paper by Jane Swinney and Chunmin Lang, Oklahoma State University, explores rural communities branding efforts and suggests the need for involvement of ...
Guest Editorial Rural Marketing: Marketing to the Rural, Poor, or Disadvantaged Consumers
The meaning of the word ‘rural’ is multi-dimensional. ‘Rural’ has been viewed in at least four different ways (see Pandey 2001; Halfacree 1993; 1995): urban–rural dichotomy view; census view; socio-cultural view; and rural as a state-of-mind. Most of the emerging economies of the world are predominantly ‘rural’ in characteristics. The meaning of rural and urban in the marketing context was debated as early as 1938 in a short paper which appeared in the Journal of Marketing by Meserole (1938). The author argues that the rural-urban is not a dichotomy but a continuum, and the Census classification of ‘rural’ on the basis of population number isn’t helpful to marketers as it gives no consideration to the overlapping ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ characteristics. This was also probably the call for marketing researchers to incorporate ‘rural’ in their research and knowledge building. Unfortunately, this hasn’t happened. Marketing researchers continued to build marketing tools, techniques, concepts, frameworks, theories keeping the urban markets and western consumers in focus.
Rural markets have played a significant role in growth of the emerging economies. In India, the economic growth in the last two decades and governments’ focus on rural economy boosted consumption and production levels in the rural India, albeit, in uneven fashion. As a result, business organizations which were focused on rural markets were the least affected by the recent economic recession, for the rural markets were largely insulted from the global economic factors. The McKinsey Global Institute (Ablett et al. 2007, p.79) report forecasts that in the next twenty years, India’s rural market will be larger than total consumer markets in countries such as South
Korea or Canada today. Marketers and researchers have come to realize that ‘rural’ could no longer be ignored which has generated a considerable interest in ‘rural marketing’. It has led to a number of books written on rural and emerging markets and a number of conferences being organized around the theme. The ‘rural’ context poses many challenges to marketers, such as low-income, absence of basic marketing infrastructure, subsistence living, irregular income and demand patterns, dependence on agriculture, high social stratification, lack of social mobility, and traditional value orientation. In India, the term rural marketing has been variously interpreted and referred to as marketing of agriculture produce, marketing of agro inputs, marketing of rural crafts, and more recently as marketing of consumer goods to the rural poor.
Rural space, markets, and consumers are a lot more heterogeneous than their urban counterparts. At the same time, in emerging countries, ‘rural’ is also vulnerable, disadvantaged, marginalized, poor, and ignored. In this sense, ‘rural’ is a metaphor representing the poor, disadvantaged, and marginalized. Should marketing activities in rural space be any different than in the urban space? There is a great deal of knowledge deficit when it comes to the marketing activities involving ‘rural’ either as a consumer or producer. Much of the existing marketing scholarship has focused on marketing of consumer goods to the rural or urban poor in emerging countries. This sometimes also gets referred to as Bottom of Pyramid (BoP) marketing. What is required is that existing marketing knowledge and goals be reevaluated and reconstructed to benefit ‘rural’. Future research in rural marketing should build knowledge, theories, concepts, and frameworks, which would benefit ‘rural’. Rural marketers have to be more careful about externalities and impact of their marketing activities on ‘rural’. The need for such knowledge is not only faced by
commercial marketers but also by other significant actors in rural space, such as nonprofit and voluntary organizations, government agencies, collectives, and multilateral bodies.
This special issue was conceived from the need to stimulate thinking on rural marketing. The hope was to build conceptual frameworks that would shape and encourage future research in the area. The objective of the special issue gets reflected in the choice of articles which have conceptual bent.
The first paper by Aneel Karnani from Ross School of Business, The University of Michigan draws our attention to the limits to markets of the poor. He discusses the examples of businesses that have adverse impact on the lives of poor and argues for setting constraints on free markets in order to protect the vulnerable consumers. The second paper in this collection looks at the problems of establishing market in rural areas using conceptual framework of institutional and evolutionary economics. Written by Abhinandan Saikia, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Guwahati Campus) and Saradindu Bhaduri, Jawaharlal Nehru University, the paper observes that mainstream arguments have ignored the roles of historical trajectory and social norms in emergence of market in a rural area. They argue that transition to market economy would require altering interdependent system of governance-production and education in such a way that it establishes individualistic values and rights on which the logic of market is based. The third paper by Jane Swinney and Chunmin Lang, Oklahoma State University, explores rural communities branding efforts and suggests the need for involvement of local inhabitants in cocreation of community brand. The fourth paper by Ben Walmsley, University of Leeds, builds on the developmental perspective of rural marketing (Modi, 2009) and examines how theatre spaces
and audiences differ in rural and urban communities. The fifth paper by Jaqueline Pels, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, uses the Service-Dominant logic to examine three Argentine cases of organizations serving the underserved markets of the poor. The sixth paper by Ramendra Singh, Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta, Vaibhav Gupta, Delhi Technological University and Akash Mondal, Indian Institute of Technology-Madras explore the Indian Jugaad or frugal form of innovation, and illustrate it as a survival strategy of the poor. The seventh paper by Pingali Venugopal, XLRI-Jamshedpur, examines the urban orientation of rural consumers and finds that rural consumers’ purchase behavior can be inferred from their urban orientation. The eighth paper by Mithileshwar Jha, Indian Institute of Management – Bangalore, traces the evolution of rural marketing in India from agriculture orientation to more recent developmental orientation. He proposes holistic rural marketing orientation as a framework for furthering rural marketing knowledge and practice. The ninth article by Pradeep Kashyap, President, Rural Marketing Association of India, presents a practitioner’s perspective on the growth of rural sector in India and how companies can prepare themselves for success in rural marketing. Finally, in the book review section, Sandip Anand, Xavier Institute of Management and Susana Costa E Silva, Universidade Católica Portuguesa present brief yet lucid reviews of the book Fighting Poverty Together authored by Aneel Karnani and published in Palgrave Macmillan in 2011. I do hope that this special issue would stimulate fresh thinking and research on rural marketing.
Pratik Modi Institute of Rural Management Anand
References:
Ablett, J., et al. (2007). The Bird of Gold: The Rise of India’s Consumer Market. McKinsey Global Institute Report. URL http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/publications/india_consumer_market/index.asp (visited 2010, Dec. 10).
Modi, P. 2009. ‘Rural Marketing: Its Definition and Development Perspective’, International Journal of Rural Management, 5 (1): 91-104.
Meserole, W.H. 1938. ‘What do you mean – Rural and Urban?’, Journal of Marketing, 2 (3): 223-235.
Pandey, V. N. 1996. ‘Discourses on Rural: A Re View’, IRMA Working Paper 101, Institute of Rural Management, Anand, Gujarat.
Halfacree K. H. 1995. ‘Talking About Rurality: Social Representations of the Rural As Expressed By Residents of Six English Parishes’, Journal of Rural Studies, 11(1): 1 – 20.
Halfacree, K.H. 1993. ‘Locality and Social Representation: Space, Discourse and Alternative Definitions of the Rural’, Journal of Rural Studies, 9(1): 23 – 37.
