SATHYABAMA UNIVERSITY

Ph.D Screening Meeting

Submitted By

P. RAMALINGAM

A Study on Brand Positioning over Rural Market

Research on market Perceptions & Brands Deliverables for Detergent Brands in Tamil Nadu

INTRODUCTION
There was a time when people only focused more on the price factor while choosing a product or

service.
But now, from shampoo to foot wear, people go for brands. The choice of selection depends on the societal & the esteem value the brand gives

to them.

BRAND POSITIONING
Brand: A package of value, on which consumers can rely to be consistently the same or better

over a period of time.

To succeed, the first step is to position or situate the

brand in the target consumers mind in such a way, in his /

her perception of the brand, it is distinctive and offers a persuasive customer value better than its competitors.

From Positioning: The Battle for Mind by Jack Trout with Al Ries

BRAND POSITIONING

Simply: Brand means PROMISE

THE INDIAN
RURAL MARKET

India lives in its Villages M.K. Gandhi

The Indian Rural Market

As per Census of India:

Population density <400 per sqkm

75% working population engaged in primary sector No Urban Municipality / Board This definition encompasses 68% of Indian Population in around 6,40,000 Villages

The Indian Rural Market

YOY, the Rural population is Increasing in numbers and decreasing in percentage

Features: Rural Market

Noticeable increase in rural income Government spending in rural India has tripled over the last four years and is now translating into higher consumer spending. 99 % of the villages have a primary school within 1 km walk DTH television connections in rural are more than double that of urban and have grown dramatically; Two out of five new mobile telephone connections are in rural. Rural consumers are consuming more premium and

convenience oriented categories that are typical of their urban

counterparts

Features: Rural Market

40% of rural market has road connectivity 30 more in coming decade

Increased standard of living due to the influence of urban

counterparts Decreased physical gap between rural people with urban

counterparts due to transport development

BPL decreased from 46% to 27%

Challenges: Rural Market

Diversified Heterogeneous characteristics: religion, caste, traditions, social hierarchy, language, literacy, occupation, income Low Population density Communication facilities Limited Media Choice: Low Newspaper reading low Logistics, Storage, Distribution: Credit facilities, Availability of distribution channels Imitation products

FMCG in Rural Market

Indias Rural FMCG Market will grow to $100 Billion by 2025 The spending power for FMCG in rural market has increased More than half the largest FMCG categories, rural India is now contributing more to their growth than urban reason Smaller packages Premium skin care brands typically associated with urban areas are growing nearly twice as fast in rural

FMCG in Rural Market

Even a mere 2.5 percent of villages, if selected correctly, can generate a 20 percent jump in sales growth A surprising set of priorities: In rural areas, education of children ranked second after having a good crop. On the consumption front, a third of rural consumers are eating biscuits for breakfast and one in six rural buyers of hair dye now uses colors other than black to indulge in the trend of externalized beauty that is picking up fast in rural areas. Seemingly urbane brands in categories like deodorant and fabric softener are growing much faster in rural India than urban

Detergent Market
Although the per capita consumption of detergents in India (2.7 kg pa) is comparable to some countries like Indonesia, China and Thailand (around 2 kg pa), it is lower than in others such as Malaysia, Philippines (3.7 kg) and the USA (10 kg). The Indian detergent market is expected to grow at 7-9% pa in volume terms High consumer awareness and penetration levels will enable the

market to grow at an average 8-10% per annum with slightly higher

growth in the rural areas. Higher penetration stems from popularity of low-cost detergents. Hence, besides increase in per capita consumption,

there is tremendous scope for movement up.

Detergent Market
HLL dominates the premium segment, Nirma is the leader in the popular segment. HLL, Nirma and P&G are the major players in the market with 40%, 30% and 12% share, respectively in their segment.

Purpose of the Study

It has come to light that over 500 new brands of laundry bars and

over 200 washing powders have mushroomed in the year 2010 in

local and regional markets. These price-warriors, small in turnover figures but large in numbers, are said to be gnawing at the market

shares of leading national detergent brands, forcing companies to

rethink pricing strategies. According to AC Nielsen's data for all India (urban + rural), national washing powders witnessed a volume degrowth of 4.8% in 2010, while regional powders grew by 40.7%. But the most notable thing is that most of the regional brands has a very poor life time.

Purpose of the Study

Any where in the rural market, local brands imitating the leading

corporate brands are available in plenty. This creates a confusion in

the mind of the consumer while purchase / leads to go for a wrong purchase. For Ex: An imitated brand for Rin could be like Rln, which

has no difference for a rural consumer who is just a literate. This will
definitely create mismatched/bad experience over the original brand, about the performance of the product. Also the market characteristic is typical to the core comparing to the urban counterparts and hence it becomes very tough to arrive for a common positioning.

Scope of the Study

To position a brand in the rural market, the companies attempt

many approaches to create a friendliness towards a purchase,

easiness in consumption and finally making the value for money feel.

It is the key task for every brand to come first in the mind of a
consumer while he / she is going to purchasing a product. In a market where people are heterogeneous, low literate and where word of mouth dominates, every brand happens to occupy the position in the rural household after a chain of tedious strategic exercises only.

Scope of the Study

So the thing is that every brand needs to position itself in the market to have a concrete loyal consumers in the rural market. Hence the researcher has the motive of investigating to analyse the

mind of rural consumer about the perceptions & expectations over

a satisfying detergent brand for making loyalty in his / her mind. Then to analyse the marketing movements, brand building activities

of the brand towards the rural consumer.

And finally correlating these two things to find the gap, if there, for making a perfect brand positioning.

THANK YOU