Exclusive | It's time for marketers to 'Go Rural': MART's Pradeep Kashyap

He is widely known as a guru of Rural Marketing, he is the CEO of MART and the president of Rural Marketing Association Of India (RMAI).  He founded and heads MART which was based on ethical and spiritual principles and now has emerged as India’s leading rural consultancy organization. In past, Kashyap has advised leading companies from the FMCG sector to those in telecom, pharma and banking about breaking into rural markets. He has also been Marketing Advisor to the Ministry of Rural Development and has served in the Prime Minister's Office.
Adgully, caught up with Kashyap at an event and shot a few questions about emerging trends and challenges in rural marketing and got effective response for the same.

As he is the person who works on rural marketing, we tried to understand what made him to come up with MART? “ In past I have worked with the corporate sector for 20 years and I realised that there is loads of work needed to be done in marketing area and observed that there is huge market in rural sector. Initially, people didn’t knew then that marketing is needed in the social sector too. This led me to establish MART as an organization in 1993 and in 2oo3 it became a partnership.” Explained, Kashyap.

He believes that there is no major difference in urban market and rural market but the key differences are the environment, the lifestyle and the occupation of people living in these different regions. But the human needs and aspirations is and would be same everywhere.

On asking where he sees rural market today, he said, “Rural marketing is already there in the business and is one of the single largest segments. A decade back exposure towards rural market was much less, but with the help of media and its mediums like television and mobile the companies are focusing on rural market.” Explained, Kashyap.

According to him he sees huge opportunity in rural India, so we asked him to explain us that are Indian marketers making right approach to reach out to their customers in rural sector and he continued this by explaining that, “There are corporate companies who are not making effort to reach out to the rural market because of certain discomfort and it is one of the reasons why certain brand are not doing well in rural market.”

He further added, “Today the companies understands the opportunity and are approaching to the rural market. I am helping marketers to understand the big opportunity lying there in rural India that one can’t afford to lose. We are doing on ground activation to create more awareness for brands in rural India and now corporates will have to take fast move to reach this segment, if they want to tap in rural market.”

One of the most important objectives of MART is to improve the overall understanding of the rural market to the corporate world, through seminars, workshops and conferences, besides offering guidance to Management Institutes in running courses in Rural Marketing.

According to Kashyap, there are loads of regional brands who are taking advantage of rural market, whereas  Indians still  have great attractions towards western brands, western strategies and business schools, where as our own brands are doing really well.  People & children buy local brands in rural India but if apparel brands like Levis & Lee will reach out to this market, they’ll be getting huge opportunity as it would be a virgin market for them. In rural market, people are not so status conscious they focus much on functionality of the product where urbanites buy brands for status purpose.

Kashyap feels that media do play a big role in pushing the rural market sector as, “People in rural sector are able to recall the brands through ads and the way it’s been made. The recall is very high amongst rural kids as they watch television as much as urban kids and they are access to almost all the channels . So, the kids in both the sectors are watching similar programs. But one should now understand that the Rural India has been changed a lot from what is been shown in the films. “

On asking how the companies are responding to it, he said, “Global companies are trying to reach out to Indian rural markets; whereas the local companies have started various schemes to tap the market. Chinese brands have understood this and that’s why they are able to create demand for the brand and simultaneously satisfying consumers by offering all needed facilities at half the price of branded phones.”

He further discussed about the challenges faced by the marketers in reaching out to the rural market.  He said that, “Indian marketers are tend to not understand the mindset of the rural consumer. Secondly, even if companies reach close to understanding rural consumers, they face great difficulty in finding distribution options to the rural sections. Corporate companies focus on only 50 cities, and they want to limit themselves and don’t want to go beyond that.” 

Today more and more MNC’s and brands are entering in Indian market the obstacle that most of them are facing is that they haven’t segregated the products for rural India.

On how marketers should look upto rural markets, he said, “Marketers should bottom up their research to understand the need of rural consumers from the consumers themselves; they should develop the products by involving consumers feedback. They should have strong distribution system and should strategies different markets. As at present the market need to know more about this big market. It is a virgin market which will provide an opportunity to innovate.”

MART & RMAI have associated with loads of known brands and they keep marketers aware about how market is going, the new opportunity, how to use the opportunity, Keep feeding knowledge to marketers.

There are global investors interested in rural India and International companies are more serious in going into rural market, than Indian companies. Indians are still stick to decades old rural India. Brands like Unilever and Pepsi want to come and invest on rural Indian market, as they have money and don’t know where to invest. 

“There is huge opportunity and space in rural market to grow and as a marketer one should focus on getting the market. “ Concluded, Kashyap.