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RURAL INDIA
THERE'S an interesting way of putting rural India into perspective. If India's
population, as per the 1998 estimates of the United Nations Population Division, is
982,223,000, then rural India, taken as 73.3% of India, is 719,969,459. Divide that by the
estimated total world population of 5.9 billion, and rural India becomes 12.2% of world
population. Forget all of us sitting in the cities (4.4% more) -- 12.2% of the world lives in
rural India. Which, given our effective lack of knowledge makes it a bit like one of the
world's last great undiscovered countries.
Rural inhabitants aren't a different species, but consumers as quirky and
demanding of marketers as any of their urban cousins. And just as eager to consume --
maybe even more so, given their access to messages of consumption via TV, but lacking
the easy access that makes urban consumer’s blasé. For marketers the potential is huge --
a country waiting eagerly for their products, providing they can make the effort to export
inwards, and learn to play the games by rural rules. And if they don't, the chances are
that they will be left behind. Even with the minimal effort put in by companies so far,
rural India now accounts for majority, or near majority, consumption in many categories.
-- Rural India is clearly not such an area of darkness anymore, and as a further incentive
to keep the lights on, remember that farmers get electricity free!
One of the most popular and widely accepted Marketing Myth is that the rural
consumers will only buy really cheap mass market brands. But the stark reality is that
though brands like Nirma lead, but penetration of premium products has also been
...