More than 75% of India?s population lives in nearly 600,000 villages spread across its length and breadth. While 80% of this population earns enough to be on a marketers? radar, the rest are way below the poverty line. This is just a sketch of the potential of the promising rural markets in India.
Over the years, not one but many brands have woken up to the significance of these markets. Four years back, Hero Honda began focussing on rural India in a big way and today more than 40% of its sales are contributed by rural markets. Up till 2007, Maruti did not look at rural very seriously. Cut to 2011, the automobile giant is selling a substantial number of its cars in rural India. Not to forget, Hindustan Unilever (HUL) has more than 40% of its annual revenue pouring in from the rural sector.
Managing such targets is certainly not a cakewalk considering the uneven landscape of India?s hinterland where the urbane marketer has to grapple with challenges like low exposure to media, tradition bound joint families and poor infrastructure. Sheer size of the rural markets has now forced marketers to step out of their ivory towers and make sincere efforts towards understanding these. With the objective of increasing awareness in this field, Rural Marketing Association of India (RMAI’) began its journey in 2005 with just four founding members. Those were the days when there was hardly any interest in this area and it can never be denied how credibility of such associations is always in question without the patronage of global agency networks.
It took some time for the members to come together for the cause and pool their resources. Initially, corporate members were not interested as they had doubts on the potential of rural markets. Since then, the association has been conducting conferences and seminars that managed to create interest and awareness about rural markets.
Today, RMAI has a total of 59 members comprising 35 corporate and rest individual members. The members include ITC, Tata Steel, Maruti, Perfetti Van Melle India,Godrej Consumer Products, Ogilvy Activation, Linterland, Expanse Asia, Crompton Greaves and Mudra among others.
Also, within a year of existence, the association instituted RMAI Awards, a bi annual event to recognise talent in the rural marketing space. The latest edition of the awards (2010) received a total of 75 entries for 11 categories. A three member jury including S Siva Kumar, chief executive ? Agribusiness, ITC Limited; M G Parameswaran, executive director and chief executive officer, Draftfcb + Ulka and Anand Sinha, country head, Abt Associates awarded 29 entries.
In this issue, FE BrandWagon picks a few of the interesting case studies of the Gold winners of the latest edition of RMAI Awards for its readers.
Matching frequencies
n Case: Airtel Mere Apne ? Enabling Relationships
n Metal and Category: Gold in Creative Awards – Best Radio Program
n Agency: Madison Media
n Backdrop: The socio-economic profile of rural India is undergoing a makeover with rural youth rejecting the traditional notions of earning livelihood and looking for better employment opportunities in urban centres. However, there is a constant emotional need to stay in touch with the near and dear ones. This is where ?Airtel Mere Apne? helped in facilitating a connection.
Demographically, males in the age group of 15-44 in rural were the primary TG. Rural India is a geographically challenging market due to its sheer size and diversity, besides poor infrastructure and low literacy level. Obviously, in such a scenario traditional media like television and print will fail to deliver.
The agency realised that radio could do the needful by overcoming inadequacies in literacy. All India Radio which offers a national reach of 20% (47.3 mn individuals) with listeners spending an average time of 80 minutes per day was used.
n Plan of Action: Airtel?s network advantage was expressed creatively via the value proposition ‘Atoot Bandhan, Atoot Network’. The telecom giant’s bond with its users lies in facilitating human connections in any circumstance, situation or geography. Therefore, the exchange of human emotions became a key creative point for the program ‘Airtel Mere Apne’, an opportunity that facilitated a 2-way interaction of information using a request-based song show format.
As part of the program, a listener called a toll-free number to leave a message and a song request for a family member/ friend. The show producer then contacted the message recipient informing him about the dedication. The response to the same was recorded and when the show was aired, besides the song, messages from both the sides were played as well.
n Outcome: Over a period of a year, Mere Apne has generated above 2.5 mn cumulative responses. More than 400 dedications were aired on the show. Airtel’s brand awareness topped 54% (among prospective customers) in target markets.
An offer you cannot refuse
n Case: Cadbury Retail Seeding
n Metal and Category:
Gold in Distribution and Trade Promotion
n Agency: Impact Communications
n Backdrop: Cadbury is a leading confectionery company in India and enjoys a value market share of over 70% ? its highest market share in the world. The category is largely consumed in urban areas with a 73% skew to urban markets and a 27% to rural. The company has followed a strategy of fuelling volume growth by introducing smaller unit packs at lower price points. With the objective of penetrating in rural markets, Cadbury Dairy Milk Shots (CDM) and CDM Eclairs were launched. The marketing challenge for the company was to build a sustainable model for wholesale sellout thereby creating demand for uncovered retailers. Though Cadbury’s distribution network is strong in urban and semi-urban areas, rural pockets posed a challenge.
n POA: The agency proposed a three-pronged approach for the brand to penetrate into rural markets. The plan of action began with retail seeding. Uncovered retail outlets were identified and confectionery items were placed on counter tops to catch the TG’s attention.
Excitement was built among the retailers by providing attractive offers and merchandise. Step 2 involved the identification of small time wholesaler who stocks products of various brands as exclusivity is not a viable option for him. Also, they were lured with bulk purchase schemes and merchandise. A data on these wholesalers was put together and shared with dealers and sales team of the company for relationship building. The last leg of the activity saw consumer activation.
The project was started as a pilot in Maharashtra and scaled to seven other states including West Bengal, Punjab, Haryana and Karnataka in a phased manner.
n Outcome: Over 11,000 wholesalers in 5000 villages and towns were added to the company’s distribution network. Additionally, 2 lakh retail outlets were covered with activation.
That precious one hour
n Case: PATH (Sure Start)? Pehla Ek Ghanta
n Metal and Category: Gold in Best Long Term Rural Marketing Initiative
n Agency: Impact Communications
n Backdrop: To reduce newborn mortality and maternal morbidity, PATH, a non-profit organisation launched the Sure Start project in India in 2006 and began connecting with organisations in UP and Maharashtra where the problem was getting out of hand. Key findings from participatory planning phase among communities in these states emphasised the importance of advocacy with medical service providers, intervention in traditional beliefs and practices, non-institutional care, perceived risks of pregnancy, and the role of family members in maintaining the health of mothers and newborns.The agency?s task was to create a brand campaign to communicate the behavior to be adopted by pregnant mothers and their families and mobilise the opinion of the community.
n POA: Many newborn deaths could be prevented with relatively simple acts at home. These include breastfeeding within one hour of birth, ensure that the umbilical cord is tied with clean sterile threads and cut with a clean blade, identifying danger signs for mother and baby and go to an appropriate care facility. Hence, Pehla Ek Ghanta, an awareness initiative was started, bringing the focus on right practices during the hour of child birth. All collaterals were developed with an objective to register the thought among the TG.
Media plan comprised conducting ?Mothers Meet? and community shows in the evenings. Branded name plates were distributed among stakeholders like Aaganwari, Village Pradhan, district health societies and local medical professionals.
n Outcome: The campaign reached more than 5500 villages spread across 115 blocks in 7 districts. A third party research was conducted to gauge the efficacy of the campaign. Among the respondents in L1 villages, (with population strata between 1500-5000) 89% recognised visuals from the campaign. 95% of the pregnant women who had attended the Mothers Meet expressed willingness to attend it again. Word of mouth worked for the campaign as 70% of the participants spoke to family and 47% spoke to friends.Brands? divine intervention
Brands? divine intervention
n Case: Haridwar Mahakumbh 2010 – Brand?s Divine Connect
n Metal and Category: Gold in Most Effective Use Of Event Marketing
n Agency: Impact Communications
n Backdrop: Kumbh is one of the largest religious congregations in the world. Last year, ICRA, an information services and technology solutions provider, submitted a survey report to the Government of Uttarakhand, evaluating the tourism infrastructure in Haridwar and nearby areas. The report suggested that 20 per cent of the tourists visiting these areas had a monthly household income of more than Rs 10,000 and nearly two-thirds of the tourists belonged to the working population. It was a huge opportunity for marketers. Marketing rights of the Mela were allocated to the agency just two weeks prior to the first bathing date. The main challenge was to use the platform innovatively and avoid treating it as a larger than life point of sale.
n POA: It was all about engaging the TG with simple and interactive activities on ground. If confectionery brand, Perfetti engaged people with aim-and-throw ball games, Nokia clicked pictures of visitors in front of a poster of Har ki Pauri (the area where pilgrims converge during the Kumbh festivities), and also gave away a print of the same to promote its handset N5233 and highlight the quality of its camera. Kodak used the Kumbh as a launch platform for EC70, an analogue camera that costs Rs 299. The idea was to attract visitors who may not be carrying a camera and don?t have the budget to purchase a digital camera. Uninor partnered with the Kumbh Mela Committee to set up a network of assistance booths to provide free emergency calls and maps of the area. It also extended its reach to ensure better accessibility, by adding more retail points in the area. Similar activities were carried out by Idea, Tata Docomo, BSNL and Vodafone.
n Results: More than 40 brands including Dettol, Mortein, Alpenliebe, Bajaj Discover, Boroline, Gillette, Tide, Pantene, Margo, Dabur Lal Dant Manjan, Kodak, Anchor, Taaza and Uninor marked their presence and most of these achieved good sales numbers. In Maha Kumbh 2010, FMCG and telecom clients increased spends by 80 per cent.
An audio-visual instant coffee trial
n Case: Bru Instant Coffee Connect
n Metal and Category: Gold in Best Innovative Rural Marketing Initiative
n Agency: Ogilvy & Mather
n Backdrop: While South India is a huge coffee market, the penetration of instant coffee in small towns and rural areas is still quite low. The task for Bru was to build the category by reaching out to the non-drinkers of instant coffee and make them try Bru.
The agency recognised that sampling alone would not suffice and consumers needed to be educated about the product?s role in their life?which varied depending on the beverage they currently consumed.
The main communication challenges that were identified included appropriate communication of Bru Instant coffee to three different types of beverage drinkers (tea, filter coffee and instant coffee), lack of standardised messaging due to varied skills of promoters and the prevalence of mundane door-to-door exercises and consumers unwillingness to be a part of these.
n POA: More than 400 door to door promoters carried a body mounted DVD player with three different films aimed at three different drinkers. The promoter went to the household, asked the prospective consumer?s usual preference of beverage and showed the AV (audio-visual) as per his/her preference.
A question was then asked based on the AV and the consumer was given a Bru Instant sample?thus completing the process of awareness, interest and trial.
n Outcome: Over 1.3 million households were reached through this campaign in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka The use of technology helped the agency to deliver standardised yet customised message at each door step. The innovative medium ensured high novelty value, excitement and recall.
It is time to face the strong and bold truth
n Case: TVS Star – TVS Ne Bana Di Jodi
n Metal and Category: Gold in Most Effective Use Of Direct Marketing Print
n Agency: RC&M
n Backdrop: In 2010, TVS Star City emerged as a brand trusted for its durability. The task at hand for the agency was to catch the attention of the TG at the point of purchase and establish Star City as a preferred bike in rural India.
n POA: As part of an onground activity, platforms were erected showcasing the bike to give a look and feel of the brand. To educate the TG about the features and advantages of the bike, a uniquely designed three-fold chasm leaflet was created. A game show was conceptualised with a Q&A session to build interactivity. Titled ?Dumdaar Sach Ka Saamna?, the game show not only aimed at educating and entertaining the consumers but, helped them see through the gimmicks of other competing brands.
n Outcome: The campaign managed to reach 1.20 lakh two-wheeler owners across 325 blocks and villages in Madhya Pradesh. With a rise of 15% in sales immediately after the culmination of the campaign, TVS regained its market share in the state.
Advertising for tractors in the sky
n Case: Mahindra Arjun Ultra – Hosh Uda De
n Metal and Category: Gold in Creative Awards – Best 360 Campaign
n Agency: RC&M
n Backdrop: High horse power (HP) is the fastest growing segment in tractors. With its tractor Arjun Ultra-1, Mahindra & Mahindra wanted to reach the high-end TG and make the brand a preferred choice in the high HP segment.
n Campaign: The agency came up with an integrated multi-media campaign. As aircraft carrying the brand punch line ?Hosh uda de Arjun Ultra-1 DLX? was flown above the villages in Punjab. As part of a radio program, listeners were asked to spot the aircraft and call the RJ to share their experience. The callers received gifts from Mahindra & Mahindra dealerships in their area. Displays were put up across dhabas to expose prospective buyers to the brand. An onground event was organised where an online touchscreen kiosk was placed. This gave information on the current mandi rates. Besides, print ads were done in regional dailies.
n Results: Three lakh farmers were reached with the campaign across eight states. While 8500 enquires were generated, 800 spot sales were accomplished during the onground event.