There is almost a paranoia that has seized the Indian marketer as far as penetrating the Indian rural market is concerned. The fear is not because there seems to be a natural consumer catchment area for what they have to offer. It is more anchored in the belief that expanding consumer markets are critical, especially when there is a seeming saturation of what is largely the urban consumerscape.
My worry is that not enough people who create brand plans, or for that matter even the communication for these brands, understand the rural market. Or, more important, the rural consumer! And, surprisingly, the rural consumer, depending on the region you are looking at, is very similar to the notions we have about the urban consumer.
The great divide between the rural and urban consumer, to my mind, has more to do with his or her engagement with the categories on offer rather than purely a behavioural dissimilarity. Many products have helped bridge the gap, not least being the ubiquitous television or, for that matter, the hand phone. These have been border-breakers and have created an integrated approach to the consumer.
But even after allowing for this exposure, the core of the rural market remains challenging, especially when fashioning communication for it is concerned. And here there?s more to rural communication than just the language. It is this area that demands expertise, which can only be obtained through an on-ground understanding of what they believe and why they buy.
I have always maintained that the craft of advertising lies not in usage of clever language or, for that matter, even what we may regard as the colloquial or the vernacular: the art of advertising is in the understanding and transplanting the idiom of communication. In a very significant way, the Ramlila is more recognised by Ravana going up in smoke that any other ritual that may either precede this act or follow it. It is this symbolism that advertising and marketing has stopped either looking for or perhaps incorporating in its marketing strategies for rural markets of India. Thus, the primary search must be for the idiom that captures both the cultural and the social DNA of the consumer in that market.
The second point of engagement must emanate from a study of patterns of engagement that the consumer has adopted with other categories. The most trite marketing argument is that the rural consumer is swayed only by price. Small societies suffer the pangs of peer envy as much as large social groups do. It would be incorrect to believe that only price and not self-image is an equal determinant in brand purchase behaviour. It does and will continue to play a major role in the way brands are perceived and bought in the rural marketplace. Hence, understanding the social taboos that interplay with these purchase decisions is, to my mind, a critical attribute which must be at the core of any brand plan that looks at a rural market.
Rural consumers, given their social construct, are equally more trusting. The impersonal projection of brands/services needs to be overhauled when we look at rural markets. They seek comfort not just in the brand but equally from the person who is selling them the brand: this could either be the primary source (the company); the secondary (the whole-seller) or the tertiary (the retailer), and this will be applicable across the board, to all categories: from life insurance to toothpaste. This comfort-pang must not be misconstrued as ignorance on the part of the rural consumer: it is just a mechanism to solidify the belief in the brand.
Finally, rural marketing is not just about brands: it is about constantly benchmarking social trends: be it the impact of an Imrana on a society that is deeply conservative or studying trends of societies, especially in the north-east, which are intrinsically matriarchal. There?s a lot of fun that can be had with rural markets, provided one knows where to begin!
The writer is CEO, Equus Redcell