Knowing the rural customer

By R V Rajan, Chairman & Managing Director, Anugrah Madison (Nov 1, 2002)

If you open any business daily or a business magazine today you will read about some company or the other announcing their intention to ‘go rural’. Is going rural that simple? Apart from the distribution nightmare of reaching the products to the rural markets, with 13 major languages and thousands of dilects, 1700 ethnic groups together with hundreds of caste groups, Indian rural community is mind bogglingly complex, when it comes to reaching the right communication to them.

A no. of today’s marketeers who believe that consumers in rural India are less demanding and easily satisfied are in for a rude shock. It is high time that these marketeers realise that indiscriminate marketing strategy replicating that used with urban customers will not work with his rural counterpart. For the latter have a different set of priorities which necessitates a different approach by the marketing companies. Both in terms of developing appropriate products to suit the rural folks and appropriate communication strategies which they comprehend better.

The recent examples of such special efforts are ‘A1 Kadak Chai’ by Brooke Bone who promoted this strong brand of Tea in the rural markets of North India with a good degree of success. LG, the Korean giant has also made a success of its ‘Sampoorna’ brand TV specially developed for the rural and semi-urban markets.

Another example of the need for adapting the product to suit the rural market is that of Pressure cookers. Research has shown that Pressure cookers with two long handles on both sides will do better in rural areas because of their cooking habits. While urban customers use LPG gas, where flame can be controlled when removing the cooks, in the rural areas where fire wood or charcoal is used there is a risk of getting the hands burnt while performing the same act.

Knowing your rural customer is the first test of successful marketing. Let us therefore, first understand how a rural customer is different from urban customer.

1. A typical rural customer may not be very educated but has a good common sense. He is wiser and sharper in many ways than his urban counterpart.I remember visiting a sugar factory on the outskirts of Meerut, U.P. in the company of a tyre company Executive. An aggressive farmer holding a cut section of a tyre in his hand was complaining to the Executive that though the tyre companies claimed that the tyres had ’8 plys’ he could see only 4 plys in the tyre. The Executive had to explain in detail about the process of tyre making to convince the farmer that not all the 8 layers used in making the 8 ply can be seen. In fact this aspect of manufacturing process was incorporated in the audio visual package developed subsequently.

2. A rural customer is very conscious of “value for money”. He does not always look for cheap products. He wants good quality but cannot afford a high price. Premium perception of a product is still not relevant in the rural market. A typical rural customer is happy to deal with products especially consumer durables which offer him basic functions. High priced products with features which he finds difficult to handle, daunt him. For instance Television sets or any other durables with fancy features do not appeal to him.

3. Rural customers are generally wary and suspicious of the urbanites. They see the patronising attitude, and erect formidable barriers to protect themselves. It is not easy to introduce new products to them. It is really a tough job to get the money out of their “underwear” pockets.

4. Rural folks are more brand loyal than their urban counterparts. But these brands are mostly recognised through symbols, logo type, colour, etc. And because of this, it is easy to decieve them with look alikes. For instance, it was found that there were 16 varieties of Lifebuoy (Lite Boy) and Colgate (Collegate) in the market. NIRMA becomes NEERBHA or NARIMA, DABAR AMLA become DURBAR AMLA, FAIR & LOVELY becomes FRIENDS & LOVELY, etc. It is not uncommon to see assembled TVs and transistor sets with famous brand names being sold at half the original price in the rural markets. There are centres in Tamilnadu specialisising in these activities.

5. There is a very high degree of involvement in the purchase of any product, more so expensive consumer durables. A typical rural customer checks and rechecks the expensive product he is buying. During my visits to dealer shops in rural markets, I have seen that, before the farmer buys a tyre he spends enormous time checking the tyre. He feels the tyre, he lifts the tyre, he looks into every inch of the tyre to ensure that he is not being cheated. Same is the case when he is buying a product like TV. Before he takes a brand decision he consults a number of people. It is a very hard and well considered decision.

6. A typical rural customer’s life is highly routinised. His lifestyle is in tune with the nature. But not with the calendar or clock. Sunday is not a holiday in the village. There is no urgency and a rural customer cannot be pushed too much.

7. It is generally believed that the farmers have money after they sell their produce after a harvest. But the broad periods when the rural folks have disposable income varies across states and across areas within a state depending on the area, crop, weather, etc. Though there is a salaried class in villages and their numbers are growing, the dominant classes are still farmers and labourers.

8. Interpersonal communication still accounts for 80% of the rural communication process in the villages. Which means word of mouth recommendation by users and sheer familiarity influence the rural folks in deciding about a product. While doing a study for Philips in Tamilnadu, we found that almost a whole village owning a single brand of TV like BPL or Videocon. Very often dealers act as consultants and so their influence carries a lot of weight at the point of purchase.

9. Women and children, because of their exposure to TV, are emerging as great demand generators for many of the household product categories. As in the urban areas, rural children are already influencing the brand decision regarding personal care products and other products with special appeal to them. However, decisions regarding the brand of consumer durables like Radio, TV, Two wheeler, etc. are taken by the men in the household, in consultation with others in the community including the village youth. Today’s village youth are getting exposed to modern life styles because of TV and their visits to nearby town or city on work or for studies. This is considerably raising the aspiration levels in the villages.

10. Perceptions, traditions, values vary from state to state. In some cases from region to region within a state. It is impossible to develop a common communication for all the states and in several cases all the districts in the same states. For example a Shampoo ad with bouncing hair is not acceptable in Rajasthan – as bouncing hair is considered indecent.

Strepsils – Bahut Mazaa Aya – Maza has strong sexual connotation in certain markets. Rural folks wondered how can they get sexual pleasure by chewing lozenges.

From the above it is clear that in any form of rural communication, we have to play locally while we may have a national strategy. This means that we have to develop special creative aimed at individual rural markets quite different from communication to the urban markets.

A recent example with which our Agency was associated was Philips. By using different creative strategies for promoting their audio video products in Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh, the client registered manifold increase in the sale of their products. According to a recent announcement from the company, they have decided to adopt a regional communication strategy to promote their audio video products in different states, in the future.

There is a debate in some quarters that the rural market has matured enough to understand the communication developed for the urban markets, especially with reference to FMCG products. This is partly true, if the communication is such that it makes the product promise in a simple and easy to understand style.

It is also true that the section of rural society which is exposed to urban life style because of their vocations is beginning to appreciate and understand all types of communication aimed at them. But they are in smaller nos. and the vast majority of the rural folks even today, cannot understand clever or gimmicky style of communication. What to communicate and how to communicate to rural audience is a subject which must be understood clearly before any attempt to develop a communication package aimed at this audience is undertaken. Now that is a subject for another article.