Name: Priyanshi Jain

Roll Number: 18BABBA256

Course Name: Marketing of Goods and Services
Course Code :18BBAM52 (B.B.A)

Question 1)
What are the major challenges in rural marketing? If you are the marketing manager
of an Indian telecommunication company with strong roots in the urban market,
which types of marketing strategies would you like to use to penetrate the rural
market?

Answer:

1) Poor or improper communication facilities

Most villages even today largely depend on telegrams and phones for their
communication needs print media and visual media[Television cinema] etc reaches
only a small percentage of rural Indians. Even today, most villages in the country are
inaccessible during the monsoons. A large number of villages in the country have no
access to telephones.

2) Many languages and dialects:

The languages and dialects vary from state to state, region to region and probably
from district to district. Since messages have to be delivered in the local language, it
is difficult for the marketers to design promotional strategies for each of these areas.

3) Low levels of literacy:

The level of literacy is lower compared with urban areas. This again leads to a
problem of communication in these rural areas. Print medium becomes ineffective
and to an extent irrelevant, since its reach is poor.

4) Low per capital income

Most farmers have small lands and many villages are brought prone, this result in
low per capita income. Low per capita income results in low consumption pattern as
compared to the urban population. The marketers faces challenges in rural
marketing to decide about quantities, frequency of distributions, package size etc…
due to the low per capita income of the rural people.

5) Ineffective distribution channels

The distribution chain is not very well organized and requires a large number of
intermediaries, which in turn increases the cost and creates administrative problems.
Due to lack of proper infrastructure, manufacturers are reluctant to open outlets in
these areas. They are mainly dependent on dealers, who are not easily available for
rural areas. This is a challenge to the marketers.

6)Transport
Many rural areas are not connected by rail transport. Many roads have been poorly
surfaced and got severely damaged during monsoons. The use of bullock carts is
inevitable even today. Camel carts are used in Rajasthan and Gujarat in both rural
and urban sectors.
These are rural marketing strategies.

1) Product Strategies
a) Product Launch: The rural consumers earn a lump sum amount two times a
year according to the crop cycle. Therefore the product must be launched only
in these harvesting seasons, i.e., rabi and kharif.
b) Brand Name: Brands are gaining significance in the rural markets as the
people are becoming aware and informed. However, in these markets, brands
are recognized by the simplicity of their name, visual logos, taste and colour
of the products.

2) Pricing Strategies:
a) Differential Pricing: The pricing strategy for the rural markets should be
different from that in urban markets. The product should be priced slightly
cheaper to grab the attention of rural consumers.
b) Schemes for Retailers: Rural retailers are the most significant medium of
sales in the village. The companies must come up with cash discounts, gift
schemes, offers and quantity discounts to build the loyalty of such retailers
towards the brand and increase product sales.

3) Distribution Strategies:
a) Local Markets: In rural areas, local markets exist in the form of fares, farmers’
market, Sunday market and feeder market. Here, rural people gather to buy
goods and communicate with each other.
b) Retailers: The most straightforward way a rural consumer can acquire a
product is through a retail shop located in the village. Therefore, companies
must plan their supply chain management in such a way that the goods are
regularly made available to these retailers.

4) Promotion Strategies:
a) Personalised Media: It can be seen as hiring a salesperson for performing
door to door sales and collecting information and queries related to the
product and the brand.
b) Hiring Models and Actors for Promotion: Rural people are fascinated by the
television actors and models and consider them as their role models.
Therefore the marketers must engage famous faces in their tv commercials to
promote the brand.
c) Advertise Through Paintings: The rural consumers are attracted towards the
bright colours and the pictorial representation of the products; hence, wall
paintings are a good idea in the rural markets.

Question 2)
“Country of origin (COO) plays important role in consumer buying decision in
personal care product markets in India”. Are you agreeing with this statement?
Answer with suitable example.
Answer:
In the period of market globalisation, global trade has changed immensely. Country-
of – origin play a significant role in global marketing as it has created huge market
opportunities for both firm and countries around the globe.

Many companies are venturing in overseas market as they would benefit from a
larger market share and lower cost of the goods and hence, these companies have
to mention about the country-of-origin on the label of their products so that
consumers can know where the goods originate from.
the quality of foreign brands was perceived to be generally higher and superior to
local brands. Most consumers also associated greater accessibility of foreign brands
in the
Indian market with better quality at lower prices.

Despite high levels of nationalism and preference for indigenous manufacture, as

evidenced in high factor ratings on an ethnocentrism scale, which might indicate a
positive bias towards local brands, Indian consumers were not prejudiced against
foreign brand names. In fact, they evaluated them higher on technology, quality,
status and esteem than Indian brands, and attributed higher credibility to those
countries-of-origin.

Products with foreign brand names are frequently associated with the country-of-
origin (COO) of the brand. The promotion of such brands means, either emphasizing
the COO as has been the case with “American Jeans”, “Marlboro” cigarettes, “Italian
pasta”, and French perfumes such as “Channel” or alternately, ignoring the COO
depending on the perception of consumers in the foreign country market. Numerous
firms have used positive associations with the COO to good advantage in the
marketing of goods as for example, the favourable association of Germany with
beer, Sweden with cars, and Japan with microelectronics.

However, if the COO stereotype is negative, it can pose formidable barriers for
marketers attempting to position their goods within a foreign market(Johansson et
al., 1994). In yet other cases, there are product categories not distinctively
associated with any COO image as in the case of the car industry, where it has been
less easy to market global brands such as “Mercedes”, “Audi”, “Toyota”, “Jaguar” for
which brand images have developed quite apart from their COO, and which do not
use their national COO association in their promotion and marketing strategies.

Consumer awareness of low technology, consumer non-durables categories like tea,

coffee, chocolates, shampoos and detergents, and toothpastes, elicited low
awareness levels. Respondents were also not clear as to which brands of tea or
coffee were foreignor Indian, and were not particularly concerned about finding out
either. Thus, according to them, “Babool” was an Indian made toothpaste because of
its indigenous “ayurvedic” composition but they were not really sure if “Close Up” or
“Pepsodent” were Indian or multinational brands of foreign companies.

Question 3)
“Endorsement of multiple brands by “Amitabh Bachchan” will dilute his credibility as
an endorser in India markets”. Are you agreeing with this statement? Answer with
proper justification.

answer:
celebrity endorsement is a popular attempt by the marketers to create greater
recognition for the advertisement and more importantly the brand. In the Indian
context, the concept of celebrity endorsement is growing rapidly in the recent years.
It is a fact that single celebrity endorsing multiple products / brands in Indian context
and number of such instances are growing year after year.

Indian celebrity endorsement for various product / services centres around

Bollywood actors such as Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan, and cricket players
such as Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni. In the recent times, a school of thought
developed in the Indian retail industry on celebrity endorsers.
In particular, the advertising industry started preferring the stars from film industry
over cricketers due to the fact that their recognition surpasses one hit or a flop film,
unlike the cricket players whose brand value changes with each tournament and
sometimes with matches.
The popular Bollywood film star Amitabh Bachchan is seen to endorse brands like
Cadbury, State Bank of India (SBI), Pepsi, Dabur, and Nerolac; First Cry etc. Thus, it
is very evident that the Indian media and entertainment industry, particularly the
television commercial sector is in the process of engaging the single celebrity
endorser for multiple product categories. celebrity endorsements for Fast Moving
Consumer Goods category provided evidence that celebrity acts as an important
factor to create interest in the minds of viewers rather than various components in
the advertisements such as message, background set etc.

Significance of negative information of the celebrity endorsers and its impact on

brands endorsed. Till and Shimp (1998) found a strong associative link of the chosen
celebrity and the product endorsed failed to recognize the negative information
presented about the celebrity endorser. Further they found that celebrity evaluation
and product evaluation are in direct relationship with each other; if the celebrity is
evaluated more favourably, resulted in more favourable evaluations for the product
category he/she endorsed and vice-versa.

study reported that the number of products endorsed by the celebrity and the
number of exposures to the celebrity operate independently on consumers' attitudes
and number of exposures to the celebrity neither enhances nor disguises the
multiple product endorsement effect; moreover, the study reported that expertise
would be less affected by multiple product endorsements than trustworthiness.
However, in the current study, there are evidences that importance attached to
expertise factor varies with product category (high value vs. low value).

In recent decades, multiple brand endorsement by Indian celebrity endorsers is

common, which bring the concept of celebrity over exposure. In spite very large
number of products/brands endorsed by the celebrities, the celebrities were given
high acceptance rating by the respondents (Patra & Datta 2010). It is also pointed in
many literatures that the endorsement of a poorly perceived brand can decrease
consumers' perception of the celebrity's attractiveness, trustworthiness, expertise,
and credibility.
multiple product endorsement shall have negative attitude towards advertisements,
which could potentially harm the attitude towards product/brand.