Kantar, the insights-primarily based consultancy business, along with GroupM’s experiential advertising and marketing unit- Dialogue Factory, on Thursday unveiled a Rural Covid Barometer Report. The report supplies a truth-primarily based point of view on customer sentiments, their consumption alternatives, and the behavioral alterations brought about by the pandemic.
The report highlights the emergence of new trends which will necessitate alterations in the way companies and brands connect with rural customers. Loss of earnings, socio-cultural norms, overall health and hygiene protocols, and reverse migration are some crucial challenges faced by the rural population in the course of the pandemic.
The report suggests that with 1 in 3 rural adults getting impacted by Covid-19, the rural economy is probably to take a hit. However, with fewer job losses and consequent reduction in the incomes of the affluent households, the general effect on rural consumption pattern is probably to be muted in the future. This presents an chance for the companies to sharply target their brands towards the upper finish of the rural customer spectrum.
Further, the rural Indian is balancing the spending budget by cutting on indulgence categories like cold drinks, prepared-to-consume snacks like chips, and so forth. and diverting the savings towards hygiene merchandise. The study highlights that rural Indians are currently far more concerned about their future nicely-getting particularly of the chief earners. With a comparatively weaker overall health infrastructure as compared to urban regions, the mindset of rural Indians is shifting towards monetary organizing. They are also thinking about acquiring overall health and other insurance coverage merchandise. This opens a big marketplace for the BFSI segment.
Like their urban counterparts, rural Indians are increasingly relying on digital solutions for their day to day activities. With the pandemic accelerating digital adoption, there is a massive prospective for companies and brands to leverage mobile as a medium to attain rural customers. Moreover, with commute getting restricted, the rural customer is now increasingly buying inside the village for their FMCG requirements. It is consequently crucial for the brands to concentrate on their distribution and final-mile connectivity given that solution availability in the neighborhood village retailers will considerably effect the brand alternatives of the rural shopper.
According to Dalveer Singh, head of experiential advertising and marketing- APAC, Dialogue Factory, Rural India has constantly had a greater degree of resilience which tends to make it far more confident for a fast recovery than the urban regions in the course of these unprecedented occasions. “This report speaks volumes on the new, defining values that are shaping rural India – resilience, planning for future, protection from falling sick and growing reliance on digital,” he added additional.
The report also highlights a deep sense of optimism concerning India’s financial future stemming from a healthier development in the agricultural sector and close to universal attain of targeted government applications. 75% of all customers claimed to have received at least one particular of the big government schemes for Rural India 66% claimed to have received no cost rations below PM Garib Kalyan Yojana.
“For businesses, we would recommend a regional prioritisation. We believe that Western India is likely to bounce back earliest. On the other hand, indications seem to suggest that rural South might take longer to recover as the impact of COVID 19 on employment has been more severe, which in turn has depressed the economic outlook of consumers in rural South. We see this as an opportunity for brands to deploy their resources across zones in a graded and phased manner. With 1 out of 3 rural migrants not planning to go back to urban India, we are likely to see a huge shift in rural consumption choices. This will also affect the availability of labor in urban India,” Puneet Avasthi, senior executive director, Insights Division, Kantar, stated.
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