INTRODUCTION
After entering into the reorganized
economic condition, traditional business concepts and strategies became obsolete
and the entire business scenario is facing a new kind of reform in which people
are provided with vast opportunities to choose the product or services they
want. Technology is the major player which opened the continuum of collecting
ideas, gathering knowledge and sharing of knowledge and ideas with people
around the world. Even though technology
paves a smooth way to identify, observe and understand the product and service
offerings, consumers’ mindset remains stagnant when they are practically approached
by the marketers. For consumers “Features” and “Benefits” are no more the
deciding factors. The rationality in consumers is slowly dominated by polished
emotional elements. For marketers, it
has been a toughest job to identify the emotional state of people to design a
marketing strategy. There was a time when the marketers uplifted the features
and benefits of their brands in all the promotional activities and gained
customers rapidly. But due to societal changes and technological breakthroughs
people are no longer interested in hearing the marketers’ shouting loud on the
brand’s features and benefits. Most of the marketers have convergent thinking
and apply the concept of rule of thumb which will not produce any answers for
questions like
i) How to take my brand to the
people?
ii) How to make them remember my
brand?
iii) How to convert the prospects
into customers and then to brand evangelists?
To arrive with effective answers the
marketers should be divergent thinkers and should possess perceptual fluency.
Because convergent thinkers are more likely to skip the emotional state of
people. Now there arises another big question, what is the relationship between
emotion and marketing a product or service? Eventually there is a great
relationship. Emotions are the greatest factors which make every human to act,
react and affect. If a person is emotionally connected with something it will
be very hard to forget and get rid of it. So if a marketer is smart enough to capture
the emotional elements of the target customers it will be easier to connect the
brand with them. And if the brand is tied up emotionally with the people there
is a high chance for the brand to capture a place in their minds. The process
of connecting the brand with the target customers is called as experiential
marketing.
Most of the marketers say that
putting customers first in all aspects of business will create a good customer
experience. For example: Timely response to customer inquiries, faster service,
round the clock services etc, which are only rational in nature and will not
give haunting, evergreen and live brand experience. More than half of the
customer experience is subconscious or subliminal and how a customer feels.
THE
RURAL SEGMENT
Almost 83.3% of people in India live
in rural areas with betterment of economic and social transformation, which is
the only proof that the rural segments show brighter signals to companies and
attract most of the business concerns to concentrate on rural market. The rural
market is considerably expanding to an extent which created confidence in the
marketers to focus more on the rural segment. However the rural market needs
separate concentration, examination and identification as it significantly differs
from the urban market. Dealing with rural consumers requires good understanding
and clear ideas on the total living pattern and buying behavior.
Source : (E-Estimate) AC Nielsen,
TechSci Research, Dabur Reports.
WHO
ARE RURAL CUSTOMERS?
Rural customers have some attributes
which are totally different from urban customers.
ON THE BASIS OF BASIC IDENTIFICATION
- People with low literacy level.
- Homogeneous in type.
- Highly traditional in nature which steadily influence the buying and consumption habit.
- Agriculture is the main occupation.
- Highly routine in nature. I.e. they tend to work even on Sundays.
- One fourth of the rural segment is with low per capita income. But increasing steadily.
- Have good savings habit, but in an unorganized manner.
ON THE BASIS OF MARKETERS’
PERSPECTIVE
- With low shopping frequency.
- Not brand addicted, but have great a sense of cost effectiveness on products they buy. Hence they are not brand loyalists.
- Totally trust on word of mouth of people who previously used a product or consumed a service.
- Highly price conscious.
- Durability of products matters a lot.
- Not attracted towards stylized glorification of products or services.
OUTLINE
OF EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING
Experiential marketing is a tool or
strategy which creates live brand experience that allows the consumers to feel
the brand and create a thick bond. It is an approach to make the brand reach
the consumers through real time two way interactions. Consumers are engaged
during the marketing process through any form of (live) events which acts as a
platform to interact with the brand. Generally activities are conducted as a
motive to create live brand experiences through interactive sensory
connections. Consumers are completely focused and engaged in a manner so that a
pure form of brand remembrance becomes highly possible. The consumers are made
to get emotionally connected with the brand.
EXPERIENTIAL
MARKETING FRAMEWORK
Experiential marketing involves in
creating an avenue to make the consumers get really closer to the brand through
some of the stimulus (Physical or Virtual) which results in positive enquiry.
When the consumers get closer to the brand they initially tend to know about
the brand (Features and Benefits) but only have assumption and not real
experience. Then the perceptual and sensory system of the consumers gets slowly
activated through activities and complete knowledge about the brand is
perceived. And the end process deals with feedback from the consumers who
experienced the brand which results in lead generation.
SCOPE
AND APPLICATION
1. As Experiential marketing never enclose
any information about the price and technical description about the brand at
the initial stage, the rural consumers first tend to experience the brand
lively and then decide the value of the brand on their own. So, if the brand
really meet or exceed their expectations it can be assumed that the product is
worthy for a rural consumer.
Assumption: Marketers can evaluate their
brand more effectively.
2. When the rural consumers try the
product with some extra activities, they never forget it as the campaign will create
real time flaunting experience. When the consumers are engaged effectively they
emotionally get closer with the brand and will identify the brand even after
decades whenever they see or hear it.
Assumption: No special effort is needed
to place the brand identity in the minds of rural consumers. Moreover there is
a chance that remembering the activity may result in the remembrance of the
brand.
3. The reality of the brand
(Attributes, Features and Benefits) will be directly experienced by the rural
consumers. So, the brand is taken very closer to the consumers without huge
investment and effort. All the campaign need is an only good sales personnel
team, and great activities.
Assumption:
Taking the brand very close to the rural consumers effectively with seamless
effort.
4. As the brand it taken directly to
the rural consumers, they will never hesitate to test it and give feedback. So,
the perceptions of the rural consumers can be easily noted at a shorter period
of time. There is a possibility to measure the intensity of the “likeable or
dislikeable” .
Assumption: The brand value can be
evaluated more effectively as the feedbacks are given only after pure
experience with the brand. This help in developing the brand image and take the
brand to the next level or the marketer can clearly understand the pit falls of
the performance of the brand.
5. The experience of the rural
consumers with the brand will be exclusively different. So the marketer can
analyze what type of experience can be provided and how it can be provided with
a new appeal.
Assumption: Instead of concerned with developing
the same benefits for a brand the marketer can think of adding new attributes
and create value to the brand.
6. When the rural consumers gain
some wonderful experience the message of such events will surely be conveyed
and shared with the rest of the people around the vicinity. Brand information
will be transformed quickly to others who may turn into prospective consumers.
Assumption: The messages are transferred in a
rapid phase. The company can save promotional cost up to an extent. More over
the reachability of the brand image to a larger geography becomes simple but
effective.
CONCLUSION
If a brand is experience oriented and
if the brand is emotionally connected with the consumers then it is always
considered as unique, and the brand will surely take a place in the minds of
rural consumers. The marketers can focus on long term trends and expand their
views on adding more values to the users. The experiential marketing strategy
is non conventional in nature. Hence it can be applied to any type of product
and service offerings. When a company adopts the experiential marketing
strategy it can focus on long term sustainability.
