Page 160 - DMGT509_RURAL MARKETING

Unit 8: Rural Product Strategy

publications. Keeping this in view, the present study was undertaken and the results have Notes
been presented.
Indian Marketers on rural marketing have two understanding (I) The urban metro products and
marketing products can be implemented in rural markets with some or no change. (II)
The rural marketing required the separate skills and techniques from its urban counterpart. The
Marketers have following facilities to make them believe in accepting the truth that rural
markets are different in so many terms.

The rural market has the opportunity for:
(i) Low priced products can be more successful in rural markets because of the low purchasing
powers in rural markets.

(ii) Rural consumers have mostly homogeneous group with similar needs, economic conditions
and problems.
(iii) The rural markets can be worked with the different media environment as opposed to
press, film, radio and other urban centric media exposure.

Realities before the Marketers

Seventy per cent of India’s population lives in 627000 villages in rural areas. 90% of the rural
population us concentrated in villages with a population of less than 2000, with agriculture
being the main business. This simply shows the great potentiality rural India has to bring the
much-needed volume-driven growth. This brings a boon in disguise for the FMCG Company
who has already reached the plateau of their business urban India.
As per the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) study, there are as many
‘middle income and above’ households in the rural areas as there are in the urban areas. There
are almost twice as many’ lower middle income’ households in rural areas as in the urban areas.
At the highest income level there are 2.3 million urban households as against 1.6 million
households in rural areas. According to the NCAER projections, the number of middle and
high-income households in rural India is expected to grow from 80 million to 111 million by
2007. In urban India, the same is expected to grow from 46 million to 59 million. Thus, the
absolute size India is expected to be doubles that of urban India.
Figure 8.5: Small Sachets of Detergents for Rural Markets

HUL chairman MS Banga Says, “This exercise may not pay in the immediate future, but will
definitely give long-term dividends. Incidentally, over 50 percent of the sales of HUL’s fabric

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