Branding Strategy in Rural Markets in India

Abstract

Indian Rural markets are potential and upcoming market for most of the products and services because of its vast size and demand base.Rural population constitutes 128 million households,41% of Indian Middle class and 58% of total disposable income. More and more MNCs(HUL, Coca-Cola, LG Electronics, Britannia, Standard Life, Philips, Colgate Palmolive and the foreign-invested telecom companies) are foraying into rural markets in India.The success of products is depends upon right branding strategy of an organization in this market.Corporates are taking lots of care in designing branding path to capture market and mind share of rural consumers. Despite mega drive taken by the companies to create an awareness of their goods and services, vast segments in the rural sectors in our country, still remain untapped. Lifebuoy was one of the first soaps with rural areas as the key target market. Its jingle tandrusti ki raksha karta hai lifebuoy is still fondly remembered by a large number of rural people. Needless to say it commanded great brand loyalty. Colgate , Dalda, Tata, Bajaj, etc., have shown that it is perfectly feasible to build a brand in rural areas. Hero Honda, Mahindra and Mahindra and other auto majors are investing huge in creating brand of their products and services. Keywords : Rural markets in India, Branding strategy

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