Using Mass Media, reaching Rural Markets is easy - Sritej Bodkay

The motivators for purchase in a rural consumer are different from those in the urban consumer and especially rural youth is very different. But when we talk about youth, we refer to the age group of 15 to 25. In rural India, it is the age group between 8 and 15 that influence most purchases - more than any other group. This is largely because they tend to retain messages and often play back these messages to others too. Just to give an example: Recently a Fair and Lovely soap was launched in a village in Bihar. Its TV commercial (chaand ka tukda) had debuted on prime time TV. The village kids can play back the whole commercial word by word with the product benefits, the product promise and so on. What is surprising is as the companies were targeting the rural women, it was the kids who played back this commercial. So it’s the 8 to 15 age group that has assumed importance. If one notices, even HLL and Colgate have begun targeting this age group in their commercials.

Also, another typical rural phenomenon is that kids are sent by their mothers to purchase something without specifying a brand. So kids tend to ask for products they have seen or heard on radio or TV. So to a large extent, kids are driving this change as much as youth. One more point about the changing rural consumer is that there is no singular definition that fits all rural consumers in our country. It varies from one state to another and from one culture to another. Media exposure, education levels and many other factors come into play when we describe rural consumers. Villages in Bihar are so much different from those we find in, say, Andhra. They are becoming more aware, they are buying more luxuries than ever before.