Emerging Rural Mobile Market in India

The Indian mobile market has continued to witness rapid increase in its subscriber base over the past few years, largely due to the declining mobile tariffs and availability of low cost handsets in the country. The country saw addition of an average of around 10 Million subscribers per month in its mobile subscriber base during 2008 with penetration approaching saturation in urban India. With this, mobile operators in the country are now vying rural India as their next area for growth in the near future. Meanwhile, a number of mobile handset manufacturers have been working to cover the untapped rural mobile market, which will be the major driver for Indian mobile market in coming years.

According to the latest study on sector called, “Emerging Rural Mobile Market in India”, the mobile market in rural India has significant potential with number of subscribers anticipated to grow at a CAGR of around 32% during 2009 to 2012. The report thoroughly discusses about the factor which will drive the growth of rural mobile market over the forecasted period.

The research highlights that the success mantra for rural mobile market in India lies in the operators’ service pricing models coupled with the availability of low cost handsets that support affordable access for rural areas. It is forecasted that sales of mobile handsets in rural India will grow at CAGR of around 17% from 2009 to 2012. Availability of low-cost battery efficient handsets will drive the future sales in this segment.

Posted on September 9, 2009 by market report

Source:http://www.articleshub.org/article/2017/Emerging-Rural-Mobile-Market-in-India.html

Precautions for Social Media Campaign

5 social media campaign killers

Campaign killer No. 1: Putting tactics ahead of strategy
You come to work one morning, and there's a forwarded email newsletter from someone in executive management sitting in your inbox, accompanied by a single question -- "What are we doing on Twitter?"
It doesn't have to be Twitter. It can be any social media vehicle. The problem arises when that simple question causes a major fire drill within marketing to figure out Twitter without the benefit of an overarching social media strategy.

Marketing departments often experience a lot of pressure to operate both reactively and tactically. After all, every moment that you're not on Twitter represents an opportunity for a competitor to figure out how to leverage the channel to steal market share.
Additionally, if senior management asks about a specific vehicle, it's usually because they think there's some merit in being there -- why disappoint? Further, many companies have difficulty figuring out who should be in charge of social media within the organization. Someone else from another department (customer service? corporate communications?) could propose a Twitter program before marketing does and end up steering social media programs going forward.
If any of these things are going on within your company, it's tempting to try to figure out the tactic before the strategy is in place. Don't.

An approved social media strategy is a must before any significant programs go live. Without it, companies can't effectively evaluate vehicles, figure out how their contribution to the mix builds the business, or measure their effectiveness. In such a vacuum, tactical programs can at best hope to be dismissed as mere experiments or at worst be deemed dismal failures that didn't produce favorable ROI.
Of course, if you already have a social media strategy in place before the questions come, dealing with them is relatively easy.

Campaign killer No. 2 :Dishonesty
Here's one of the fundamental axioms behind Underscore's playbook when we give social media advice to clients. If the client refuses to adopt it, we stop work:
You will never use [social media] to:
· Obscure the truth
· Spread an untruth
· Propagate rumors with a reckless disregard for the truth

It's a strong stance to take against dishonesty, but it's best for everyone in the end. Why, though?
Putting aside any ethical issues for a second, the internet follows a model where millions of people can contribute their own commentary and fact-checking to any two-way dialogue. In a distributed fashion, skeptics will quickly discover and tear apart any factually incorrect statements or attempts to mislead.
If you were to use social media techniques to propagate a statement that your company made $50 million in sales last year when you really made $20 million, know that there's no shortage of internet users who will refer back to publicly available information to refute your claim and call you on the carpet for making it. Continuing to assert an untruth when you should be copping to a mistake will just make it worse.

Campaign killer No. 3 :Commitment issues
You usually hear the term "commitment issues" in relationship advice columns, but I use this term to describe a social media campaign killer that can be particularly deadly.
Most social media vehicles require an indefinite commitment on the part of the marketer. That is, once you turn the mic on, it's difficult to turn it off without experiencing some form of backlash from people who want to interact with a brand or company. Thus, it's absolutely critical that marketers understand the magnitude of their commitment to the social space before they make it.

Abandoning a Twitter account, even if it's just for a few weeks, can cause speculation about your commitment to followers and fans. Just like you might wonder what happened to a friend who suddenly stopped posting Facebook status updates after months of telling you what he's up to every 15 minutes, people wonder what happened to brands when they suddenly stop contributing.

The best way to ensure that commitment issues are addressed is to give marketers a very detailed picture of what the commitment to a given social media vehicle will entail. Will opening up the channel require near-constant monitoring? How about the expectation of frequency of posting? What percentage of posts will be expected to be brand news and what percentage will be conversation with brand fans? What's the expectation for brand turnaround if someone asks a question? 24 hours? 24 minutes?

These are all critical questions if a marketer is to adequately understand what commitments are necessary to adequately leverage a particular vehicle. They need to be asked up front, and just as importantly, they need to be part of a cost-benefit analysis so that marketers can ensure individual vehicles don't become money pits that gobble up needed resources faster than anticipated.
It's also key for marketers to understand what could happen if they suddenly do need to turn the microphone off for legal or for other business-critical reasons (a change in control of the company, perhaps).
Failure to do so could result in mismatched expectations between the brand and the brand's fans.

Campaign killer No. 4 : Excessive adspeak
You know corporate happy-talk when you see it. So does everybody else.
If you doubt the ability of the average Joe to spot adspeak and immediately filter it out, just load a web page on your favorite ad-supported site and make note of how quickly your brain figures out which page elements are editorial and which are advertising. Or maybe look to your email inbox and think about how intuitive it is to the human brain what is signal and what is channel noise.

People use the internet to communicate with human beings, not ad copy. That's why the most successful campaigns in the social media space are built around the personalities of people who work at the company, not the company mascot, a ghostwriter, or some other surrogate for the real thing.
No offense to the copywriters reading iMedia Connection, but when our brands speak in the social media sphere with scripted ad copy, they do two things:
1. They set off our advertising early warning systems, which blunts the message severely and turns people off, and
2. They send a secondary message that the brand views social media as a one-way medium in which the consumer's voice isn't heard.

When we don't speak in authentic voices, it can be counterproductive to a brand. People who seek to connect through social networks do want to align with brands that they like, but this doesn't mean the right approach is to slap up a brand page filled with adspeak.
Remember that social media is all about conversation, not polished, one-way ad messages.

Campaign killer No. 5 :Trusting automation over human beings
This is a tough one for marketers. When dealing with the sometimes overwhelming volume of conversation, our tendency is to want to automate things rather than expend human resources on looking at all the bits and pieces. In many cases, this can be a pitfall.

Don't get me wrong -- in many instances, automation can be good. For example, the use of listening platforms like Radian6 or Cymfony to find relevant brand conversations is a good thing. But we can't automate everything.
Look what happened to Skittles, for example. The brand launched a multi-faceted social media campaign in which people who tweeted about Skittles could find their tweets featured on the Skittles homepage. Before I proceed with my critique, I should say that the Skittles people had their hearts in the right place. Featuring naked conversations about a brand on its own homepage is a step in the right direction with respect to transparency and authenticity.
Which road was it that was paved with good intentions?

Rather than focusing on having an authentic conversation about the brand, enthusiasts and detractors alike found more value in trying to get their mention of the brand on the Skittles homepage. Once they figured out that the technology being used simply posted mentions of the brand to the homepage without prior restraint, the floodgates opened and the emphasis shifted toward using the Skittles homepage as a bullhorn.

Your brand fans know when you're automating things. And it can be a message to them that they're not worth conversing with. It's a neat idea to, for instance, auto-retweet any mention of your brand via your company's Twitter feed, but people quickly figure out this is going on, and the griefers and brand detractors will quickly exploit this.
The rule of thumb is this: If you're considering using automation as a substitute for conversation, don't.

Conclusion: There's a common thread running through all of these campaign killers. They can all be avoided by having a comprehensive social media strategy in place before considering any specific vehicles. If that strategy is aligned with the basic tenets of the social media sphere -- transparency, authenticity, and dedication to conversation, it's comparatively easy to steer clear of the pitfalls.
Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/24000.asp

we are looking for matchboxes..

Rmai wants to archive communication material available at local level, match boxes, packs, soap wrappers, posters, merchandising material...if you think it is unique ,click/scan /post it to us...Best entry may win the prize....

How do you read this budget..

If I am to go by the vernacular press, it seems Pranav da has opened the bag for rural India. What do you make out of this budget? your views are important to us, write in to us and let the worls know what you think..

New Age Solution for Analysing Rural Market

http://www.gisdevelopment.net/application/business/mi03031.htm

Interesting Market Statistics

Here are some interesting market statistics sourced from some leading business dailies and magazines .

Market size of Indian Egg Market : Rs 10,000 crores
Source:Economic Times ( ET) July 26 2008

Total Mobile users in India : 270 million
Source :ET 24 June 2008

Mobile Ad market size : Rs 40 crore
Source:ET 24 June 2008

Courier Market Size : Rs 5000 crore.
Source:ET 26 June 2008

Indian mobile handset market size : Rs 15,000 crore
Source:ET 26 July 2008

Indian Taxi business market size : Rs 9000 crore
Source:ET 23 June 2008

Number of Taxis in Indian roads : Approximately 2,35,000
Source:ET 23 June 2008

Number of electric scooters in Indian roads : 1.10 lakh
Source:ET 23 June 2008

Kid's Apparel Market in India : Rs 27,000 crore.

Organized Kids apparel market : Rs 500 crore
Source:Business Line

Indian stationary market size : Rs 9000 crore
Source:Business Line July 31 2008

Notebook ( paper) market size : Rs 3000 crore
Source:Business Line July 31 2008

Home Interior market size : $ 9 billion

Magazine Advertising market size : $ 302 million
Source:Business Line July 31 2008

Indian Wine Market : 1 mn cases
Source:Economic Times

Pencil Market size in India : Rs 400 crore
Source:Business Line 31 July 2008

Printer and Copier Market size : Rs 1800 crore
Source:Business Line 31 July 2008

Wedding Management Industry Market size : Rs 400 crore
Source:ET July 31 2008

Uniform Industry market size : Rs 10,000 crore
Source: ET 31 July 2008

When rural market has potential,then what is stopping marketers??

The Census defined urban India as - "All the places that fall within the administrative limits of a municipal corporation, municipality, cantonment board etc or have a population of at least 5,000 and have at least 75 per cent male working population in outside the primary sector and have a population density of at least 400 per square kilometer.

"Rural India, on the other hand, comprises all places that are not urban!"
Facts:
The Indian rural market today accounts for only about Rs 8 billion of the total ad pie of Rs 120 billion, thus claiming 6.6 per cent of the total share.
53 per cent - FMCG sector,
59 per cent durables sale,
100 per cent agricultural products

When one zeroes in on the companies that focus on the rural market, a mere handful names come to mind. Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) is top of the mind with their successful rural marketing projects like 'Project Shakti' and 'Operation Bharat'.
The lynchpin of HLL's strategy has been to focus on penetrating the market down the line and focusing on price point. Furthermore, activating the brand in the rural market through activities, which are in line with the brand itself, is what sums up HLL's agenda as far as the rural market is concerned

Amul is another case in point of aggressive rural marketing. Some of the other corporates that are slowly making headway in this area are Coca Cola India, Colgate, Eveready Batteries, LG Electronics, Philips, BSNL, Life Insurance Corporation, Cavin Kare, Britannia and Hero Honda to name a few.

Until some years ago, the agenda for rural market was to take a short-cut route by pushing urban communication to the rural market by merely transliterating the ad copy. Hence advertising that is rooted in urban sensitivities didn't touch the hearts and minds of the rural consumer.

While, this is definitely changing, the process is slow.

The greatest challenge for advertisers and marketers continues to be in finding the right mix that will have a pan-Indian rural appeal. Coca Cola, with their Aamir Khan ad campaign succeeded in providing just that (yara da tashan).

Corporates are still apprehensive to "Go Rural." A few agencies that are trying to create awareness about the rural market and its importance are O&M Outreach, Sampark Marketing and Advertising Solutions Pvt Ltd, MART, Rural Relations, Linterland and RC&M, to name a few.
Also, the first four agencies mentioned above have come together to form The Rural Network. The paramount objective of the Network is to get clients who are looking for a national strategy in rural marketing and help them in executing it across different regions.

Interestingly, the rural market is growing at a far greater speed than its urban counterpart. "All the data provided by various agencies like NCAER, Francis Kanoi etc shows that rural markets are growing faster than urban markets in certain product categories at least.

"In 2000, ITC took an initiative to develop direct contact with farmers who lived in far-flung villages in Madhya Pradesh. ITC's E-choupal was the result of this initiative."

Clearly the main challenge that one faces while dealing with rural marketing is the basic understanding of the rural consumer who is very different from his urban counterpart. Also distribution remains to be the single largest problem marketers face today when it comes to going rural.
"Reaching your product to remote locations spread over 600,000 villages and poor infrastructure - roads, telecommunication etc and lower levels of literacy are a few hinges that come in the way of marketers to reach the rural market

Citing other challenges in rural marketing, Campaigns have to be tailor made for each product category and each of the regions where the campaign is to be executed. Therefore a thorough knowledge of the nuances of language, dialects and familiarity with prevailing customs in the regions that you want to work for is essential.
The other challenge is the reach and the available means of reaching out to these markets, hence the video van is one of the very effective means of reaching out physically to the rural consumers."

The fact of the matter remains that when compared to the Indian urban society, which is turning into a consumerism society; the rural consumer will always remain driven by his needs first and will therefore be cost conscious and thrifty in his spending habits.
"Decision-making is still conscious and deliberated among the rural community. But nevertheless, the future no doubt lies in the rural markets, since the size of the rural market is growing at a good pace.

"Although the melting of the urban - rural divide will take a while, this is not for want of the availability of the means but for want of the rural consumer's mindset to change; which has its own logic, which is driven by tradition, custom and values that are difficult to shed," he points out.

For HLL, a one rupee or a five rupee sachet or the Kutti Hamam (the small Hamam) helps in giving the consumers a trial opportunity. While it does help in generate volume but not in terms of values. "Till the time that volume - value equation is managed better, the CPC (cost per contact) is preventing anybody to look at rural at a large scale activation programme

So the fact remains that the rural market in India has great potential, which is just waiting to be tapped. Progress has been made in this area by some, but there seems to be a long way for marketers to go in order to derive and reap maximum benefits. Moreover, rural India is not so poor as it used to be a decade or so back. Things are sure a changing!