Brand Communication in Rural India

By R V Rajan, CMD, Anugrah Madison Advertising Pvt. Ltd. (Mar 4, 2005)

Recently I was reading a 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-seventees. Referring to Rural Markets, he says, “And yet national manufacturing and marketing organizations who are currently both well and able to take advantage of this burgeoning ELDORADO can be counted on one’s finger tips.”

Even after three decades since Mr. Ghoshal spoke on the subject, we have only very few corporates who are really ‘walking the talk’ in terms of Rural Marketing. Except the original Rural Marketing giants like HLL & ITC, who continue to dominate the scene with their constant innovations in this area (Project Shakti of HLL and E-Choupal of ITC) most of the corporates pay only ‘lip service’ to the subject.

Of course, there are a few corporates who have started establishing separate verticals in terms of sales and marketing teams devoted to rural and also have started allotting special rural budgets (though proportionately very low). The emphasis for the present seems to be on distribution to ensure availability of their brand even in smaller markets.

But when it comes to promotions in rural markets, most of the companies are only doing some short-term sales oriented below the line activities without laying any emphasis on how the core message of the brand is communicated to the rural masses. Most of them use the same communication package they are already using to target urban audiences.

Though Rural Communication is so vital in Rural Marketing, according to me, it is being given a step motherly treatment by most clients resulting in their getting inadequate results from the rural efforts. This clearly indicates poor understanding of Rural Marketing in general and the role of Rural Communication in particular, in building brands in Rural India.

To illustrate the poor understanding of marketers regarding rural marketing in general, 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 no 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 and 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…”

Rural Market is heterogeneous and with India’s diversity, we have learnt 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 agencies which handle big brands do not have the talent required to develop creatives aimed at rural audience. 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 Tamilnadu”

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 TVC in between song and dance sequences is no communication. Especially in 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 who has not shown any improvement.

From the above statements, it is clear that most of the times, clients approach rural specialists with pre-conceived ideas or with restrictions, which is like asking a soldier to fight a battle with his one arm tied up.

Need to think long term
In these days of quarterly results and the managers looking for better bottom lines to keep their jobs, it is clear that most of the companies look at rural only for short term promotional efforts. They don’t realize that to be successful in rural, they must go with a clear long term strategy. They should be willing to invest in rural as much energies as they do to build brands in the urban. Since rural efforts take longer to give sustained results, they must be prepared for a long haul.

While any one 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 and situations, which is easily understood by the target audience.

In other words, it is very important to invest in developing the right communication package aimed at the rural audience, if it is expected to build a brand, over the years.

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.

1. Though a rural consumer gets information on product or services through multiple sources of communication, when it comes to a decision (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.

2. In communicating with rural India today, please remember, you are dealing with two distinct audiences.
a. Rural rich as well as the growing breed of educated, upwardly mobile, middle class with aspirations, exposure to mass media and with a lot of purchasing power almost akin to his urban counterpart.
b. A vast majority of illiterate masses who are poor and who cannot be easily reached through mass media.
3. Another fact which is often overlooked is that television does not distinguish between urban and rural.

You may be able to get away with a common TVC for both urban and rural audience particularly for FMCG products provided your communication is not gimmicky or suggestive and is easy to comprehend. But when it comes to durables, where rational decisions are involved, it is advisable to target the opinion leaders first. While the urban oriented TVC may register with opinion leaders and help create awareness, for real impact down the line, a region specific and need specific communication programme has to be devised which provides for demonstration and touch & feel of the products.

Characteristics of Rural Consumer
For developing a communication programme for rural audience, you have to take cognizance of the following characteristics of the rural consumer about which a lot has been already written about.

A rural consumer is very conscious of value for money. He understands symbols and colours better. Looks for endorsement by local leaders or icons. Does not like to pay extra for frills he cannot use. His daily activity is routinised and there is no sense of urgency in his life style. He has a very high involvement in any product purchased, especially when he decides to buy high end products, which involves a few hundreds or thousands of rupees.

Divisions based on caste, community and other hierarchical factors also continue to exist.

Perceptions, traditions, values vary from state to state and in some cases from region to region within a state.
I remember the case of a well known brand of shampoo. When it entered the Rajasthan market some decades ago, with a theatre commercial that showed a beautiful model featuring a bouncing hair, it bombed. The post research showed that a girl showing off her hair was considered indecent in the region and the audience refused to connect with the brand. Similarly, when I was working on a campaign for MRF Bullock Cart tyres, I found glaring differences in situations between Western UP and Eastern UP. While bullock carts in Western UP were smaller vehicles with single buffalos, in Eastern UP they were bigger vehicles pulled by two bullocks. In Western UP they spoke Hindustani whereas in Eastern UP, they spoke Bhojpuri. When we developed the communication package, we had to keep the above factors in mind.

How do we communicate with the Rural folks?
The first step in the development of any communication package, is the in-depth study of the mindset of consumers of each region for each product category. Remember, it is suicidal to blindly adapt and extend the experience of one product category to another.

While the importance of conceptualising in the local languages to capture the local spirit in the communication aimed at specified rural audiences is known, what is very often overlooked is that a rural consumer is not in a hurry and you can take your time to communicate a message. Not for him the quickies beamed on television media, which very often go over his head. Commercials or short telefilms of two minutes or more durations played through local cinemas or through vans do much better.

Another point that creative guys could keep in mind is the importance of simple analogies which can help in understanding the brand promise better. When MRF decided to introduce Bullock Cart tyres with Nylon and decided to call it “Pahelwan Chap Buggy Gadi Tyres”, as a part of the communication package, we came up with ‘Nylon Chord Breaking Contest’ by Pahelwans in the audience. As Nylon thread don’t break, it effectively demonstrated to the audience that MRF tyres comes with the strength of Nylon which even Pahelwans cannot break and Pahelwan also happened to be Trade Mark of MRF Tyres.

The communication must address the specific problems, needs, aspirations and hopes of rural folks in each region. Slice of life stories with characters with whom they can identify with, will help create greater empathy and understanding. Since any form of mass media does not permit this luxury, it is important to remember these points while developing communication packages used in below the line activities aimed at specific audience. In many of our Road Shows, we train the anchor to speak in the local language, so that he connects better with the audience of the region.

Is the Urban / Rural Divide melting?
The success of the ‘Thanda Mathlab Coca Cola’ commercial featuring Amir Khan has started the above debate in the industry. The spots which were primarily meant for rural audience, have done well in the urban areas too, prompting the debate.

The Rural Network, an informal alliance of the four leading players in Rural Marketing consisting of Anugrah Madison-Chennai, MART-Delhi, Sampark-Mumbai and Rural Relations-Pune decided to do a small study to check on the ground realities.

The study tested two FMCG and two Consumer Durable TVCs which were currently on in language channels, obviously aimed at both urban and rural audiences. The research masterminded by MART and implemented in UP in the North by MART team and in Tamilnadu in South by Anugrah Madison team was conducted in both urban and rural markets to get a comparative feedback.

Brands tested were Babool Toothbaste (a young man in different situation dancing to a catchy jingle), Navaratna Oil (featuring Govinda and Ramba), Samsung Color TV (a couple with sparks coming from TV) and Asian Paints (Sunil Babu!)

While the total comprehension of the main message of all the four spots among the urban audience was 100%, it was only 30% to 60% among the rural audience.

When it came to specific attributes, some of the comments from the rural folks were interesting. Let us take the example of Babool Toothpaste.

- Too quick to understand.
- Confused for a toothpowder
- Is it for a shaving cream ?
- No one will dance simply for a toothpaste
- What is the dog doing in a toothpaste advt?
- Characters are not actually recommending the toothpaste
- The jingle was catchy, but I cannot relate to the person.

In the case of Navaratna film, while the audience in Tamilnadu could not recognize Govinda, the audience in UP did not recognize Ramba. In both markets the rural audience was shocked that a character with headache will dance so vigorously.

So the conclusions from the study which only endorsed the already established beliefs, was as under:

- Rural folks do not understand clever, gimmicky, quick (fast paced), suggestive and hi-tech films.
- Use of unrelated symbols, characters, icons confuses and distances them.
- Want a clear connection between the problem and the solution offered by a brand.

As already stated the rural / urban divide continues to exist among the rural masses and marketers who want to succeed in rural will do well if they remember the following two statements I read somewhere, which aptly sum up the points made in the article.

- “It is important to be clued to the region specific requirements and cater to the typical tastes of the regional consumers both in terms of product offering and communication packages”.
- “Creating brands for rural India is a science that will require many ardent students who are willing to participate in this great big task of doing the different thing altogether in Branding…”