abhishreshthaa
Abhijeet S
Understanding Rural Markets:
There has been always a vast difference between the two markets for a long time now. The difference is not only between urban and rural but also within the rural areas -- between regions, states and districts. There is a difference in the media reach, the education levels, in the culture and the type of products that the two markets are exposed to and this leads to a difference in the two markets.
The difference is in things like -- how do you celebrate New Year, how do you celebrate birthdays? Small things like these are celebrated in a completely different manner when the rural and the urban customers are concerned. There is a vast difference in the lifestyles of the people in the two regions. The kind of choices of brands that an urban customer enjoys is different from the choices available to the rural counterparts. The rural customer usually has 2 or 3 brands to choose from whereas the urban one has multiple choices. The difference is also in the way of thinking. The rural customer has a fairly simple thinking as compared to the urban counterpart.
But with technology coming in, mass media reach and the literacy levels going up - this divide is expected top reduce.
The biggest thing is that there is lack of any research into the consumer behavior of the rural areas. There is considerable amount of data on the urban consumer regarding things like -- who is the influencer, who is the buyer, how do they go and buy, how much money do they spend on their purchases, etc. but on the rural front - the effort has started to happen now. So there is a need to understand the buyer.
There is no collective effort. Some people have spent time in the rural markets, carried out studies and have understood the rural behavior, but their works have not been passed or known to the rest of the industry. So, an in depth understanding of the consumer is one key area that the industry needs to work on.
There are vast differences in the rural areas as well. There are some 5, 60,000 villages and some 525 districts and each one is different from the other. The geographical spread is not as homogeneous as it is with the urban areas owing to vast cultural differences. So an in depth understanding of the areas is what is required.
The field of rural marketing has been witnessing a lot of action from both the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector and consumer products manufacturers but, there has been little success in the manner in which rural research is carried out.
The limitation lies in the inadequate or unavailability of appropriate tools to evaluate the rural market behavior. The problem arises because of general lack of education resulting in low awareness about the products and hence the inability to respond to the queries of the researcher in these areas. Conventional research tools do not work in these markets, as these are difficult to comprehend for the illiterate and semi-literate rural people.
The typical research scales used are for ranking, rating and attitude measurement, limiting the research questions to simple yes/no kinds that do not bring the true essence of the research process.
In an effort to look in to this issue two students from Management Development Institute, Gurgaon along with Pradeep Kashyap, director of Marketing And Research Team (MART) tried working out on some possible solutions to this problem. The limitation of conventional research tools during the research project prompted them to look at alternative sources to solve this problem and the results were favorable.
Colors are very strong indicators, and forms, of expressing the feelings in the rural areas and there are tools devised with colors that represent and reflect the right answer to the researchers' queries. The selection of colors is done on the basis of the association of rural people with these colors. For instance, it has been observed that dark green represents a good crop or ‘Haryali’ (as they call it) and hence represents prosperity and is considered to be the best. Light green represents not very good crop and stands next to dark green color.
Yellow represents dry sand or a dry field and hence comes next. Orange is the color of the setting sun and represents the end of the day and hence is placed after yellow and just before red, a color that represents danger to them. Such hypothesis has been working well, according to MART, and it has incorporated these tools in its research projects.
This is probably the beginning to a new form of research and analysis that might change the paradigm of rural marketing research and, who knows, one might just see this field blossom into a specialized research activity. If a simple ranking and rating is achieved, a lot can be explained about the rural preferences and behavior providing the marketers and manufacturers of goods specific to the rural markets get that meaningful insight to be able to help grow the markets in these areas.
There has been always a vast difference between the two markets for a long time now. The difference is not only between urban and rural but also within the rural areas -- between regions, states and districts. There is a difference in the media reach, the education levels, in the culture and the type of products that the two markets are exposed to and this leads to a difference in the two markets.
The difference is in things like -- how do you celebrate New Year, how do you celebrate birthdays? Small things like these are celebrated in a completely different manner when the rural and the urban customers are concerned. There is a vast difference in the lifestyles of the people in the two regions. The kind of choices of brands that an urban customer enjoys is different from the choices available to the rural counterparts. The rural customer usually has 2 or 3 brands to choose from whereas the urban one has multiple choices. The difference is also in the way of thinking. The rural customer has a fairly simple thinking as compared to the urban counterpart.
But with technology coming in, mass media reach and the literacy levels going up - this divide is expected top reduce.
The biggest thing is that there is lack of any research into the consumer behavior of the rural areas. There is considerable amount of data on the urban consumer regarding things like -- who is the influencer, who is the buyer, how do they go and buy, how much money do they spend on their purchases, etc. but on the rural front - the effort has started to happen now. So there is a need to understand the buyer.
There is no collective effort. Some people have spent time in the rural markets, carried out studies and have understood the rural behavior, but their works have not been passed or known to the rest of the industry. So, an in depth understanding of the consumer is one key area that the industry needs to work on.
There are vast differences in the rural areas as well. There are some 5, 60,000 villages and some 525 districts and each one is different from the other. The geographical spread is not as homogeneous as it is with the urban areas owing to vast cultural differences. So an in depth understanding of the areas is what is required.
The field of rural marketing has been witnessing a lot of action from both the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector and consumer products manufacturers but, there has been little success in the manner in which rural research is carried out.
The limitation lies in the inadequate or unavailability of appropriate tools to evaluate the rural market behavior. The problem arises because of general lack of education resulting in low awareness about the products and hence the inability to respond to the queries of the researcher in these areas. Conventional research tools do not work in these markets, as these are difficult to comprehend for the illiterate and semi-literate rural people.
The typical research scales used are for ranking, rating and attitude measurement, limiting the research questions to simple yes/no kinds that do not bring the true essence of the research process.
In an effort to look in to this issue two students from Management Development Institute, Gurgaon along with Pradeep Kashyap, director of Marketing And Research Team (MART) tried working out on some possible solutions to this problem. The limitation of conventional research tools during the research project prompted them to look at alternative sources to solve this problem and the results were favorable.
Colors are very strong indicators, and forms, of expressing the feelings in the rural areas and there are tools devised with colors that represent and reflect the right answer to the researchers' queries. The selection of colors is done on the basis of the association of rural people with these colors. For instance, it has been observed that dark green represents a good crop or ‘Haryali’ (as they call it) and hence represents prosperity and is considered to be the best. Light green represents not very good crop and stands next to dark green color.
Yellow represents dry sand or a dry field and hence comes next. Orange is the color of the setting sun and represents the end of the day and hence is placed after yellow and just before red, a color that represents danger to them. Such hypothesis has been working well, according to MART, and it has incorporated these tools in its research projects.
This is probably the beginning to a new form of research and analysis that might change the paradigm of rural marketing research and, who knows, one might just see this field blossom into a specialized research activity. If a simple ranking and rating is achieved, a lot can be explained about the rural preferences and behavior providing the marketers and manufacturers of goods specific to the rural markets get that meaningful insight to be able to help grow the markets in these areas.