literacy
 Poor distribution network
 Lack of awreness

13.  Company: There is no doubt that companies are
major victims of these counterfeit products. They are
not only losing their revenue but the goodwill also. A
joint effort is made by FICCI and the leading FMCG
Companies to bring all companies together to initiate
a war against such menace.
 Government: As we have discussed earlier also that
government is also a victim and losing a heavy
revenues in form of excise duty, sales tax.

14. Problems created by fake products
 Fake products not only cannibalize the existing brands
of genuine producers, but also will result in the loss
of future markets due to the loss of consumers faith
in the original brand as a result of poor experiences
with fake brands.
 Original companies get less profit because of low
sales.
 Companies loss their reputation for the fake
products.

15. Way to tackle the problems
 One method is to strengthen the distribution network.
 Another way to tackle this problem is to make the
packaging tamper-proof with more sophisticated and
capital-intensive method.
 Yet another approach is to organize consumer contest in
haats and big villages to distinguish the original products
from the counterfeits in order to increase consumer
sensitivity to the issue.
 Finally, another approach to tackle the menace of fake
brands is to initiate legal action against the counterfeiters.

16. Conclusion
 Rural market in India badly affected due to sales of spurious
products. Still rural consumers are unaware and unable to
differentiate the branded FMCG products from spurious
products available at retail shops. Although in last decade
literacy level of rural consumers rises from59% (Approx.) to
69% (Approx.), but still availability of spurious products
indicate the other factors behind its sales. Spurious products
badly affect the rural market sales of many branded FMCG
companies. FMCG companies have taken some initiatives to
counter them but unable to implement a holistic strategy to
counter spurious product manufacturers strategy in long run.

17. ANY QUESTION
?

18. THANK YOU