`It's time to tap rural goldmine'

It’s not only that the grass is greener in the countryside, that's also where a chunk of corporate topline actually comes from. Rural marketing experts rue the fact that the Rs 1,23,000-crore domestic rural marketscape has the potential to double, yet remains largely uncharted.

Rural marketing, as highly successful companies agree, beats all calculations and remains the bugbear of the marketing strategist. It is only in recent years that corporates have begun to take a hard look at the rural consumer and started to set up dedicated divisions with focussed budgets, according to Mr R.V. Rajan, Chairman and Managing Director, Anugrah Madison Advertising of Chennai. He was speaking at a seminar here on challenges of rural marketing.

According to Mr Pradeep Kashyap, Managing Director of the Delhi-based rural marketing and development consultancy MART, success in rural marketing depends on getting the distribution and pricing right. Even expensive brands such as Close-Up toothpaste and Marie biscuits were doing well because of deep distribution, he said, in support of his statement. The challenge lay in achieving greater penetration of brands and products, he said, adding that the available infrastructure of the post offices, weekly markets and exhibitions, public distribution system and banks could aid this endeavour.

Mr N.D. Badrinath, Vice-President, TNS India, said socio-cultural regions in non-urban markets would provide a greater understanding of the issues. Companies should target the opinion leader who pushes the sale, like the man in the house, the youth studying or working outside. According to marketing consultant Ms Rama Bijapurkar, rural India is morphing and leapfrogging and has gone beyond meaning `agriculture'. "We need new mental models to look at it," she said.

According to Mr Kartik Raina of Dalmia Consumer Care, which has experimented successfully with a tobacco-free beedi called Vardaan, "The rural market is not for all, but for those with guts, the skin of an elephant and the mind of an evangelist."

Though companies have total annual adspends amounting to Rs 1,00,000 crore, rural marketing budgets are minuscule, Mr Rajan said. The importance of RM is sinking in with FICCI conducing a two-day summit in Mumbai in October. There is a movement to form an RM agencies' association on the lines of the Advertising Association. Mr Rajan emphasised the importance of tailoring communication to suit rural audiences.

Brand domain specialist and marketing expert Mr Harish Bijoor said it was ironical that marketing managers steeped in an urban background were planning strategies for the rural markets. The seminar was organised by Rural Network, an informal grouping of four RM organisations - Anugrah Madison Advertising; Delhi-based MART; Rural Relations of Pune and Sampark Marketing & Advertising Solutions, Mumbai.