How to talk to rural customers

From the global telecom players to FMCG majors, everyone is betting big on rural markets in emerging economies across Asia including India, China, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan. But rural consumers are a completely different ball-game which means marketing has had to re-invent itself to address the needs of rural consumers as issues like accessibility and affordability become more important. Advertising will have to do the same.

Rural consumers have specific key characteristics that advertisers cannot afford to ignore. The rural consumer is time rich; his attention span is not crowded; intra-community influences are very strong; they are starved for entertainment; their exposure to technology and new products or services is very limited and levels of literacy are low.

Hence, every rural communication strategy must deliver on what I call the five Es: empathy, education, ease, evidence and entertainment.

Build empathy.
Aspirations aside, rural consumers are by and large wary of what is coming their way from the cities. They are skeptical that most of these products might be good for people in the cities but not for people like them.

A brand must be clear that it understands them and that the product is made for 'people like them'. Nokia successfully did that with its ‘Made for India’ campaign promoting the entry level Nokia 1100 handset.

Invest in educating them.
Many products or services are entering the rural markets for the first time. Hence educating people about the rational benefits of the category is very important. This is especially true for new services like telecom and insurance. Data shows brands that have invested in educating the rural market about the benefits of the category reap long-term benefits and capture a disproportionate share of the rural markets in the long run. Rural consumers are slow to take up new brands but are also very slow to give them up.

Explain and demonstrate the ease-of-use.
Demonstrate, demonstrate and demonstrate. Even when the rural consumers get excited about the benefits of certain products they struggle with the complexities of usage. Everything from how to use a mobile phone to an ATM, even detergent powder, has to be demonstrated to them. They have the time and the attention span. So create interesting audio-visual capsules or long TVCs and use mobile vans to reach them in order to explain and demonstrate.

Show evidence that it worked.
The biggest challenge in rural areas is the barrier of trial to conversion. The rural consumer seeks the comfort of numbers before he takes the plunge. Show him the evidence that it worked for others like him. Testimonials generally work better with rural consumers and because the intra-community influences are very strong, the credibility of evidence spreads faster than Twitter.

Entertain them.
With low penetration of satellite television, long distances to the theatre and a lot of spare time, the rural audience is starved for entertainment. For them, any market messaging whether its through TV or road-shows becomes another source of entertainment. Hence brands must integrate story-telling as part of any communication. Not just advertising but product demo videos and brochures. The use of popular local tales, fables or heroes is most effective.

Also remember that literacy levels are quite low in large parts of emerging rural economies. Remember to leverage the power of colours, local symbols and audio-visual aids in effectively implementing the five Es.

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This article was originally published in the 20 May 2010 issue of Media.