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Exploring the Potential of Experiential Marketing in Rural India

Prof. Ratheesh Nair

Today the Indian rural marketing landscape is witnessing a drastic change due to increased penetration of technologies, increase in non-agricultural employment, increase in overall household income and access to information that was only a privilege of the urban masses. However, there are still several factors that starkly demarcate the rural consumers from their urban counterparts.

Majority of rural consumers still remain price sensitive, have heavy influence of culture, traditions and societal pressures. Word-of-mouth is still the most effective promotional tool and brand trust outweighs product quality, any day. These factors still pose a challenge for the marketers as the conventional approach towards promotions do not result in any substantial uptake of their product. This is precisely where Experiential Marketing starts working.

Hindustan Unilever has been one of the pioneers in entering the rural space and they also are probably the only company with the highest number of experiential marketing campaigns in rural India. For its Fair and Lovely brand they conducted a farm to farm or house to house campaign. They targeted villages in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar with more population of more than 2000. The company managed to cover 10% villages and up to 17% households in all the three states. The result was 46% brand conversion (35% from non user segment).

Another effective way of ensuring consumers have greater product experience is by providing demonstrations. Dalda launched its product by distributing free pakodas fried in Dalda to rural masses in several states. Some brands also resort to sponsoring or organizing village specific games like dangals or they use haats, mandis and melas as platform for promoting and launching products with live demonstrations providing hands on experience of the products.

The potential of experiential marketing in rural areas is too huge to fathom accurately. However, there are certain challenges in rural areas that are debilitating for marketers planning to implement this strategy. Firstly the infrastructure in several villages is still in a dismal condition. Many villages are still inaccessible by road and several others do not have electricity, telephone and other such facilities. The cost of reaching out to these audiences in itself is a huge hurdle and is probably one of the major reasons why many companies are shying away from rural segments.

Even with all these challenges, the rural India still remains an enticing opportunity for several brands that are facing saturation in their urban markets. It is only a matter of time before we see more corporations and companies flowing into the rural markets with their products and services and experiential marketing will be the key to their success.