Role of Personal Profile and Distance from Home on Marketing Profile

It’s a dynamic organism of human being that determines one’s responses towards surroundings. Further this organism is very complicated mix of genetics that one has acquired through parentage, various learning modes that one has been exposed to and the socialisation process through which one acquires attitudes, beliefs and the value system that helps to form distinct and meaningful picture of the world around individuals. So, evidently marketers have to understand the beliefs and value system and response pattern of targeted consumer.

Simply defined, motivation is a process of restoring the balance between actual and desired state of mind that has been caused because of some physical or psychological deprivation. This deprivation may be the cause of simple reaction in human biological system causing hunger, thirst, security and desire for sex etc. or it may be due to complicated acquired needs. So it’s very important for the marketers to have a close eye on this dynamic process of motivation.

From the dawn of civilisation, human being have been looking for ways and means to better their lives. In the process they have come up together and have formed common action and reaction patterns, common ways of doing things, forming common values and beliefs to help one decide what to do or what not to do and this is a dynamic process in which something is added up and subtracted over the time as per requirement of the situation. This process of building on common platform of better living is called ‘culture’. And a group of people that has come up together because of some natural or other reasons to carry out the above said responsibilities is called ‘society’. Hence, values attitudes and beliefs so designed are a sort of binding on its member (may be referred as social class) and have a great impact on any of the consumer decisions. So, marketers have to take a concentrated note of this phenomenon of the target consumer and class to which these consumers belong. There is yet another scenario which is emerging very fast and that is the spread of Internet, TV and Media to all corners of the world, to all form of peoples, and to all cultures. And due to this, the whole world is coming closer and getting exposed to each and every confusion in the minds of coming generation. They are either questioning their existing value system or are providing a new meaning and shape to it. In this changed scenario people have started enjoying different sorts of products without much caring for their suitability and compatibility in their native culture. This is a transitory phase that may eventually lead us to a new structure where, may be the whole world could be called a ‘Global Village’, and as regards this particular scenario, a marketer has to be very careful while studying the various issues relating to the consumer behaviour. The marketers while keeping the modern marketing philosophy in mind and applying the study of consumer behaviour and with the help of modern technology have capitalised every opportunity which has come up in their way in form of need for diverse varieties of products and services. This phenomenon continued unabated till mid eighties in all the developed nations. But from here onwards, the bigger companies witnessed a decline in their growth rates because their markets started saturating, reason being, the population was not growing at that faster pace; not much demographic transition was taking place. Economic growth rate of these countries had already touched their peak and peoples’ desire for the variety of the products had already been met and technologically there was not much space in terms of modifications. In order to grow, these companies started looking for new avenues. And the obvious choice was to venture into those markets which have just begun their journey towards the development, which were having huge potential. These companies started their journey in developing nations by targeting firstly the big cities and educated people because these people were already connected with various means of comforts like electricity, road and other necessary requirement to live, and moreover, these people were already reached by the local companies. These big companies made their inroads in these varying markets of urban areas with the help of local companies first by having some joint ventures and lately on their own. Very soon they started tapping other cities of the country and by enjoying taste of success they started moving to the smaller towns, and even the Tehsils levels. In the last two decades or so, these markets are also on the verge of saturation especially in case of India. Because now in urban India there are few chances of growth especially in consumer durables, though it will take a long time to saturate urban Indian markets because people are in a transient phase from rural areas to urban areas. But still, the growth ratio which was envisaged by the biggies have started declining. At this juncture, the companies are looking for new opportunities and avenues. And they do have a huge, untouched and untapped rural Indian market.

globalisation. There is a substantial increase in the purchasing power of the people, their life-style has changed remarkably due to their increased purchasing power and moreover they are influenced by different cultures. At present, Indian consumers demand almost all consumer goods both durable and non-durable. Earlier consumer durables like TV, two-wheeler or refrigerator were treated as luxuries but now these are being considered as necessities. However, the situation which we are talking about largely prevails only in urban areas till now. The urban market was given high attention until now due to the boom period in economy since 1991, but now it has almost been saturated forcing the marketers to shift their battlefields from urban markets to rural markets. For the marketers of the new millennium, the rural market is quite an opportunity to tap. The beginnings will of course have to be made in form of relevant investments to understand the market first. Investments through research and large-scale studies, continuous ruing panels across demographic groups and a whole plethora of research exercise will need to precede the accurate understanding of these markets and the rural consumer at large. If India is a land of over 1 billion people, 73 per cent of these folks live in 5,72,000 vastly spread villages of India located around the hills and dales of this country. The marketer is just beginning to see the potential in form of the numbers for a start. He has nothing much else to go by, in any case, except for myths. Myths that have made the mystery of great Indian rural market, much of the black hole in Indian market lore. The upwardly mobile villager growing vegetables round the year, with milk distribution network to boot has emerged as the king of all consumers. ‘Rural Marketing’ is the name of the game and rural India is all set to be transformed into an extension of our large urban conglomerates. Liberalisation, riding the wings of satellite and cable television, has acted as a key catalyst4. Statistics compiled by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) confirm that rapid life-style changes in our villages will see a shrinking of poverty levels. Village in India has become home to the good things of life, and why not? Dr. R.K. Shukla, of NCAER pulls out a vast array of statistics to back his assertions. “Between 1997-98 the percentage of low income households came down from 73 to 51 percent while the high income house holds in rural areas up from 0.3 to 2.3 percent. But by 2006, the rural consuming class will have risen to 75.5 percent of all households making this a population of 432 million wannables. Low-income homes, by contrast, will be down to a mere 16.5 percent of the population. There is a big rural middle class in India, which is being watched continuously by the corporate world. The rural market with fast growth rate, improved transportation, ever-rising communication facilities and

started looking to the new destination: the ‘rural India’. Now one can think why people like Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer have come calling in such quick succession or why unilever chief, N. Fitzerald, on a recent trip to Mumbai, decided to give the board room the go by and spend his precious time in rural areas of Dharvad to know the taste of consumers6. The Indian rural market is larger when it is compared to the urban counterparts in many respects. The rural market consists of about 100 million households with a population of about 620 million. The rural areas earlier used to be dominated by so many factors like low per-capita income, low level of infrastructure facilities, problem of metal-roads, low literacy level and slow progress on front of industrialisation etc. These factors were responsible for limiting the capacity for consumption of goods and services. And the irony is that marketers were hardly interested in these markets. In recent times, however, the scene has changed in agriculture and allied activities like horticulture, animal husbandry and rural industrialisation etc. In rural areas, the scope for marketing of goods and services depends heavily on agriculture, as it is the main occupation of the rural people. Good monsoons leading to bumper harvests increase in procurement price for agricultural proceeds in the last decade, a fourfold increase in the outlay for rural development from seventh to the ninth plan and the change in life-style due to the proliferation of various media caused the rural boom. The market for agriculture inputs like fertilizers, tractors, irrigation equipments and use of hybrid seeds has been in the process for last decades and hence contributing a major break-through in the earning capacity of the farmers. Today the rural market offers a huge and untapped market, which is having great potential. Development programmes in the field of agriculture and allied activities, health, education, communication, rural electrification, etc. have improved the life of the rural populace and some market research agencies have forecast that the rural demand will supersede the urban demand in the coming future and to successfully exploit the potential offered by rural market, there is a need to first understand the rural market not only in terms of households and population but also in terms of their occupational pattern, income generation, the process of rural and cottage industrialisation, rural buyer behaviour attitude and beliefs of rural people and their aspirations.

consumers can be estimated from this table:

According to this table around 70 percent of the total population live in the rural areas that provides a larger market compared to the urban market. So, growth in population is assumed to be the main contributory factor which led the marketers to have an eye on this particular segment. In terms of the number of the people, the Indian rural market is almost twice as large as the entire market of the USA and the USSR10. But we can not rule out other factors while studying rural marketing environment like occupation pattern, spending pattern, economic reforms, source of income generation and other infrastructure facilities etc.

The literacy rate can be observed from this table and can be seen that only 45 per cent of the total rural population are literate as compared to 73 per cent in urban areas. The literacy plays a pivotal role while designing the communication strategy for rural folks. The heterogeneity of the languages and dialects makes it a stiff challenge for the marketers. In India we have around 20 languages and more than 1600 dialects and above all, only 45 per cent literacy rate in rural areas pose great challenges to the present day marketers.

It can be observed from this table that nearly 75 per cent of the total income in rural areas is related to agriculture and related activities. This is something logical because main occupation is agriculture. So, now it can be seen that growth in agriculture automatically leads to rural prosperity and in return provide a great potential for the marketers. So, the task of the marketers is to decide as to which segment of rural consumers they want to cater to because there is difficulty in finding out the small farmers, marginal land holders and rich land lords and accordingly they have to devise their strategies and products. So, just by having an overview of the environment of rural India there is a need to study factors responsible for the growth of this market.

The following analysis discusses the distribution of respondents on the basis of certain factors like distance from district, income level, age, occupation, education and gender.

Distance of a village from a city or town (district or a block) may be a crucial factor for the marketer who is planning to tap the rural market. Because it is assumed that the ruralites who live in the periphery of towns or cities have different buying attitude and expenditure pattern than those who reside in villages far away from the cities or towns. Those who live in the neighbour of the city or towns are assumed to be highly influenced by their urban counterparts because of their continuous interaction with urban people and exposure to their life style and also an access to certain services and facilities which are enjoyed by urban people. Whereas on the contrary far away people can not enjoy these facilities so they may have different mind set regarding the purchase of durables. The following table describes the respondents’ distribution on the basis of distance of their village from the block/district.

It can be seen from the table 1.1 that 43.3 per cent of the respondents reside within the distance of 10 kms. from blocks/districts while 41 per cent reside in the range of 20 kms. from their respective blocks/districts. 15.7 per cent respondents live outside the periphery of 20 kms. from their districts/blocks. It follows from above table that most of the respondents in the sample reside within the range of 20 kms. from the nearest block/districts. For a marketer therefore, it represents a segment of the market, which he can tap for his advantage in the sense that he can arrange for the services to be provided at a place, which is relatively closer to the place of residence of the majority. It is perhaps not unjustified to assume that convenience in accessibility to a service is a major factor in influencing the preferences of the customer. As such, establishing outlets that are relatively cheap and fast to access has major favourable implications for a marketer. For those who reside beyond 20 kms. from a district/block, marketer has to think differently at least in terms of service offer and means of communication and for these people they may have to establish different service centers near to their place which is easily accessible. However these possibilities also need to be examined in the light of different conditions like the means and cost of transportation, road/rail connections etc. However this data will convey more meaningful picture when analysed in relation to other factors, in the subsequent analysis.

Income is one of the most crucial factors that determines consumers’ choice of various products, brands, product features and most importantly consumption pattern and also reaction to the various efforts made by the marketers. So, it is obvious for the marketer to know the income levels of the target audience and their resultant behaviour. The following table tells about the distributions of the respondents on the basis of their income. The table 1.2 reveals that majority of the respondents’ have their income in the range from 40,000 to 120,000, as they constitute 76.3 per cent of

Source : As per survey reference group. The table 1.3 represents the distribution of respondents on the basis of their age.

Source: As per survey occupations also play a fair role as they capture 11.7 and 11 per cent of the respondents. Very few respondents belong to the profession of business and service with a meagre per cent of 1.3. It can be seen from the table that agriculture is a major occupation, 76 per cent of the respondents are directly or indirectly attached with it. So, the marketers have to keep this factor in mind while designing their marketing efforts, because agriculture is quite uncertain in terms of its output for its heavy dependence on nature. It should also not to be forgotten that quite a reasonable market is shared by non-agriculture class but again their dependence on agriculture class can not be denied in rural areas.

Study clearly indicates that single largest age-group of respondents is 21-30 years as 36.7 per cent of rural consumers belong to this category and they are followed by 31-40 years category as 30.7 per cent of the respondents have their share in this group. A significant number of respondents also belong to the category of above 40 as they form 28 per cent share in this age-bracket. The share of the respondents of 20 years and below is quite low as only 4.7 per cent are among respondents. lies in the age group of 21 to 40 years. So, this category constitutes the most important target for the marketers to direct their marketing efforts. Occupation plays a vital role in shaping consumers’ consumption pattern, decision making and mode of purchase in case of durables e.g. businessmen may have different decision making process and purchase pattern than that of a farmer. The table 1.4 illustrates the distribution of the respondents on the basis of their occupations. Table 1.4 depicts that agriculture dominates among the various profession in rural area as it constitutes 32.3 per cent of the sample, followed by agriculture and service and agriculture and business categories with a share of 22.7 and 21 per cent respectively. Service and business

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