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Bangladesh
rural market with its vast size and demand base
offers a huge opportunity that business entities
cannot afford to ignore. To expand their market
base, more and more companies are foraying into
rural markets.
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Fuelled
by NGO activities (Micro credit and women empowerment
programs), good monsoons and the increase in agricultural
output (by virtue of hybrid seeds), rural Bangladesh
has evolved with a large consuming class made up of
almost 40% of the country's middle-class with 50% of
the total disposable income.
But
it is not a one-time act; neither a marketing gimmick
nor a sound byte. It has been the Waterloo of many companies.
It involves addressing some 100 million consumers, 73%
of the national population (BBS Census 2001) out of
which 86% is in the SEC (Socio-Economic Class) C & D,
82% is in the DMFI (Disposable Monthly Family Income)
group of less than 5000 Taka -- and that's about half
the country's disposable income. The challenge of marketing
to these critical mass becomes even severe when it comes
to communication (materials or messages), be it the
transportation infrastructure for distribution (none
of the companies in our country can directly distribute
to merely half of the retail outlet base) or the media
for advertising. TV & Radio doesn't reach out to more
than 55% population and forget the press media penetration
when literacy is less than 30% (the actual figure goes
down to a single digit!), but FMCGs are bought by more
than 70%.
Nothing
is impossible if there is a will. Hence to tap the untapped
opportunity in rural markets we need a definition in
the outset.
What
is Rural?
Government
Definition: Places which are densely populated and a
majority of the population depends on agriculture and
where amenities like roads, communication facilities,
electricity, gas, water supply, sewerage, sanitation
are not adequate or do not exist.
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We
define Rural as: Places beyond the point where
a given brand's direct distribution coverage stops
- areas where media is dark & grey (places where
media is present but does not touch the audience,
for example urban slums).
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More
precisely, rural is not geographical; it is rather a
mindset. But who is Rural? People with limited or no
education, have linear and simple thinking, mostly the
low income group who buy low unit packs and more frequently
from the local retailer, preferably on credit. They
are mostly villagers with the exception of urban rural
consumers -- the peons and runners of our offices, the
rickshaw pullers who all live in the heart of the capital.
They will never go to supermarkets even when there is
a huge discount. They are very sensitive and alert to
the value of the product, and are usually habitual buyers.
They adhere to prevailing social and cultural norms;
they strongly believe in fate, luck, religion and Allah.
Opinion
leaders, such as village heads, religious leaders, urban
relatives and local retailers, act as influencers. Furthermore
-- to emphasise how different they are from their urban
counterparts -- they have their own way of brushing,
bathing and washing - which is unique. The way they
celebrate their birthday - if they do at all - is completely
different than that of an urban consumer. We, for example,
send birthday cards for brand loyalty programs but can
we use birthday cards to build loyalty brand with rural
consumers?
"How
(to do marketing in) Rural?" is the most critical question.
There was no Philip Kotler to lay down theories or case
studies on strategy for rural marketing. After all,
this is an undeveloped /under developed country scenario.
However, the adventurous companies are meeting the consequent
challenges of the 4A principle for rural marketing --
Availability (of products or services), Affordability
(financial acceptability of products or services), Acceptability
(of the product proposition) and Awareness (of the brand).
Availability
The
first challenge is to ensure availability of the products
or services. Bangladesh's 90,000 villages are spread
over an area of 147,000sq.km. Given the poor state of
roads, it is even a greater challenge to regularly reach
products to the far-flung villages. Any serious marketer
must strive to reach at least some 7,000 odd villages
(i.e. each village within the population strata of 5,000+;
these 8% villages cover 33% of the national population).
Marketers must trade off the distribution cost with
incremental market penetration. To service remote villages,
stockists use auto-rickshaws, cycle vans, rickshaws,
bullock-carts and even boats in the backwaters of Barisal.
Though
there is no proven model for rural distribution some
concepts are being tested -- Pran's Micro Distributors
at the thana level, extra money (to distributors) for
extra mile coverage policy of Nestlé and Unilever's
Project Joyeeta (A model based on NGO beneficiaries
which is being carried out by Interspeed Rural) and
Pollidut (Freelance distributor / agent), to name a
few.
Affordability
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The
second challenge is to ensure affordability of
the products or services. Because of low disposable
incomes, products need to be affordable to rural
consumers most of whom are on daily wages.
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One
way to address the issue is by introducing smaller unit
packs. Lever Brothers Bangladesh Limited, the major
Shampoo player, has successfully pushed the penetration
figures from 10% to 20%. The introduction of Tk1/- &
2/- sachets (tuni packs and mini packs made of plastic)
did the miracle for the coconut oil market leader, Parachute.
Another
way to address the issue is to prioritise the rural
market in terms of affordability but unfortunately there
exists no organised data; the national economic census
cannot even provide GDP for all the 64 districts. However
Interspeed Rural has developed RDI - Relative Development
Index (A proprietary tool of Interspeed) -- a surrogate
of media exposure and affluence for all the administrative
levels (District / Thana / Union & Village level). The
index is based on parameters like education, literacy,
bank credit to agriculture, gross cropped area, number
of landowners and so on.
Furthermore,
to understand the geographic dispersion of the prioritised
area and facilitate the implementation and route planning,
Interspeed Rural developed Customised GIS - a software
that provides maps and data (like RDI, Population density,
source of drinking water, electricity, education etc),
plotted in layers so that an analyst can perform cross
layer queries and analysis. GIS is also capable of generating
best routes for prioritised areas automatically.
Acceptability
The
third challenge is to gain acceptability for the products
or services. Therefore, there is a need for offering
products that suit the rural consumer with a real relevant
reasoning - acceptability of the proposition. On one
hand you want to drive your product penetration, while
you want people to change their habits, on the other.
You cannot plant a Close Up tree in their courtyard
to change their oral care habit of "Neem er Dal". And
you cannot ask them to use herbal shampoo while they
are used to using the stuff extracted directly from
nature (Mehendi and mud, for example). Offering Lifebuoy
soap with health care reasoning did the job long time
back. Sunsilk black clicked in the rural market because
there was a self imposed perception that it would blacken
their hair - and that's their perception of beautiful
hair.
Awareness
With
large parts of rural Bangladesh inaccessible to conventional
advertising media and the consumption of branded products
treated as a special treat or indulgence, building brand
vis-ŕ-vis awareness is another challenge.
Back
in the 90's some companies started testing different
media to communicate to the rural audience though not
in an organised manner. SMC (Social Marketing Company)
incepted a project of "Video on Wheels", initially to
communicate social massages. Later the model was used
for commercial communication (to build brand awareness).
Cinema, wall painting and broadcasting by mikes were
the conventional means to communicate to the rural consumers.
Then we started the journey with localised Folk Form
of communication; Gombhira was used in northern region
and Puthi in the south.
We
thought, we had done some wonders; even the research
results were positive but when we went back after a
month the impact was all gone! That was when we realised
that we needed some static, permanent reminders to leave
behind. But the problem was there were no billboards.
The challenge was to innovate a new relevant media.
Our team spent some considerable time brainstorming
how to promote soaps.
While
sitting beside a pond, we were thinking of painting
virtually any thing and every thing in the village!
And finally The Sarpanch (Dalveer Singh, Country Head
of Ogilvy Outreach, India) came up with the brilliant
observation; he saw that people would wash their clothes,
go up to the green grass to keep the washed clothes
and then come back to the pond to take a dip.
The
idea was born, "Can we have clothes hangers for them
beside the pond?" We went back and designed a pond board
sign that would also have clothes hanging facility.
Initially
we were worried of its security but later after putting
the boards, we realized that these boards were viewed
as community asset and everybody was very protective
of them.
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Yes,
we were evolving towards providing more organised
rural communication and we applied the concept
of direct marketing principle of consumer engagement
through dialogue. But how do we get into dialogue
with those conservative sets of rural women?
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Pond
Sign: First time in the history of advertising
the source of water was branded
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One-2-one
and house-2-house contact was not feasible, as it is
not scalable to reach a critical mass. How de we make
them congregate?
Seeing
is Believing
Shaheda
Hasan (our Former Director of Operations) threw out
the idea of Uthan Boithak (a gathering at the courtyard)
- a practice often used by NGOs. We used flip chart
storyboard detailing for brand communication. But nothing
works better than live demonstration of functional benefits
- "seeing is believing". A project on Wheel and Lifebuoy
was successful by demonstrating the efficiency and efficacy
of the products. A glass of water was stored from a
bucket of water mixed with wheel. Then dirty clothes
from the community were soaked in the bucket for 20-30
minutes and then another glass of water was taken from
the bucket to compare it with the previous one.
The
significant difference made them believe in the power
of Wheel Washing Powder for cleaning clothes.
In the process, we learned that community participation
for any rural communication works well. For a contraceptive
pill, Femicon, a drama in the courtyard (Uthan Natok)
did the job. The secret of the success was the script
that contained two simple characters, which were taken
from the community itself so that the villagers could
readily identify with the characters.
Similarly,
we used different community participation based marketing.
To have a long lasting effect of a campaign, we assigned
the "influencers" (religious leader - the Imam / schoolteacher
/ registered medical practitioner) of the community
to be brand ambassadors for Lifebuoy. They were briefed
about the brand benefits and a six-month stock of the
product was given as an incentive for them to disseminate
the message on Lifebuoy. And we also had the houses
of the influencers branded with permanent printed tin
plates.
The
story of rural communication experience goes on as we
enhance our knowledge base. Needless to say, it remains
far from the point where it is well organised and certainly
far from reaching perfection. We are now debating with
our regional team on the "wear off effects" of rural
campaign. What is the optimum time for a re-appearance?
What is the best media mix? What is the minimal frequency
of coverage per year for a specific task - such as behavioural
change, habitual change, brand shift or brand loyalty?
These are the questions that are still un-answered.
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Mr.
Aman Ashraf Faiz studied at Aligarh Muslim
University and began his career with Marketing
Research at Renata Pharmaceutical Limited. Later,
he switched over to advertising, joining Interspeed
-- an associate of Ogilvy & Mather. He
is currently heading Interspeed Activation,
which comprises Rural, Out of Home and Event Management
unit of Interspeed Group.
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The
article is reproduced with permission from
The Executive Times
YOUR
FEEDBACK
We
must have knowledge on this topic and try to do something
in rural Bangladesh. The author has written about the
rural situation in the business context but paints a
real picture of rural life. I hope that every person
can aquire knowledge in this topic.
H. Nuri
I
have gone through the the article and it is informative.
I would like to read more on this interesting topic.
Rural marketing is very important in the context of
Bangladesh.
It
is understood that the writer has obtained vast knowledge
on this field. He has a critical / analytical point
of veiw. However, more ethnological information on the
people of his sample areas may help him to get more
accurate and pragmatic results.
Intensive
Field Work/Participant Observation is one of the major
pre-conditions in order to achieve the desired goal.
I hope he will continue his effort so that the others
may be benefited. I wish Mr. Aman Ashraf Faiz a good
luck , good health and bright future. Regards,
Jamshed
Minhaz Rahman,
Third Secretary & Consular Officer,
Embassy of Bangladesh, Abu Dhabi, UAE
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