‘City slickers don't know how to cater to rural consumers'

The market for products in rural India may be growing, but city-bred marketers are not ready to cater to them yet. Far from understanding the pulse of that market, they fail to relate to the diverse needs of consumers in villages, said speakers at the Round Table on Researching Rural Markets and Consumers organised by MART here.

“The problem is that we approach rural research with an urban mindset and go into the research process with pre-conceived notions,” said Mr Jayant Jain, Vice-President and Head, consumer insights and market research, Godfrey Philips India Ltd.

When urban market researchers fed with stereotypes of villages and full of their linguistic arrogance visit rural areas, they disregard social power structures and gender segregations. It is a surprise they don't get beaten up by the villagers, said Mr Jain.

“Once while accompanying a researcher, I observed that the respondent (villager) was replying to every question with a ‘How.' Only later it dawned on me that the sound ‘how' was not used as the English equivalent, but just a courteous “I am listening to you” from the villager to the interviewer. In reality, the respondent did not understand a single word of what was being said. Researchers think that the Hindi khari boli that works for us city-slickers should be fine for the whole of North India, but it is not so. After every 10 kilometres, there is a change in the dialect,” he elaborated.

Mobiles, TVs

Mobile phones and television sets are becoming common in rural India. Consumers are being exposed to the complete range of products. The rural consumer is aware and value conscious. The companies can no longer continue to patronisingly dish out whatever they feel like.

“Every young man I meet in the villages has at least once shopped in the city and is aware of the latest products and trends,” said Mr Jain.

With the purchasing power of rural consumers increasing, they are no longer sachet buyers only. “In fact, the volume of sales in the largest SKU is far higher in rural areas than in urban areas,” said Mr Jain.

But the needs of the rural consumer remain vastly different from those of their urban counterparts, and companies need to take this into account. Even packaging a product effectively would need significant consumer insight as rural signs and symbols, culture, language and other norms are different.

The concept of purchasing power parity is also different with no concept of a monthly income in villages; money comes through various odd jobs not necessarily all agrarian.

In order to do qualitative research in rural areas, researchers would have to educate and sensitise themselves, while at the same time give up their superiority complexes, he said.

“India still lives in its villages, but very frankly, they are not the villages we presume them to be,” he said.

Audience research in rural areas is still at a very nascent stage, with companies conducting them on an ad hoc basis when they want to launch specific product categories, said Ms Sharmila Das of Purple Audacity. Apart from telecom companies, FMCG and tobacco companies often undertake rural market surveys, she said.

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