Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Lessons for Rural Marketing from Delhi Elections 2014 and the way AAP fought it

This is a post dedicated to one of my gurus on rural marketing Sanjay Panigrahi​

What academicians and rural marketeers need to learn from Delhi Elections  2014..

1. Business as usual is always a strong alternative. Dont ignore it. 
The AAP moved closer to politics as usual - candidate selection (dodgy pasts) , maybe liquor and cash rewards (unconfirmed so far) ...fighting elections the way other parties fight it .

2. To innovate , go back to the drawing board.. 
Innovation for rural areas and the BoP segment in urban areas ( the electorate largely in delhi) needs new designs to be served..drop caste .. drop poverty don't idea talk development.. show tangible benefits - subsidies included ...security (women) modern amenities (wi-fi) , but more so an ability of the politician to get back on the dirt tracks of the real world away from the media and the ability to connect to the real masses who are not otherwise customers to markets, media and increasingly ignored by the government despite being consumers of services of all four.

3. To resegment the market 
The fault line is no more between the BoP and the RoP  (Rest of the Pyramid) but somewhere different.. there is need for a new segmentation that is not  hierarchical or linear.. security (women) , modern amenities (free wi-fi) , traditional urban amenities (water and electricity bill) , service based segmentation rather than age or caste based. especially realise that we don't have a unified culture or a single dominant culture in many parts of India .. we are still about diversity than dominance of singularity.

4. in the absence of clarity do not keep all eggs in one basket ..
resegment , redraw to innovate, use business as usual  use multiple strategies in an intensive focus to get benefits (multiple strategies within a cluster)

5. To focus intensively and learn before you expand..
Delhi had important lessons to teach before AAP can even think of expansion.. this intensive focus is essential for integration of marketing strategy.

6. to appeal to basic needs and qualities of human existence -
no not development but even more basic honesty , a corruption free framework, community feeling and collectivisation, the ability to listen rather than speak , and an earnestness that generates trust from people . ( all of these may be debatable but the lessons are there at least at the perception level) - especially important for rural marketeers.. for designing marketing communication

1 comment:

Nidhi Tewari said...

Good one.