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Rural Marketing
Notes 11. Distribution and promotional channels also need to be different for rural markets.
12. Coca-Cola’s Parivartan program has trained more than 9,000 retailers to display and stock
products.
13. Around 87 per cent of the total sales of consumer durable items come from rural and semi-
urban markets.
14. ASSOCHAM suggests that for deeper penetration in the Urban markets.
15. Bysani also feels product customisation can further help to attract rural consumers.
Case Study UK Rural Markets – Hampshire
Market Towns Project
For centuries, Hampshire’s market towns have been the focus of social and commercial
activity for the county’s many rural areas. Since the war, however, this function has been
under constant pressure from changes in the social, agricultural and industrial fabric of
the county, and today many small towns are struggling to survive and keep their identities.
The Rural White Paper in 2000 identified the need to take action to assist small rural towns
in retaining and growing their function as rural service centres or ‘hubs’, and the
Countryside Agency introduced the Market Towns Initiative in 2001, designed to be
accessible to individuals and partnerships through access to a web-based ‘toolkit’, handbook
and resource documents.
The Economic Development Office at Hampshire County Council recognised the need to
join the Initiative in 2001, and the Market Towns Project began.
The Hampshire Market Towns Project is led by the Economic Development Office at
Hampshire County Council, in partnership with the South-East England Development
Agency (SEEDA) and with the South-East Rural Towns Partnership (SERTP). A full time
Market Towns Co-ordinator, Anne Harrison, part-funded by SEEDA, works with small
rural towns, and promotes the Market Town Healthcheck (toolkit) throughout the county,
helping to deliver the new SEEDA Small Rural Towns funding programme and to create
and develop networks of interested groups.
The total programme is worth around £7 million over a 7-year period from 2004-2011, and
the EDO works with the Hampshire Economic Partnership (HEP)’ Rural Economy Task
Force and the Hampshire Market Town Partnership, HMTP, to deliver around £1.2 million
of this funding to Hampshire to benefit some of its small rural towns, of which 32 are
potentially able to apply for project funding. Delivery schedules are submitted regularly
to SEEDA, with £530K already committed to Hampshire projects, and work is ongoing in
New Milton, Alton and Whitehill and Bordon.
The Hampshire Market Town Manager is also responsible for the supervision of two
staffers, in New Milton, Emsworth, Lee-on-the-Solent, and Hayling Island. These officers
are part funded by SEEDA, with HCC and the relevant District and Town Councils also
providing cash or in-kind support for these posts.
Their roles vary from place to place, from co-ordinating town Healthchecks, identifying
potential funding opportunities and helping develop a long-term Vision/Action Plan, to
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