This document discusses communication strategies for rural markets in India. It begins with an overview of the rural population size and characteristics. It then outlines both formal/conventional media strategies such as television, print, and radio as well as informal rural-specific strategies like haats and melas, opinion leaders, farm demonstrations, and folk media. Three examples of successful rural marketing campaigns are provided: ITC's e-Choupal initiative, Hindustan Lever's health education soap marketing, and Coca-Cola's focus on availability, affordability, and acceptability in rural India.

1. Communication strategies forCommunication strategies for
rural marketsrural markets
2014

2. Road map to rural India...!!!
Φ Virtual tour
Φ FORMAL/ CONVENTIONAL MEDIA
Φ INFORMAL/ RURAL SPECIFIC MEDIA
Φ Some Famous Examples:
Φ ITC e- choupal
Φ Hindustan Lever Limited and the
Soap Market
Φ Coca cola

3. Come...Lets go to village virtual tour
 Large but scattered population
 69.9% of Indians in rural areas as of 2010 (world bank report
2012)
 700 million people spread around 6,27,000 villages.
 87.5% of the rural population belongs to bottom of the pyramid
 Average income of less Rs.2000/- per month
 54 % to GDP
 About 50% of income comes from agriculture.
Estimated annual size of the rural market
 FMCG Rs. 65,000 Crore
 Durables Rs. 5,000 Crore
 Agri-Inputs Rs. 45,000 Crore
 2 / 4 Wheelers Rs. 8,000 Crore

4. FORMAL/ CONVENTIONAL MEDIA
 Do not provide the touch and feel of the product
 Mass media (reaches around 60% rural
population)
 2 out of 5 Indians are unreachable by mass media
TV
– Tv is the most preferred (40% access to TV):
power cuts are common and this restricts
viewing time.
– Doordarshan most popular channel
Print media (Print media reaches 23%)
Cinema (reach 30%)
Outdoor (wall paintings, hoardings, tree boards)

5. Radio (Reaches 35% of rural population)
Radio can reach a large number of poor people because it
is affordable and uses little electricity.
There are specific programmes for agriculturists like ‘Farm
and Home Programme or ‘Krishi Darshan’ in all regional
languages,
The main advantage is that it is cost effective medium.
Colgate, Jyoti Laboratories, Zandu Balm, Juari Industries
are some companies using radio for communication.

7. INFORMAL/ RURAL SPECIFIC MEDIA
Haats & Melas
Over 47,000 haats and 25,000 melas are held annually.
The average daily sale at a Haat isabout Rs.2.25 Lacs
Annual sales at melas amount to Rs.3,500 crore.
Over half the shoppers at haats have shopping lists.
More than 10,000 melas draw visitors from all over
India.
Nearly half the outlets at melas are for manufactured
goods.
Mobile supermarkets (75% are held once a week, 20%
twice a week and the rest are organised daily)
Good platform for demonstrations

8. Good for introducing new brands and building brands
About 5000 are commercial in nature, used for brand
promotions
Women's are present in large number
Kumbh mela (Haridwar, Allahabad, Ujjain, Nasik)
Sonepur mela (Bihar)
HLL, P&G set up kiosks.
Mahindra & Mahindra set up information counter for its
tractor at Pushkar mela (Rajasthan)
Nestle arranges coffee and Maggie shop

10. Opinion leaders
Mandis
– These are agricultural markets set up by govt. to
procure agri. Produce from farmers
– Serve as a platform for product demo and on the
spot sales
– Used for promoting durables and agricultural
products

11.  Farm to farm/ house to house
– Hindustan lever (fair and lovely) in villages with
population of 2000+ to expand user base
– Reached 10% of villages and 17% of households in
MP,UP and Bihar
– 46% brand conversions (35% was from non users)
 Group meetings
– MRF tractor owners meet (TOMEE)
– TAFE (direct contact exercises in 9 states – 44
centres): sales growth of 12% after one month of
campaign

12. Audio Visual publicity vans
– Create word of mouth publicity
– HLL (fair and lovely) home to home campaign was
supported by Audio visual show and product
demonstrations
– Costly to hire and maintain
– Cost per contact is more than conventional media
Demonstrations
– Dalda launch, fed pakodas on street corner to convey
that they can use it for frying (method demonstration)
– Hero, TVS and Kinetic gave live demonstrations in
Kolhapur for Maharashtra sugar co operative (they got
400 orders)

13. Folk Media
Folk theatre
Magic show
Puppet shows
Popular in Rajasthan
LIC uses it to educate masses in UP, Bihar and MP
The number of inquiries at LIC offices after the show
was higher.
Interactive games

15. Street theatre
Deeply rooted in the Indian tradition
To propagate social and political messages and to
create an awareness regarding critical issues.
Street theatre breaks the formal barriers and
approaches the people directly.
Games
Rajdoot organizes wrestling competition for the villagers
in which one of the wrestler brought by them. The other
one is a villager.
The winner get to test ride their bikes. The wrestling is a
symbol of their products USP. That is: ruggedness

17. ITC e- choupal
 Initiative by ITC (2000)
 Directly links the rural farmers with the company
 Procured by such companies from mandis .
 The PCs and Internet access at certain centres enable the
farmers to obtain information on mandi prices , good
farming practices, and to place orders for agricultural
inputs, such as seeds and fertilizers.
 This access to information helps farmers in improving the
quality of produce and obtaining better prices.
 A literate farmer elected from the village acts as the
interface between the illiterate farmers and the computer.

18. Selling Health: Hindustan Lever Limited and
the Soap Market
Results of research done among focus
group in rural areas.
– 5 of 13 washed their hands before eating
– 10 of 18 washed their hands before preparing
food
– If they did wash hands, often used water or a
proxy product for soap such as mud or ash.
– after handling cow dung 5 of 7 rinsed their
hands with water
– one washed with mud, and one used soap.

19. o School and village presentation
o Children aged 5-13
o Through stories
o Learn about germs how they cause diseases
o Importance of using soap and when to use
o Demonstration to show that Visual clean is not safe clean
o Lifebuoy village health day
o Health camp and check up
o Village doctor as opinion leader
o Healthy child award
o Health skits and poems by kids to gain involvement
o Demonstrations and awards for best presenters

20. o Diarrhea management workshop
o For young mothers and pregnant women
o Dangers of diarrhea
o Health checks
o Launch of the Lifebuoy health club
o Formation of health club which includes activities centered
on hygiene and keeping the village clean
o Facilitators return 4-6 times more
o HLL created health based brand differentiation
o Increased the sale of its low cost mass market soap
o Built new habits, involving its brand
o Built brand loyalty
o Fulfilling its corporate purpose ‘to raise the quality of life’

21. Coca cola: India’s Thirst for Rural Market
Coca cola India’s Rural Marketing Strategy
Based on three A’s
– Availability : availability of the product to customer
– Affordability: Product Pricing
– Acceptability : convincing the customer to buy the
product

22.  Extensive marketing in the mass
media and outdoor advertising
 Aggressive rural communication
campaign
 Hoardings
 Participation in weekly mandis
 TV commercials
 Print Advertisement in several regional
newspapers
 Painted the name Coca cola on the
compounds of the residences in the
villages

23.  Increased Ad- spend on Doordarshan
 2002: Commercial featuring Amir Khan to communicate the
message of price cut and launch of Chota Coke (200ml Rs.5
bottle)
 To strengthen the brand image- aimed at making Coke a
generic name for “thanda”- a popular dialect of North.
 Launched 3 commercials with tagline “Thanda matlab Coca-
cola”- Aimed to make rural and semi urban consumers
connect with Coca- Cola
 The 3 commercials showed progression in associating ‘Coke’
with ‘Thanda’.