Tag: Outdoor Advertising in India

Flavours of rural advertising

“There are 700 million people in India who live in rural area. We don’t want to neglect them. We see a huge opportunity there,” Coca-Cola Company Executive Vice-President and Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer Joseph Tripodi told reporters on the sidelines of AdAsia 2011.

This clearly states the potential rural markets offer to the product & service category in India.  But with opportunities come challenges and in the Indian rural scenario, obstacles vary with geography. The problem faced by marketers in the villages of Uttar Pradesh would be different from the obstacles faced in the hinterlands of Maharashtra or South India.  Marketing communication and promotion poses a lot of problem in rural India.

Constraints in rural advertising
From the profile of people to the availability of media, there are various problems that pose barriers to advertising in rural areas. For instance, the literacy rate among the rural consumers being low, the printed word has little use in the rural context. So far TV has been one of the ideal mediums of reaching the rural audience however its reach remains restricted even today. Radio has so far been the most favorable medium in terms of accessibility in rural areas. But according to report by Linterland, rural expert of India, the penetration of radio is not very high in rural areas because many cannot afford to own a radio set.
This goes to show that conventional media has still not been able to find its foot in the rural markets of India. It has been estimated that all organized media put together can reach only 30% of the rural population of India. Lingual diversity compounds the complexity of advertising in these areas. Hence, arrives the need to go beyond the standard forms of media to create a long lasting impact on the minds of rural consumers.
With changing times, marketers have tried and tested various unconventional forms of media which remain exclusive to the rural lands of India. These can also been termed as ‘Rural Specific’ media. The rural specific media with its effective reach, powerful input and personalized communication system has helped marketers achieve their set goals.
Rural Specific Media:
This media has been developed over the years to suit the local taste of villagers and other peculiarities showcased by them. Like, one of the most popular non-conventional forms of advertising is at the social gatherings of villagers, popularly known as the melas & haaths. Such gatherings are organized at a local level in different villages of India. As these occasions are also perceived as sources of new information, marketers have evolved strategies to captivate their attention at such occasions either by setting up branded kiosks providing educational information or having live demonstration of products & services.
It has been observed that advertisement couched in entertainment go down easily with the villagers. As important aspect of rural specific media is the language. Rural communication has to necessarily be in the local language.
Case:  The MSRTC (Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation) bus network is the key mode of transport for most of the villagers dwelling in Maharashtra. The bus stands from where travelers board their respective buses have an announcement system in place which helps the passengers with bus timings and other crucial information required. The announcement system also broadcasts brand advertisements exclusively in Marathi. As these advertisements are heard between the bus timing announcements, the bus stands serve as a place to captivate the audience attention at the time they want to listen to you. Moreover, the advertisements broadcasted are based on real life instances created in Marathi which has a powerful impact on the people as they can easily connect to the ad and also understand it.
Outdoor hoardings are also used very well in rural communication. In fact, currently many companies are using the outdoor medium imaginatively in their rural communication mix, through hoardings, wall paintings, illuminations and other displays in the rural areas.  Moreover, getting one’s wall painted with the product messages is seemed as a status symbol.
Case:

Asian Paints promoted its Utsav range of paints by painting Mukhiya’s house or Post office 6 months prior to the launch of the paint to demonstrate that paint does not peel off.

Rural consumers place more emphasis on the experience of others who have used the brands to make their purchase decision. Hence, the Utsav campaign not only won the attention of rural consumers but also built reliability as the ad was displayed on the Mukhiya’s house wall.
The cost effectiveness and high involvement of consumers is what makes these form of media successful in the rural landscapes of India. Rural India is unique in its own ways and exploring each bit of it is a new learning in itself.
Recommended posts:

By Vritti.co.in 5 Comments

Branding on the move

Mr. Veerendra Jamdade, CEO, Vritti i-Media

Whether you are out on the road, up in the air, on your first date, on your long treks or on your way to work – you can always be assured of the constant company of ‘The Brands’. In a world dominated by consumerism, the marketing gurus are watching your every move, have your travel plans figured out and have already reached your destination probably before you even thought of getting there. The Indian outdoor advertising industry, comprising less than 8 per cent of the total advertising budget has today become burgeoning industry worth Rs 1,900 crore, thus ensuring that the consumer is always thinking, albeit subconsciously, about his choice of brands – right from the toothpaste he uses in the morning, to the mattress he sleeps on at night.
The Indian outdoor industry has undergone cataclysmic changes in the recent years. Gone are the days when a plain old billboard was enough to make a consumer sit up and take note. In a scenario where thousands of brands are jostling for top of mind recall, the need of the hour is innovative, smart outdoor advertising.
The year 2011 was a period of ups and downs for the industry as a whole. An extended cricket season that caused majority of spends to be diverted to TVCs and decreased spends from the telecom and finance sector during the year caused a major setback to the industry mid-2011. However, the forecast for the industry looks bright as per PWC which has recently published a report stating that the Indian OOH advertising industry is projected to reach Rs 2,400 crore in 2015 from Rs 1,400 crore in 2010, showing a growth of 11.4 per cent.
As we speak of the potential of the industry as a whole, lets take a look at some of the key challenges and issues that have plagued the industry, a few trends that are definitive of how the industry has shaped up in the past year and the future direction that needs to be carved out to reach the complete potential in the coming years.
OOH – Not just a ‘reminder’
As the quickest, most cost effective method of grabbing consumer attention, the OOH industry has been steadily gaining significance as a key element of a media planning strategy that goes much beyond ‘just a reminder’. The tools and techniques of outdoor advertising have undergone cataclysmic changes. Gone are those days when ordinary billboards were used for outdoor displays. The OOH industry has given a lot to advertising brands in terms of ROI, strategic locations and innovations in the previous years which has led to increased spends especially from the finance sector into the outdoor segment.
Increased transparency
Earlier in the year, I was fortunate to have been a part of the Outdoor Advertising Convention, based on the concept ‘Think Tomorrow, Today’. Among the many highlights of the event, there was a point made by Ashish Pherwani, Associate Director, Ernst & Young India Pvt Ltd, which made a profound impact on me as it will largely define the future of the outdoor industry. He had said, “70 per cent of advertisers are not, or are only somewhat comfortable, in buying OOH, and 68 per cent are willing to increase spends on OOH if they can get greater transparency.”
Increasingly more advertisers are demanding formats in segments with greater measurement metrics such as traffic count; dwell times, passenger engagement etc which are answers the industry will have to provide to scale up rapidly.
Urban saturation = rural potential
As OTS (opportunity to be seen) opportunities get slowly exhausted in the urban markets due to high budgets and market saturation, the smarter marketers are moving away from the city hubs and exploring the untapped and vast opportunities that lie in transit media advertising and rural OOH.
Taking an example of Maharashtra, of the 90 million residing in rural pockets, with 55 million in semi-rural or rural areas, only 40-45 per cent have access to Print & TV as mediums while the rest of the audience is subject to ‘media darkness’, that is, incapable of any media consumption due to barriers such as illiteracy and lack of TV and print. For this audience, the only effective way to make an impact is through the audio advertising medium, where messages can be relayed to them in their local languages, which they can comprehend. This model has met with tremendous success during the last couple of years with telecom brands opting for this medium to convey the brand messages to a significant part of their target audience, that is, the rural consumers.
Vritti i-Media has developed a proprietary technology whereby audio advertising messages are relayed to an audience at ST bus stands across Maharashtra along with bus arrival and departure timings which makes for mandatory listening and cost effective brand campaigning.
Highway advertising – Food malls become Digital Hubs
While signages, kiosks and samples have been tried and tested methods of branding at Highway Hubs, marketers are now moving towards a more dynamic form of advertising which is attractive, cost effective and easy to modify suited to the advertiser’s needs. A good example of this is the highway food hubs in Maharashtra, notably on the Mumbai-Pune and Pune-Nasik highways, which are dotted with food joints that have audio visual screens where advertisements are broadcast in between bus arrival and departure announcements thus ensuring the captive attention of the audience. The technology based audio visual screens allow advertisers to modify messages based on new product launches, change of schemes or to simply highlight an ongoing sale a little more effectively.
The audio visual method of outdoor advertising on food malls will pave the way for brands to communicate to a diverse set of audiences, in a multilingual format at half the cost, thus ensuring seamless delivery of messages that can be modified as and when required. It is also being touted as an effective way for brands to spread social awareness among their audience, especially the truckers, who are largely illiterate and who form a large part of the audience profile that frequent the roadside dhabas. It will be interesting to witness the shift in strategy of marketers from traditional to outdoor audio visual advertising, which will largely define how the future of this medium shapes up in the near future.
Digital OOH – An idea whose time has come
Offering benefits like flexibility to advertisers, higher recall and cost advantages, Digital OOH is an idea whose time has come. The medium facilitates audience measurement and monitoring of consumer preferences besides allowing category exclusivity which are all the aspects that the industry is looking to resolve at present. With high end luxury and automobile brands making entries into the Indian retail market, we can certainly hope to experience a lot of innovation on this medium in the coming years.
Authored by Mr. Veerendra Jamdade, CEO, Vritti i-Media on Exchange4Media

By Vritti.co.in 1 Comments
Posts pagination
Send a Message