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Rural Marketing Initiatives by Companies in India

Presented By: Akash Kumar Rajput

Content
Rural Marketing Initiatives discussed in detail : HUL Coca-Cola Britannia ITC Hero Honda LG Thomson Reuters Rural Marketing Initiatives discussed in brief : Nokia P&G GM Hyundai Dabur Marico Tata

Rural India in FMCG


Rural India constitutes 70% of Indias total population. It accounts for 56% of national income. It contributes to 1/3rd of Indias total savings. It accounts for 64% of total expenditure. Rural economy is estimated to reach a size of $340 bn by 2012-2013 as against $250 bn in 2007-2008. They account for 70% of toilet soap and 50% of TV, fans, bicycles, tea and wrist watch consumption. The share of rural India in the FMCG market is around 53% and is expected to reach $100 bn by 2025. Rural consumers spend about $9 bn per annum on FMCG items .

HUL
Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is India's largest consumer goods company based in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It is owned by the British-Dutch company Unilever which controls 52% majority stake in HUL. It has over 16,500 employees and contributes to indirect employment of over 65,000 people. Hindustan Unilever's distribution covers over 2 million retail outlets across India directly and its products are available in over 6.4 million outlets in the country. HUL products include foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products. As per Nielsen market research data, two out of three Indians use HUL products.

Rural Marketing Initiatives


Rural Marketing Initiatives by HUL Operation Bharat Project Streamline Operation Harvest Cinema-van Operations Project Shakti Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetna Khushiyon Ki Doli ( Caravan of happiness)

Operation Bharat
The pioneering effort of HUL to reach rural homes and increase awareness among rural customers was Operation Bharat. It was launched by HULs personal products division in 1998. It was a Rs.13 Crore direct-consumer reach program which reached an estimated 2.2 Crore homes across 12 states over a period of 2 years. Under this project each home was given a box of products, at a special price of Rs.15, comprising low unit-price pack of different categories of products. These categories included : Dental-care (Pepsodent toothpaste)

Operation Bharat
Skin-care (Fair & Lovely cream) Hair-care (Clinic Plus shampoo) Body-care(Ponds Dream flower talcum powder) These products were distributed along with educational leaflets, audio-visual demonstrations, film songs and mythological serials interspersed with ads of Unilever products. Almost 160 vans, each equipped with a TV and VCR, were used in this operation with over a thousand promoters (which included distributors and other private operators). The project strengthened the visibility of both the particular brands and their respective categories and helped eliminate barriers to trial by increasing awareness among potential rural customers.

Operation Bharat
Under Operation Bharat, HUL introduced sachets of clinic-plus, ponds, close-up and fairness cream to make sachet buying a habit for these consumers. Seeing that the rural retailers sell the cut lifebuoy cakes to the consumers, HUL came up with 75 gm soap cake and later launched 18 gm lifebuoy soap, priced at Rs 2. Rural customers used the same soap for hair and skin. HUL, having taken a cue from this insight, introduced Breeze 2 In 1, a multipurpose soap for hair and skin. HUL carried its operations in the high potential districts of the country.

Project Streamline
In 1998, HUL launched Project Streamline to extend their distribution network in the rural markets. The goods are distributed from the C&F Agents to the Redistributors, who in turn pass it on to the Star Sellers who sells everything from detergents to personal products. Through Project Streamline, it created a hub and spoke system and appointed sub-dealers who had the opportunity to serve villages in their vicinity. Smaller regional brands would come along, offer better markups and sell goods on credit and take away a significant portion of business in a short span.

Project Streamline
The project opened up a new distribution channel beyond the territories that were covered by HULs 7,500 odd distributors. In less than two years, it doubled the companys reach in rural India. HULs distribution network now covered 60% of the villages with population greater than 2,000 and having motorable roads. To service the additional villages the company created a super-stockist, sub-stockist hierarchy with the substockist essentially being the stock-point for servicing retailers in his area. The ultimate aim of this program is to have a Single Distribution Channel for rural markets by consolidating across categories.

Operation Harvest
Since the reach of conventional media in rural markets is low, awareness of different products was weak. Although it was not feasible for the Redistribution-stockist to cover all these markets due to the high costs involved, these markets were heavily important due to their untapped potential. Therefore this operation was launched to supplement the role of conventional media in rural markets and in the process increase awareness and forge loyalty with rural customers. To do so the company initiated mobile van operations in a focused manner to create awareness and point-ofpurchase access.

Operation Harvest
As the company demonstrated with Operation Harvest, such an exercise whose primary aim was to increase brand awareness, is best done through van operations. During this exercise, vans from HUL and its distributors did the rounds of 30,000 villages giving promotional packs, showing products ads and identifying key retail and distribution points.

Project Shakti
In 2001,with partnership of self help group of rural women & covers 5000 villages in 52 districts in different states. Shakti targets small villages with the population of less then 2000. Shakti also includes health and hygiene education through the ShaktiVani programme, which now covers 15 states in India with over 45,000 women entrepreneurs in 135,000 villages & generating Rs.700-1000 per month to each women. By the end of 2010, Shakti aims to have 100,000 Shakti entrepreneurs covering 500,000 villages, touching the lives of over 600 million people.

Project Shakti
Project Shakti has three initiatives The Shakti Entrepreneur, a microenterprise initiative The Shakti Vahini program which translates as the voice of Shakti, training women to be communicators in the villages IShakti, a group community portal that enables users to access information in a variety of areas. The software is voice enabled for illiterate users.

Shakti Entrepreneur
The Shakti Ammas are the wealth creators for their villages. They learn about products, prices, returns, and act as advisor and helper to their customers in the village. Often they have simple goals for their earnings wishing to buy a telephone, a scooter for transportation, or education for their children. Nearly as important as the money they are earning is the improved social standing for the women. As a Shakti Amma, each woman is looked up to by villagers, approached for advice, and fulfilled by the knowledge that she is helping other people as well as her own family.

Shakti Vani
Fair And Lovely (FAL) Vani operates under the aegis of Hindustan Unilevers Project Shakti, a network spread across 18,624 villages in the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. FAL Vani is engineered to empower rural women in earning a livelihood, while improving the distribution and reach of FAL. The job of identifying villages for activation programmes rests with the HUL sales team. Once a village has been selected, HUL team meets key opinion leaders (KOLs) like the sarpanch, the school principal, an important businessman or anyone who is highly regarded by the villagers.

Shakti Vani
The KOLs also help the activation team in selecting a locals FAL didi for that particular kasbah or mohalla. The FAL didi is someone of a friendly disposition, is wellknown in the village and in thegood books of most villagers. Her role is to help gather the crowd for the presentation.

I-Shakti
I-Shakti kiosks have been set up in 8 villages in Andhra Pradesh, and have been functional since August 2003. The kiosks remain open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., six days of the week. The kiosks offer information chiefly in the form of audiovisuals in the following areas: Health & Hygiene E-Governance Education Agriculture Employment Legal services

Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetna


Lifebuoy swasthaya chetna (LBSC) is a rural health & hygiene initiative which was started in 2002. It spread information on how washing hands can keep diseases away, targeted a population of 5 crores in 15000 villages. LBSC was initiative in media dark villages in UP, MP, Bihar, Orissa. It targets children as they are the harbingers of change in society and mothers since they are the custodians of health. The first interaction with students is then replicated with the women and finally the rest of the community.

LBSC
HUL simultaneously introduced a smaller bar (18 gram)of Lifebuoy soap priced at two rupees, to encourage people with low incomes to use soap. In a single stroke HUL identified itself with the needs of the rural customer where health and hygiene is the primary concern. HUL managed to establish its Lifebuoy soap as the most popular soap in rural India.

LBSC
It applied 2 approaches: HUL employed Health Development Officers and Health Development Assistants who went to all the villages and educated the community through lectures and community meetings. They returned to the villages after 2 months, offered toys, badges and medals to children who had made it a habit to wash hands regularly ( read saved Lifebuoys soap wrappers ) and a certificate to the children who had won these badges most often.

Cinema-Van Operations
Cinema Van Operations are typically funded by the Redistribution Stockist and have films and audio cassettes with song and dance sequences from popular films, also comprising advertisements of HUL products. They have however been used for dual purposes to regularly service retailers in deeper and less accessible markets in addition to making contact with the end customers. The company literally had to buildup the market, village by village in its rural initiative. But in the end-result, it managed to achieve penetration in the rural market far greater in fact that any other company.

Khushiyon Ki Doli
It is also called Caravan of Happiness Campaign. Khushiyon Ki Doli is the first multi-brand rural engagement module started by HUL. The main objective of the campaign was to reach out to media dark villages with HUL brand messages and to engage with consumers deeply to rapidly change brand adoption metrics. It involved various personal care and home care brands of HUL including Wheel, Surf Excel, Fair & Lovely, Sunsilk, Vim, Lifebuoy and Close Up.

Caravan of Happiness
The process of making contact includes 3 steps: Awareness: The first step is achieved through 4-5 teams of promoters who head to each village and invite the residents to gatherings that are termed Mohallas to make them aware of the company and its products. The events are conducted in the local language for small focused groups which is supposed to encourage greater engagement and involvement for the audienceConsumer

Caravan of Happiness
Engagement: In the second step, post the mohalla activity, the promoters go door-to-door and conduct consumer home visits to generate trials where they offer promotions to the consumers. Retail: Finally, there is another team which visits all the shops in the village which ensures improved availability and visibility of the brands.

Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke. Coca-Cola was the leading soft drink brand in India until 1977 when it left rather than reveal its formula to the government. After a 16-year absence, Coke returned to India in 1993

Different Brands
Cokes popular Indian brands includes: Coca-Cola Diet Coke Thumbs Up Limca Maaza Sprite Fanta Kinley Citra

Coke Rural Initiatives


Coca-Cola doubled the number of outlets in rural areas from 80,000 in 2001 to 160,000 in 2003, which increased market penetration from 13% to 25%. Coke brought down the average price of its products from Rs 10 to Rs 5, thereby bridging the gap between soft drinks and other local options like tea, butter milk or lemon water. It doubled the spending on Doordarshan, increased price compliances from 30% to 50% in rural markets and reduced overall costs by 40%. CCI spokesperson Nanto Banarjee said- The real market in India is the rural areas. If you crack it, there is a tremendous potential.

Thanda Goes Rural


In early 2002, CCI launched a new advertisement campaign featuring Aamir Khan. The creator of commercial Prasoon Joshi, national creative director- McCann Erickson, said Thanda is a very North India-centric phenomenon. Go to any restaurant in the north and the attendents would promptly ask,thanda ya garam? The advertisement with tagline Thanda matlab CocaCola was targeted at rural consumers.

Thanda Goes Rural


Commercials showed progression in associating Coke with Thanda in a rural context. Ad 1- Tapori- connection of coke with thanda was made.

Ad 2 Hyderabadi shopkeeper- shopkeeper equates the word thanda with coke


Ad 3 Punjabi farmer when one asks for thanda, one would get coke

Other Initiatives
Coke also tapped local forms of entertainment like annual haats, mandis and fairs. Coke launched the Accessibility campaign, introducing a new 200 ml bottle(Chota Coke) smaller than the traditional 300 ml bottle and concurrently cutting the price Rs 5. Rs 5 pricing strategy closed the gap between coke and basic refreshments like lemonade and tea. For transporting stock from spokes to village retailers the company utilized auto rickshaws and cycles. The company put up hoardings in villages and painted the name Coca Cola on the compounds of the residences in the villages. Rural market increased companys sales by 60%.

Britannia
Britannia Industries Limited is an Indian food-products corporation based in Kolkata. The company was established in 1892, with an investment of Rs. 295. It is famous for its Britannia and Tiger brands of biscuit, which are popular throughout India. Britannia has an estimated 38% market share. The Company's principal activity is the manufacture and sale of biscuits, bread, rusk, cakes and dairy products. At present, 90% of Britannias annual revenue of Rs2,200 crore comes from biscuits.

Major Brands
The major brand names include : Vita MarieGold Tiger Nutrichoice Junior Good day 50-50 Treat Pure Magic Milk Bikis Bourbon Little Hearts

Britannia in Rural Market


Britannia and Colgate, apart from HUL, are the only FMCG companies in India that derive over 30% of their revenue from rural markets. Britannia has rejuvenated its rural thrust by the launch of Tiger biscuits. In rural areas, people are fond of eating biscuits with tea and they have tea 3-4 per day. Britannia exploited this fact and used pricing strategy to penetrate rural market. Tiger was available from Rs 1 sachet that attracted rural customers as well as it provided many flavors and cream biscuits.

Cricket Campaigns
World-Cup 1999 Campaign: A three month promotion campaign that promises a free 3day trip to UK for 100 lucky consumers of Britannia.

Lagaan Campaign
Britannias Lagaan campaign was launched to push Tiger to the number one slot past Parle G. A Rs 6 crore promotional campaign was kicked off by Britannia Industries Limited along with Aamir Khan Productions, makers of the box-office hit, Lagaan. The bait for those who picked up Britannia Tiger 75g/100g packs from August-December 2001 was a chance to play Aamir Khans Lagaan XI in a real cricket match in Mumbai in the last week of December 2001.

ITC (Imperial Tobacco Company)


ITC is an Indian public company (25.4% owned by British corporation, British American Tobacco) headquartered in Kolkata, West Bengal. Its diversified business includes four segments: Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) Hotels Paperboards, Paper & Packaging Agri Business ITC's annual turnover stood at $7 billion and market capitalization of over $34 billion. The company is currently headed by Yogesh Chander Deveshwar. It employs over 29,000 people at more than 60 locations across India

ITC
ITC Limited completed 100 years on 24 August 2010. ITC was formed on August 24, 1910 under the name Imperial Tobacco Company of India Limited. Later the name of the Company was changed from Imperial Tobacco Company of India Limited to India Tobacco Company Limited in 1970 and then to I.T.C. Limited in 1974.

FMCG
Cigarettes: W. D. & H. O. Wills, Gold Flake Kings, Gold Flake Premium, Navy Cut, Insignia, India Kings, Classic (Menthol, Menthol Rush, Regular, Mild & Ultra Mild), 555, Benson & Hedges, Silk Cut, Scissors, Capstan, Berkeley, Bristol, Lucky Strike Foods: Kitchens of India, Aashirvaad, Minto, Sunfeast, Candyman, Bingo, Yippee, Sunfeast Pasta brands in Ready to Eat, Staples, Biscuits, Confectionery, Noodles and Snack Foods Apparel: Wills Lifestyle and John Players Personal care: Fiama di Wills; Vivel; Essenza di Wills; Superia; Vivel di Wills brands of products in perfumes, haircare and skincare Stationery: Classmate and PaperKraft

ITC IBD
ITCs International Business Division (ITC IBD) was created in 1990 as an agricultural trading company. It now generates US $150 million in revenues annually. In 1998, the competition with MNCs forced ITC to explore the options of sale, merger and closure of IBD. ITC ultimately decided to retain the business. The ITC-IBD used Information Technology to face the challenges and to create a competitive business that did not need a large asset base.

ITC e-choupal
ITC e-choupal was developed by ITC ABC (Agribusiness division) It is the brainchild of S Sivakumar and is promoted by Y.C. Deveshwar, Chairman, ITC ITC e-choupal was launched in June 2000 It is the largest Internet-based initiative in rural India It benefits 4 million farmers in 40,000 villages

Demerits of Prior System

e-choupal
ITC followed a direct media strategy which is more elaborate and extensive in rural marketing so far, which benefits both the farmers and the organization. This strategy used Information Technology and bridged the information and service gap in rural India which gives an edge to market its products like seeds, fertilizers and pesticides and consumer goods. The e-choupal model required ITC to make significant investments to create and maintain its own IT network in rural India and to identify and train a local farmer to manage each e-choupal. e-Choupals serve as both, a social gathering place for exchange of information and an e-commerce hub.

e-choupal
The farmers can use the computer to access daily closing prices on local mandis(government mandated markets), as well as to track global price trends or any information about new farming techniques either directly or via the sanchalak . In addition they can also know about weather forecast(local) and best practices in the world from eChoupal website. They also use the e-Choupal to order seed, fertilizer, and other products such as consumer good from ITC or its partners, at prices lower than those available from village traders; The sanchalak typically aggregates the village demand for these products and transmits the order to an ITC representative.

e-choupal
The computer, typically housed in the farmers house, is linked to the Internet via phone lines or, increasingly, by a VSAT connection, and serves an average of 600 farmers in 10 surrounding villages within about a 5 kilometer radius. Each e-choupal costs between $3,000-$6,000 to set up and about $100 per year to maintain. The host farmer, called a sanchalak, incurs some operating costs and is obligated by a public oath to serve the entire community. The sanchalak benefits from increased prestige and a commission paid him for all e-Choupal transactions.

e-choupal
At harvest time, ITC offers to buy the crop directly from any farmer at the previous days closing price; the farmer then transports his crop to an ITC processing center, where the crop is weighed electronically and assessed for quality. The farmer is then paid for the crop and a transport fee. Principles followed in implementing e-choupal: Re-engineer, Not Reconstruct Address the Whole, Not Just One Part An IT-Driven Solution

Structure of e-choupal

Partners

Hero Honda
A joint venture between the Hero Group and Honda Motor Company was established in 1984 as the Hero Honda Motors Limited. Due to rising differences, ranging from Honda's reluctance to fully and freely share technology with Hero as well as Hero's uneasiness over high royalty payouts to Honda, Hero and Honda split on 16th December 2010. Till 2010, Hero Honda, the worlds largest manufacturer of twowheelers, generated over 40% of sales from rural areas. The company built its rural marketing strategy around the role of influencer groups. The major rural marketing initiatives by Hero Honda are: Har Gaon, Har Aangan Program Waves Marketing Campaigns Sikhao Baliye Initiative

Har Gaon, Har Aangan


Under this program, 500 sales representatives were initially hired and given work tasks rather than sales targets. They were required to meet potential customers and opinion leaders in villages such as teachers and panchayat members to spread the campaigns message to prospective customers. With a focus on building enduring relationships with rural customers, the "Har Gaon, Har Aangan" program included a number of activities with no direct sales outcome. The company organized free service and check-up camps, consultations for obtaining driving licenses, safe riding educational programs, health check- ups and awareness camps. By this program, the company covered 1/6th population of rural India (1,00,000 out of 6,00,000 villages) and sold with an average of 16,000 bikes per month.

Other Initiatives
Waves: Hero Honda has been running a two-month-long marketing campaign called "waves", that coincides with the pre-harvest seasons of April and October. This gives the company an early start in influencing and forming purchase intent and opinions. Each wave has so far resulted in additional sales of 15,000 motorcycles per month. All these waves are led by members of the influencer groups.

Sikhao Baliye : It was another unique initiative which targeted rural women to persuade them to driving motorbikes.

Promotion Strategies
To help increase its reach to 70 percent of Indias 6 lakh villages, Hero Honda added a new layer of Authorised Representatives of Dealers (ARDs) to its distribution network. Within a district, the companys main liaison is located in the district headquarters. Under him are authorized representatives- smaller dealerships where locals can make purchases and also get their bikes serviced. These ARDs are appointed and managed by the dealers through a profit-sharing mechanism. Since Hero Honda avoids directly managing the ARDs, there are no additional investments in the supply chain from its side.

Hero Honda
The Company launched some entry-level products with trimmings tailored to suit the rural consumer, like adjustable suspension, strong headlights and good ground clearance. The most successful product is SPLENDOR in rural market and the company kept its focus on upgrading the SPLENDOR models. They came up with SPLENDOR PLUS and SPLENDOR NXG which provided extra features and the customers were satisfied.

LG
LG Corporation is a South Korean Company. In 1995, to compete better in the Western market, the Lucky-Goldstar Corporation was renamed LG. The company also associates the letters LG with the company's tagline "Life's Good". Since 2009, LG has owned the domain name LG.com. LG is the worlds leading manufacturer of consumer electronics. India, the companys largest market in the Asia Pacific region, generated 35 percent of the companys India revenues from rural sales.

LG Sampoorna
In 1998, LG developed a television brand specifically for the rural market, christening it "Sampoorna". This region-specific branding was unprecedented for a multinational corporation. A majority of the semi-urban and rural consumers are comfortable with regional languages but have little or no understanding of English, making it impossible for them to read instructions written in English or to operate the product. This need had been overlooked for years, ever since television became accessible in rural homes. LG exploited this need and turned it into demand.

LG Sampoorna
LG spent close to $50,000 in developing a unit with onscreen display options in the regional languages of Hindi, Tamil and Bengali. LG priced the model with rural affordability in mind at Rs 14,400, still Rs 2,000 more than equivalent products from other companies. "Sampoorna", with its customized features that gave the rural consumer ease-of-use, was a complete hit, selling more than 100,000 sets in the first year of its launch. LG also invested early in building a strong district networking system to drive its marketing efforts, creating a hierarchy of 45 area offices and 59 rural/remote area offices.

LG Sampoorna
With the infrastructure in place, LG mounted a campaign for distribution penetration. The company has more than 9,000 sales and service dealers working through different rural sales channels, close to 1,100 distributors and 40 branch warehouses. The distribution strategy is supplemented by an elaborate customer service initiative Called the "211" initiative or "Service When You Want. Under this initiative complaints are handled within a maximum of 24 hours. The IT infrastructure for the "211" program currently exists in 100 cities and will soon be extended to 200 more, deepening the companys ability to service its semi-urban and rural consumers.

Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters Corporation is a Canadian media and financial-data firm based in New York City. It was created by the Thomson Corporation's purchase of Reuters Group on 17 April 2008. With $13.4 billion in revenues, Thomson Reuters is the world's largest multimedia news agency. It operates in 100 countries, has 60,000 employees and is headquartered at 3 Times Square,Manhattan,New York. Thomson Reuters focus in India was on finding strong and differentiated revenue streams. Spotting a business opportunity in rural markets, the agency decided to launch a personalized information service for farmers.

Reuters Market Lights


RML, a business incubated by Thomson Reuters, is a pioneering mobile phone-based agricultural information service provider. The service is designed to provide farmers with personalized, timely and actionable agricultural information from pre-sowing to post-harvest stages through SMS on their mobile phones in their local language. About 1 million Indian farmers from an estimated 50,000 villages have used this service. At present, RML is available in 13 states in India, covering over 450 crop and crop varieties and more than 1300 markets.

Reuters Market Lights


The subscription can be bought for a period of three, six or 12 months at a price of less than $3 per month. With RML service, individual farmers gained up to Rs 200,000 of additional profits, and savings of nearly Rs 400,000, marking a significant return on their investment. RML was conceptualized as a one page idea in 2006 to address the needs of farmers. Following nearly 18 months of market research, prototyping and market trials, RML was finally launched in October 1, 2007 in Maharashtra by Mr. Sharad Pawar, the union minister of agriculture of India. Later, RML was launched in Punjab in 2008 by Mr. Prakash Badal, states Chief Minister.

Reuters Market Lights


RML has its own team of reporters who track 600 mandis in the country.It also has content sharing partnerships with agricultural universities. Those who want the service can buy an RML Direct Card which is available in over 4,000 retail outlets. Then, they make a phone call to RML center specifying the information they need, their geographic location and the crops they grow. The user profile system developed by RML captures such individual farmer details, mobile number and preferences. This is then connected to the mobile delivery platform which sends the messages based on the user profiles.

Reuters Market Lights


Each day, over 100,000 farmers in different states of India receive text messages on their mobile phones, giving them spot prices for their chosen crops from nearby markets, crop-related advice for their region, localized weather forecasts and prices of supplies, all according to their individual preferences and in a language of their choice. Within the first 23 months of its launch, more than 250,000 RML quarterly subscriptions have been bought by over 100,000 farmers across 10,000 villages. The farmers have realized huge financial benefits-ranging from Rs 500 to as high as Rs 400,000. In fact, a grape farmer in Nashik recalls how a RML weather alert helped him take action to save his crop, saving him Rs 200,000.

Reuters Market Lights


For RML, the existing customer base alone turns in revenues worth Rs 60 million (US$1.3 million). The cumulative impact across a growing subscriber base can be game changing in terms of both the companys profitability and overall returns to its subscribers. Thomson Reuters estimates that its customers could well save more than $6 billion. The unprecedented and pioneering businesses of RML has been recognized by and is a case study for the UN, the UK government, leading academic institutions like Cambridge University and London Business School, and leading publications such as The Economist and the BBC.

Rural Marketing Initiatives by Companies in brief


Nokia P&G GM Hyundai Dabur Marico Tata

NOKIA
Nokia introduced SMS alerts from Malyalam Manorama based on the feedback that newspapers dont reach a lot of villages and it has received a good response from the rural areas. Nokia has also lined up applications meant exclusively for the non-urban population, which provide entertainment, education (helping people learn English, for example) and agricultural information to subscribers. The first pilot of these applications, called Nokia Live Tools (NLT), was rolled out in January 2009 in five districts of Maharashtra. Many of the applications in NLT help those without access to regular TV and newspapers, with info. .

NOKIA 1100
Nokia 1100 was a product which targeted sub-urban and rural markets. It is sturdy enough to stand rough handling,has very low price, high battery back-up and also has torch feature

Procter & Gamble


After a two year long push into the hinterland, P&G has come up with a new addition to its marketing strategy in the form of a character called Sangeeta Bhabhi, a dedicated housewife. The personality was conceived to push P&Gs leading brands, Tide and Head & Shoulders as a dual proposition called kamyab jodi (Successful Pair) in rural areas of the country. After much deliberation over the eight to nine categories that P&G operates in, marketers picked the detergent brand Tide and shampoo Head & Shoulders as the focus in this particular rural initiative.

GM & Hyundai
GM India runs a panchayat scheme wherein it gives Rs 2,000 as incentive on every buy of a Spark. GM India has appointed a marketing firm, RC&M, to help it formulate its strategy for rural marketing. The company has around 45 outlets in B category towns. Hyundai launched, Hyundai Utsav running in tier III cities and rural areas of Punjab and Andhra Pradesh. It looks to build the brands visibility and creating awareness about the loans and schemes offered by the company.

Daburs Astra
Shopkeepers selling Dabur India's consumer products would now learn marketing through role-plays staged by professional actors at their shops. As part of a recent initiative titled Astra, advanced sales training for retail ascendance, FMCG major has recruited 75 sales and HR managers across the country who would educate over 2,000 distribution channel partners of the firm about the complexities of sales and distribution through the audio-visual medium. Dabur has a distribution reach of 25 lakh retail outlets across the country. About 75 per cent of the company's sales come form rural areas, hence, it has created the Astra training consultancy module in five vernacular languages, Bengali, Tamil, Telungu, Malayalam and Kannada

Maricos Parachute Coconut Oil


With the objective of creating awareness for Parachute Coconut Oil pouches in sub-urban and rural areas in Tamil Nadu, and in order to convert loose oil buyers into Parachute pouch customers, Marico Industries launched a van campaign. The communication Strategy focused on getting women out of their homes to participate in the van campaign, which was aimed exclusively for them and for the first time conducted by women. A study by Marico showed a 25% conversion from loose coconut oil usage to Parachute Pouch Pack, post van campaign and a substantial increase in sales from the campaign areas.

PHILIPS
To increase the sales of Electronic Entertainment products for ex. Stereos and CTVs among the rural population of Tamil Nadu, Philips launched Philips Super Shows. Philips Super Shows were conducted in five district headquarters with the intention of motivating dealers as well as opinion leaders to generate word-of mouth publicity, as a first step. This was followed by extensive van operation in 5000+ population areas with audience participation techniques for mouthing the brand. It was supported by mass media campaign in regional press, rural cinemas, radio, wall painting and intensive merchandising activities.

Tata
Tata Teleservices has launched a new product named Nano Ganesh, especially for the rural community. For this project, Tata tied up with Pune based company Ossian Agro Automation. It was developed by Ossian Agro Engineer Santosh Ostwal, son of a farmer in 1998. It allows farmers to operate their irrigation pumps from a remote location. The application was a Grand Prize winner in the emerging market category of Nokias Calling All Innovators contest.

Tata Ganesh
Tata Ganesh is the Combination of Tata Indicom mobile connection and a mobile modem. The Modem is attached to the starter of the pump set and can be attached to any existing electrical starter and motor pump. Each connection has a Unique code number for security purposes. Farmers can remotely switch on and switch off the pump set. Farmers can further check On/off status and Power availability. It was first started at Sojitra in Anand district in Gujarat. 15,000 farmers in Maharashtra state have been using Nano Ganesh since 2008 and it is expand to UP, Gujarat,Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The cost of Modem is Rs 2700 and additional charges for desired handset.Handset comes with lifetime validity. All calls made to the pump by the Tata Indicom Mobile are free and other calls are charged as per the tariff plan given to the subscriber.

Tata
Tata Chemicals launched Tata Kisan Sansar for rural markets. Tata Kisan Sansar is a chain of one-stop resource centres for rural people. All the necessary commodities are available at these resource centres.

TCS started mKRISHI for farmers.mKRISHI is a new tool for farmers to receive agricultural information.

Conclusion

Thank You

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