The document discusses opportunities for marketing in rural India and small towns. It notes that while metros dominate consumption in India, smaller towns and cities are growing rapidly and showing high consumption growth. Regional languages and channels also present significant opportunities, as nearly half of India's population lives outside major cities. The panel discussion highlighted that focusing on regional needs through local language, content and traditional media can be very effective for reaching and engaging customers outside of urban areas.

1. Zee Bangla 101 Markets: Opportunities in rural India
By AninditaSarkar, afaqs!, Mumbai, September 04, 2012
Section: News Category: Marketing
The regional penetration of the TV market has also forced planners to rethink
their regional TV plan as there lay a huge opportunity in this segment. For the
record, there are 283 regional channels (out of more than 660 TV channels
overall), of which 49 are cow belt channels, 25 Punjabi channels and 15 Oriya
channels.
According to the latest McKinsey report, there were about 5,042 towns and
cities in 2008 that has now gone up by an approximate 20 per cent. Also, by
2030, India will have more than 6,000 cities and the number of Tier 2 cities will
nearly double during the given period.
However, interestingly, when it comes to consumption habits, the four cities that
top the consumption index are not the metros. While addressing the audiences at
101 Markets - India Beyond the Metros 2012, an event organised by afaqs!, N P
Sathyamurthy, president and head, media at Mudra Max, noted that Bengaluru is
the first metro that ranked fifth in the consumption hierarchy, while it is only
Bengaluru and Pune (the only metros) in the top 10 in terms of consumption
habits.
"Also, as per the Morgan Stanley Alphawise City Vibrance Report 2011, Kolkata
ranks at No. 42 and Mumbai is at No. 26," he said. He was moderating the panel
discussion, 'What's the opportunity in rural India and the paths to success?'. The
other panellists included VanitaKeswani, COO, Madison Media Sigma; Peshwa
Acharya, chief marketing officer and management committee member, Apps
Daily Solution; BishwajeetSamal, head, marketing communication, Volkswagen
Group Sales India; and P M Balakrishna, COO, Allied Media.
The panel was at a consensus that while there is high ownership of durables in
metros, there is greater recent purchase in small towns. Now, when languages
are considered, while North and West are dominated by vernacular languages,
English penetrates beyond metros in the South and the East.
"However, while the readership of English dailies is only 9 per cent of the total, it
garners 50 per cent of the total advertising revenue; Hindi contributes about 26
per cent and other languages contribute about 24 per cent," said Satyamurthy.

2. As far as television is concerned, regional channels account for about 33 per cent
of the total TV share. The regional TV ad market is equivalent to Rs 4,385 crore,
wherein most markets continue to be under-leveraged.
Keswani noted that there is a rising trend of the regional influence on channel
content strategy, wherein regional plays the lead protagonist in national
channels and drive regional viewership. "Channels are using the regional
influence as an opportunity to craft their content strategy to drive further
growth. For example, Saathiya on Star Plus, which has a Gujarati protagonist,
scores an approximate 5 TVR in Gujarat as opposed to a 2.5 TVR in the
Northwest," she said.
The regional penetration of the TV market has also forced planners to rethink
their regional TV plan as there lay huge opportunity in this segment. For the
record, there are 283 regional channels (out of 660+ TV channels overall), of
which 49 are cow belt channels, 25 Punjabi channels and 15 Oriya channels.
Acharya noted that even in the digital age, while methods of working will keep
changing, the principals will always remain the basics. And these basic principals
are the 3 M's, namely 'm'obility (mobile reach), 'm'o-bike (locomotion) and
'm'atribhasha (mother tongue).
"The moment you move out of the metros and choose to conduct any form of
communication in the local language, it attracts huge response and therefore
translates into higher sales," he said.
Balakrishna, meanwhile, noted that traditional media still rules the roost in the
regional markets. "Fifty per cent of the growth of TV sets is happening in the
regional markets. And suddenly all marketers, media planners and agencies have
woken up to it. Now, the challenge that is being discussed is how best to reach
the customers.
"Regional has a lot of paradigms and traditional media is helping drive this
growth faster. Marketers will have to create a much better brand experience
with the consumers, especially through traditional media through localisation."
Samal added that the non-metro market is steadily becoming more aspirational.
Often, when the creatives of a regional campaign are designed, the English or
Hindi creatives are directly adapted to the language. And this is where the
impact is lost.
"Therefore, since it is now imperative to include regional in the complete media
plan, agencies should start hiring people who specifically understand that region
and thus its language," he said.
This afaqs! event was presented by Zee Bangla.
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Zee Bangla 101 Markets: Diversity presents an excellent growth opportunity

3. Tags: 101 Markets, P M Balakrishna, Allied Media, N P Sathyamurthy, Mudra
Max, BishwajeetSamal, Volkswagen, VanitaKeswani, Madison Media Sigma