A big TV company once put together a huge campaign to advertise its newest model – A TV which emitted Biofresh rays. They launched 1,20,000 sets in urban India which quickly sold out. But out of the 1,20,000 sets that were earmarked for the rural market only 5 were sold. The worried company hired consultants to understand this situation. The consultants who believed in one on one contact with customers interviewed a hoity-toity urban lady who was shown an ad for the TV. The ad depicted a tired family sitting on a couch. As soon as they turned on the TV, waves of rose petals emanated from the TV set and entered their bodies thus rejuvenating them. The lady excitedly claimed after watching this ad that it made perfect sense and therefore she had bought the TV herself. When the same ad was played in front of a bunch of villagers in a village in Karnataka, one of them stood up, scratched his head and asked – do you think we are idiots? How can rose petals come out of a TV?
With this satirical anecdote depicting how truly intelligent the rural consumer is when compared to the urban mass which is desensitised to hyperbole, Mr. Harish Bijoor of Harish Bijoor Consults, started off what was to be a crackerjack of a session. Armed with a repertoire of hilarious anecdotes and incisive insights, Mr. Bijoor, a brand expert, captivated his audience for the better part of an hour. In keeping with the theme of Horizons 2007, the annual management conclave of IIM Kozhikode, his presentation was titled “Bharat – Ek Sach”. His aim during the presentation? To separate hype from truth and to distil what “Real India” was.
There are two Indias, he said – Real India ie., Rural India and Virtual India ie., living in bigger cities. Mr. Bijoor said that he didn’t subscribe to the notion that Rural India was the bottom of the pyramid, instead he drew 2 pyramids. One for urban and another much larger one for rural. The urban population is just 25% of the population, therefore the mass of the rural middle class population is double that of the urban middle class population. Marketers till now have concentrated on the lower hanging fruits. However with urban markets being saturated, its time now to tap the vast potential of the rural masses. Top 16 % of Indian towns contribute 80 % of market potential value. But how do you market to this India?
The values and attitudes of the average Indian is changing, Indian women are rising. Youngsters are spending more. Marketers need to take advantage of this. Did you know that 11% of rural women use lipsticks compared to just 22% of urban Indians? The Rural to Urban ratio? 3:1. Therefore more rural women uses lipsticks than urban. And the biggest selling lipstick brand in India? No, its not Lakme or Revlon. Its Raja Lipsticks. A temple in Rajkot offers ice cream and pizza as Prasad. The suave priest talks of footfalls, explaining that the change in Prasad has resulted in more children coming to temples, thereby making their parents happy which in turn results in better donations in the hundi. Everyone is happy, he says. This is serving the rural markets!
Its not just values, the definition of literacy itself is changing. A rural Indian does not need to know how to read and write to keep abreast of what’s happening in the world. All he needs is his eyes and his ears. The new literacy now is driven by media which is now all pervasive. And this media literacy is driving consumption.
But, we’re sitting on a powder keg of unarticulated discontent. India is happening but only to a minority. The only reason we haven’t faced a revolution yet, Mr. Bijoor humorously pointed out, is because of the average Indian’s belief in the Karma philosophy! There’s a fracture between two Indias he said. Unless inclusive growth happens, the current growth rate will not be sustainable after 10 years. The essential dichotomy between rural and urban India can be most glaringly seen in what gets them worked up. Rural India is all about Electoral enthusiasm whereas Urban India thrives on Economic enthusiasm. The people who decide on who will run the country are not the people who benefit from the governments economic policies.
The key question though is, where does urban stop and rural begin? To answer this, Mr. Bijoor paraphrased a quote by Jane Jacobs. “Great differ from towns and villages in basic ways, and one of them is that cities are, by definition, full of strangers.”
Mr. Bijoor elaborated on this dissatisfaction by saying that though India is happening there are 5 worry lines that he’s concerned about.
- Creeping urbanization and the pressure cooker economy where excellence is talked about but is only skin deep.
- Emergence of the new caste system – The caste of brands which knows no geographical boundaries and which propagate a social structure of exclusivity.
- Needless CSR. ISR or individual social responsibility, Harish opined is a much better way of giving back to the community. Get employees to go to the field and work with NGO’s. Time, not money is needed.
- Rural Brain drain. Nobody who leaves rural India wants to return, therefore villages are left with just the aged and farming has gone for a toss. Who will feed us?
- The need to change from exclusive branding to inclusive branding. Why? Because inclusive branding concentrates on the community instead of just the “I-me-myself” culture.
To sum up he said that a McKinsey report predicted that 2.2 million high value jobs will be created by 2008 of which 30% will go to Indians. By 2016, the US job market will fall short by 17mn people, China by 10 mn, Japan by 9mn and Russia by 6mn. Where will these jobs go? To India. Why? Because our population that was once our bane is now become the driving force of our prosperity. But most of these jobs will be in the knowledge industries which are not open to rural Indians. There are 2 drivers of growth in India – IT and Retail. In 3 years time, the IT exports will increase from USD 40Bn to 65Bn, but the Retail industry will increase from USD 33Bn to 360Bn. Both are largely urban and need to penetrate into the rural market to offer any hope of sustainable growth. Retail will be the biggest growth driver for rural India. But the rural market is not a cow to be milked. It needs to be understood – with humility.
My friend on Orkut shared this link with me and I’m not dissapointed at all that I came here.