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R. V. Rajan

RECENTLY, I read the book Making of Advertising, a brilliant collection of speeches by the legendary Subhash Ghoshal during his illustrious career in advertising. There is a chapter reproducing a speech he gave at a sales conference of Union Carbide in the mid-'70s. Referring to rural markets, he says, "And yet national manufacturing and marketing organisations, which are currently both well and able to take advantage of this burgeoning El Dorado, can be counted on one's finger tips."

Even three decades after that speech, very few corporates are really `walking the talk' when it comes to rural marketing. Except the original rural marketing giants such as Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) and ITC, who continue to dominate the scene with their constant innovations in this area (Project Shakti of HLL and e-Choupal of ITC), most corporates pay only lip service to the subject.

R. V. Rajan

Of course, there are a few who have started establishing separate rural sales and marketing teams and allotting special rural budgets (though, proportionately very low).

The emphasis for the present seems to be on distribution, which is to ensure availability of their brands even in smaller markets.

But when it comes to promotions in rural markets, most companies are only engaging in short-term sales-oriented below-the-line activities, without any emphasis on how the core message of the brand is to be communicated to the rural masses. Most use the same communication package that is being employed to target urban audiences.

Though rural communication is so vital in rural marketing, I believe it is being given a step-motherly treatment by most clients, with the result that they only get inadequate results from the rural efforts. This clearly indicates a poor understanding of rural marketing in general and the role of rural communication in particular.

To illustrate this poor understanding, I would like to start with a few typical statements, which many clients make when we approach them for business as rural specialists.

"We want to go rural and want to do a van campaign in two states. Do you own vans?"

Doing just a van campaign, once in a blue moon, is not rural marketing. For sustained results, it is important to plan an integrated campaign covering both mass media and below-the-line activities. Our experience in successfully dealing with integrated rural campaigns for Philips' consumer electronics division, ACC Suraksha cement, Shriram Transport Finance or even our oldest client MRF (Farm Division) has proved this point.

"We want to go rural. Can you suggest a plan? We would like to pilot it in one taluk of one District in one State and scale it up ... "

The rural market is heterogeneous and, with India's diversity, we have realised that the learnings from an experiment in a small market need not necessarily be applicable to the rest of the State, leave alone the rest of India.

"We want to go rural. Please come up with a plan for below-the-line activities. You cannot go anywhere near mass media. We have our creative agency working on it."

Most of the MNC ad agencies that handle big brands do not have the talent required to develop creatives aimed at rural audiences. Communicating effectively with rural India requires specialised talent. Besides, clients don't understand that rural marketing is not just having below-the-line activities.

"We want to go rural. We have a film which has done very well in the North. We would like to dub it in Tamil for a rural campaign in Tamil Nadu."

To dub a film from one language to another using the characters relevant to one region will be disastrous. If you do not have a budget, please do not attempt going rural.

"We did a van campaign in UP last year. For communication, we used a video featuring some dance sequences from films interspersed with our TV commercials. We want to repeat this idea in Tamil Nadu."

Interspersing urban-oriented TV commercials with song and dance sequences is no communication. Especially in the South, where satellite channels are providing a choice of films to viewers almost every day, it is foolish to expect the target audience to come and watch the song and dance sequences from an AV van.

"We want to go rural. We have already spent a few crores on television (DD), which we were told has better reach among the rural audience. The results have not been good enough. Can you help? But we only have a limited budget."

This is very, very insulting to a specialist. It is like going to a nature cure specialist with no money after all the money spent on expensive doctors to treat a patient has not shown any improvement.

From the above statements, it is clear that at most times, clients approach rural specialists with preconceived ideas or with restrictions.

Need to think long-term

In these days of quarterly results and managers looking for better bottomlines to keep their jobs, it is clear that most companies look at rural only for short-term promotional efforts.

They don't realise that to be successful in rural India, they must go with a clear long-term strategy. They should be willing to invest as much energy in rural markets as they did to build brands in the urban ones. As rural efforts take longer to give sustained results, they must be prepared for a long haul.

While anyone can think of ideas for below-the-line activities, it requires conscious efforts by professionals to connect with the audience with the right communication package, which takes the core message of the brand and communicates it in a language and style that is easily understood by the target audience.

Ground realities

Before I share with you some ideas on the development of a communication package, it is important to know some ground realities in rural India.

Although a rural consumer gets information on products or services through multiple sources of communication, when it comes to decision-making (especially in the durable category), he always consults others in the community. Opinion leaders continue to play a key role in the decision-making process of a rural consumer. But interestingly the composition of opinion leaders has undergone a change over the years. Instead of only the village elders, today the educated youth of the village also play an important role.

Like in the urban areas, children who watch TV in rural areas also influence the choice of many personal care products that enter the household.

In communicating with rural India today, please remember that you are dealing with two distinct audiences:

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