The rural masses show their consumer power, writes Jimmy Burns.
Kherala, in the state of Haryana, some 50km south of Delhi, fits the image of the age-old village whose traditional values Mahatma Gandhi sought to preserve. But take a closer look and you’ll discover the modern age tentatively knocking on many a front door.
Set well back from the main highway to the capital, the bulk of Kherala’s population of 4,000 live in squat huts made of crude cane and cattle dung. But most of the huts have TVs, electrical kitchen gadgets and an assortment of mass-marketed toiletries. Oxen plough the nearby fields, but tractors spray the fertilisers and transport the labourers, and piped water is gradually replacing the village well. Scooters and mopeds are also disturbing the rural idyll, rivalling the ox as a status symbol.
India’s villages, where 80% of the population live, retain much of their immemorial quality. But the agrarian reforms of the last two decades together with the migration to the cities of many villagers has brought about a significant rise in agrarian purchasing power and a change in consumer patterns. Cultural change is also being hastened by the spread of TV.
According to research undertaken in recent years by India’s National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), the importance of rural markets for manufactured consumer goods is increasing and will increase further as a result of the government’s liberalisation programme.
Although most of India’s lowest income families live in the villages, they are an important market for some specific consumer goods which are anything but traditional.
The most recent extensive survey carried out in 1992-93 show that 75% of bicycles and portable radios, and 60% of table fans, sewing machines, and wrist watches, sold in India were bought in rural areas. Rural markets also accounted for a 72% share in national sales of washing cake.
The NCAER survey found that the rural share of other consumer sales has been rising in relation to sales in the cities. In a sample study over a four year period between 1989-93, the percentage of black and white TVs bought in rural India rose from 44 to 47%; of colour TVs from 19 to 31%; cassette recorders from 42 to 49%; video recorders from 5 to 8%; toothpastes from 30 to 38%; washing powders from 48% to 52%; and electric bulbs from 30 to 32%.
But perhaps the most revealing statistic, since it suggests the amount of spare cash in farmers’ pockets, is that while in 1960 the average rural household spent 81% of its income on food, today it spends less than 70 per cent.
During the 1980s, companies and advertisers devised their strategies for rural markets on the assumption that consumer preferences in the average Indian village would be not much different from urban centres. In recent years a geater effort has been made to understand the particular cultural, social, and economic conditions that exist within the villages.
Pradeep Kashyap, a marketing consultant, who has organised workshops on rural markets for the Asian Centre for Organisation Research and Development (ACORD), says: ‘Having been trained in a westernised culture, we tend to approach even the rural market with certain urban mindsets. That doesn’t always work. To effectively market a product, we have to get off our high horses and understand rural ways.’
To illustrate the idiosyncracies of the rural mind, Indian advertisers like to recall the following anecdote regarding sales of hair dye in the villages of Gujarat. A few years ago it was discovered that sales of the dye had shot up to three bottles per consumer a month. It was subsequently discovered that far from being used for the villagers’ hair, the dye had been used on the local cattle. It was felt that the shinier the cow’s coat, the better the chance of getting a good price at the local market.
In Kherala, rural ways are exemplified by the family of Mr Lackhan Singh Sarapanach, a 45 year-old farmer who has served for several years as the elected head of the village body. His wife Subhebra recalls that when she first came to the village as a teenage bride, women rarely ventured from their huts, and spent their time either grinding corn or washing clothes.
Today the mill stone lies abandoned in the Sarpanach larder, and a machine is used for the task. Subhebra cooks over an electric stove instead of firewood. She still washes the clothes by hand. But her clothes are no longer home spun, and she uses commercial washing powder.
Her daughter Neelan, 16, likes to buy make up and ready-made clothes in the town market. Her ambition is to buy a car. Jaisingh, her 23 year-old brother, wears jeans and gym shoes and likes to ride motor scooters. He plans to leave for Saudi Arabia as a construction worker in the hoping of earning enough money there to increase his family’s limited supply of electrical gadgetry.
And yet the Sarapanach family are neither spendthrift nor uncritical of modern life. The family tailors its bigger purchases according to what it can afford and is without a refigerator or a gas stove.
Subhebra is not convinced that the shampoo she now uses is superior to the mixture of mud and tree extract with which she washed her hair as a young girl. ‘I notice that people’s hair in the village is not as thick and strong as it used to be,’ she says. The shampoo is, however, affordable and saves her time.
There are no Body Shops in Kherala. The local store reflects the modesty of disposable incomes and the complex nature of consumer aspirations. There are unmarked bags of rice and bottles of vegetable oil, indicating that on staple foods at least the villager remains product loyal rather than brand conscious.
On the shelves there are several different brands of washing soap, toothpaste and combs prominently displayed while the only available brand of bras are kept modestly in boxes. There are also a variety of biscuits and two different brands of light bulbs. But the most popular confectionery remains a local sweet made of sugar cane, herbs, and butter milk.
The Sarapanachs do much of their shopping in the town market, where there is a wider range of products. However the head of the family insists: ‘I don’t buy something simply because someone tells me I should buy it. It needs to be worth it price wise and accessible. And what matters to me is not the packaging but whether it really makes my life easier.’
Market research done on other villages in India suggests that consumption patterns of rural consumers generally remain distinct from those of urban consumers. While many villagers are earning their wages in the towns, caste and religion continue to play a dominant role in their villages, insuring a high degree of social conformity and respect for tradition. Status symbols remain important, as do strong personal relationships.
These factors are likely to put an increasing onus on companies developing marketing strategies which are sensitive to the peculiar needs of rural communities. Already advertisers have had to accept that sexual innuendo and images of boys and girls frolicking over a can of fruit juice jars with village tradition. And companies find that using long-standing dealer networks (often using extended families and internal village hierarchies) can prove more useful than sending in outsiders.
This marketing will be watched closely by government officials. While anxious to promote economic development in rural communities, officials realise the need to protect more positive aspects of traditional life such as artisan crafts.
Several non-government agencies are promoting traditional weaving and wood working in some villages with an eye on exports. But the days when villagers themselves buy what they make may have gone forever.
(c) 2009 The Financial Times Limited. All rights reserved
