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NEW DELHI, April 24

HERE are some myths on the rural market to mull over: The rural market is a homogeneous mass, urban ads are equally suitable for rural audiences, Western market research methodologies are suitable for rural markets too.

Mr Pradeep Kashyap, Managing Director, MART and member, The Rural Network, demolished these rural myths and several others while outlining his theme presentation at a conference on rural marketing and communications organised by FICCI here today.

Mr Kashyap said that it was a myth that the rural market could be treated as a single entity. Instead it has a vast cultural diversity and vastly varying rural demographics. The second myth is that purchasing power is low. He said that at 15.6 million `middle class' households, the rural areas compared well with 16.4 million urban households. For the same income level, disposable surplus in the rural area is much higher than urban, he said. Another myth he said is that ad agencies and marketers bank on TV to reach rural areas. However, he said that television reach is only 36 per cent of households. Urban ads, Mr Kashyap explained, was not always suitable for rural audiences - another myth.

The mother of all myths, Mr Kashyap said, was that the rural boom was over. However, he said that rural market size has grown rapidly and while it was true that growth has tapered off, it already presented a huge market. Mr Kashyap dwelt on the key challenges in the future for rural marketers. One of them was market penetration. Marketers also had to look at increasing occasions for use of FMCGs in rural households.

Rural incomes needed to be increased through rural market growth. One other challenge lay in making effective use of the large available infrastructure of post offices and public distribution shops and haats and melas. Companies would have to meet the challenge by creating an independent rural marketing team with its sales targets and budgets, said Mr Kashyap. They would also have to design appropriate products keeping rural usage and environment in mind and be innovative with their distribution channels.

The future, he said, would see technology play a key role in transforming markets. There will also be a proliferation of large format rural retail stores, he said.

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