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Mantras for rural marketing
You are a rural marketing guru as well. Tell me, Guruji, what are your five mantras as you understand rural markets today?
Kolkata
Mallika, ‘Guruji’ makes me feel old.
Nevertheless, my top five mantras for rural marketers to focus on are as follows:
Do not look down at rural markets as second-rung opportunities after the urban market is saturated. Look at them as primary markets.
Do not be patronising in your marketing approach. Do not hand over second-rate products for rural markets as opposed to your first-rung products for urban markets.
Stay honest and straightforward in your communication. Do not over-glamorise and do not under-glamorise as well.
Stop believing in the myths of marketing that old-generation marketers of rural have been making us believe over all these decades. Rural has changed dramatically, and new rural marketing is complex and exciting. As complex and exciting as urban marketing is.
Stop sending your under-performing managers as managers of the rural-marketing effort. Rural marketing is not and should not be a punishment posting.
‘Vats’ Mallika, trust you are happy.
Could you help me understand the demographic dimension of the Indian consumer today?
Hyderabad
Baktha, such a simple question. Needs 50 pages of answers as the demographic dimension of the Indian consumer enjoys 50 shades of grey, for sure!
Nevertheless, I will be brief.
The new Indian consumer is an interesting animal. And being so, he is defying every tenet in the good old marketing books written by the good old marketing gurus of yore. The Indian consumer is defying every sentiment that comes from overseas, as he does the thought that the world is flat. He has demonstrated to marketers in India that he cannot be patterned and tracked.
Tracking him is a high science, a science that can only be handled by the very detailed process and system that data analytics brings in today. And that is just gender “he” of the Indian consumer today. The “she” dynamics of the consumer are even more difficult to track.
Brand loyalty is passé. The new reality that marketers need to grapple with is ‘brand promiscuity’. Brands need to offer variants and new brands that are able to upgrade, downgrade and even laterally move the consumer. The consumer is shouting from the rooftop, “When you cannot remain married to one another for more than eight years at a stretch, how can you stay married to a brand of shoe for longer, or even that long?”
Demographically this is a scarily young country. Sixty-three per cent of the country is below the age of 35. The rest are incidental. This scarily young India is a difficult ball-game to understand for most marketers. Most grope in the dark and pluck the low-hanging fruit that is easiest to find. The young are the most difficult to understand. Further, by the time you have understood them, they have changed.
Marketers find the young to be totally impatient. This is a multi-tasking impatient generation with a very low span of attention to stick to one thing for too long. Marketers, on the other hand, are very good at marketing to the patient. Marketing to the impatient young consumer is a totally different game altogether. Marketers therefore need to un-learn and re-learn.
That’s grief in brief.
Harish Bijoor is a brand domain expert and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. Mail your queries to cat.a.lyst@thehindu.co.in
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