RURAL MARKETINGRURAL MARKETING ACTIVITIES BY COLGATE PALMOLIVE

By,TEAM 3AHAMED SAFI K1311005MBAPRASANNA VENKATESH M1311066MBASRIRAM S (Absent)1311098MBAVIGNESH KUMAR V1311110MBAYASHWANTH BABU B S1313022PGDMJEFFREY JONATHAN JEYARAJ1313063PGDM

URBAN UNIT (OR TOWN)All places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee, etc. (known as Statutory Town) All other places which satisfied the following criteria (known as Census Town): A minimum population of 5,000 At least 75 per cent of the male main workers engaged in non-agricultural pursuits; and A density of population of at least 400 per sq. km

Number of Urban Units in IndiaTowns Census 2001: 5,161 Census 2011: 7,935; Increase: 2,774Statutory Towns Census 2001: 3,799 Census 2011: 4,041; Increase: 242Census Towns Census 2001: 1,362 Census 2011: 3,894; Increase: 2,532Source: Census 2011 Provisional Population Total - India

RURAL AREASAll areas which are not categorized as Urban area are considered as Rural Area

Number of Rural Units (or Villages) in IndiaVillages Census 2001: 6,38,588 Census 2011: 6,40,867; Increase: 2,279Source: Census 2011 Provisional Population Total - India

POPULATION BY RURAL URBAN RESIDENCEPersons Total :1,210,193,422 Rural:833,087,662 Urban:377,105,760Source: Census 2011 Provisional Population Total - India

Rural Urban Distribution Persons (in %) Total : 100.0 % Rural: 68.84 % Urban: 31.16 %Source: Census 2011 Provisional Population Total - India

POPULATION HIGHLIGHTS Out of the total of 1210.2 million population in India, the size of Rural population is 833.1 million (or 68.84% of the Total Population) Urban population 377.1 million (or 31.16%) During 2001 2011 the population of the country increased by 181.4 million Increase in Rural areas: 90.4 million Increase in Urban areas: 91.0 million

RURAL POPULATION IN STATESTOP THREE STATESABSOLUTESHARE*

Uttar Pradesh155.11 Million18.6%

Bihar92.07 Million11.1%

West Bengal62.21 Million7.5%

BOTTOM THREE STATES

Sikkim0.45 Million0.1%

Mizoram0.52 Million0.1%

Goa0.55 Million0.1%

Note: * - Share to total Rural Population in the countrySource: Census 2011 Provisional Population Total - India TRENDS IN RURAL URBAN DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION (IN %) (1901, 1951, 2011)

Source: Census 2011 Provisional Population Total - India

VARIATION IN RURAL POPULATION FROM 2001 TO 2011 CENSUSES During 2001-11 the growth of Rural Population has been 12.18% Growth in Rural Population in India is steadily declining since 1991 Meghalaya (27%) & Bihar (24%) witnessed largest growth among States in 2001-11 Four States recorded decline in Rural Population during 2001-11 These are Kerala (by 26%), Goa (19%), Nagaland (15%) & Sikkim (5%)

COLGATE PALMOLIVEThe Colgate-Palmolive Company is an American multinational consumer products company focused on the production, distribution and provision of household, health care and personal products, such as soaps, detergents, and oral hygiene products (including toothpaste and toothbrushes).

CORE VALUESThe three fundamental values of Colgate are: Caring Global Teamwork Continuous ImprovementCaringThe Company cares about people: Colgate people, customers, shareholders and business partners. Colgate is committed to act with compassion, integrity, honesty and high ethics in all situations, to listen with respect to others and to respect differences. The Company is also committed to protect the global environment, to enhance the communities where Colgate people live and work, and to be compliant with government laws and regulations.

Global TeamworkAll Colgate people are part of a global team, committed to working together across countries and throughout the world. Only by sharing ideas, technologies and talents can the Company achieve and sustain profitable growth.

Continuous ImprovementColgate is committed to getting better every day in all it does, as individuals and as teams. By better understanding consumers' and customers' expectations and continuously working to innovate and improve products, services and processes, Colgate will "become the best."

PRODUCTSOral Care Toothpastes Toothbrushes Toothpowder Whitening Products Mouthwash

Personal Care Body Wash Liquid Hand Wash Shave Preps Skin Care Hair Care

Household Care Surface Care

From the Dentist Gingivitis Treatment Sensitivity Treatment Tooth Whitening Fluoride Therapy Mouth Ulcer Treatment Speciality Cleaning

RURAL MARKETING ACTIVITIES BY COLGATEVarious marketing activities conducted by Colgate for rural area and rural people are as follows: Sampark Disha OHM- Oral Health Month Operation Red Storm Maha Tech Mela (Kumbh Mela)

SAMPARKCharcoal, neem sticks, husk, salt and powder mixtures have been some of the traditional form of oral hygiene products used in rural India. But these products are losing favour, especially due to the efforts of many organizations and companies, foremost among them, Colgate. The company claims to have persuaded about 300 million people into using oral hygiene products in the country for the last 25 years.Aggressive is the only word that could perfectly describe the advertising and sales promotion strategy of Colgate. Colgate stepped up its rural promotion drives with IDA (Indian Dental Association) to add value. This has been the stepping stone to the high penetration in rural minds. Since 1976, Colgate has been doing this through its rural promotion vans and Young India, Bright Smiles, Bright Futures, schools dental education program.After conducting a small research in the rural areas Colgate concluded with five things that were common in all their rural consumers across India, they were: Rural consumers are brand loyal They have disposal income (i.e. because their needs are limited, so lesser scope to spend) Literacy level is on an increase Elderly person in the family have the decision authority If a brand is turned down in a household in a village, the whole village sooner or later boycotts the brand

High quality products was always a plus point of Colgate all they had to do was to now tap the still unattended rural markets and change their habits i.e. from the usage of neem sticks and charcoal to toothpaste and tooth powder. In 1998, Colgate contacted 6 million people in 20,000 villages of which 15,000 villages had not experienced the availability of toothpaste and toothpowder let alone toothbrushes.Colgate decided to do this by controlling various advertising and promotional activities. Suggesting and implementing a rural promotional scheme was what Colgate called Sampark for, as they were specialist in rural advertising category.Sampark had limited budget to their disposal. Going in for mass media would not prove to be costly but the reach would be limited as, still only very few people own and possess a T.V. or a radio.Sampark wanted something that had far and wide reach that is why Sampark decided to their advertising by door to door selling. Sampark hired people from a certain locality who knew the local language, jargons and idioms. This not only helped Colgate communicate easily with the consumer but was also effective in sending the right message across to the rural consumer, the other plus point of this message was that the communication gap was reduced to a large extend. These people would move about in the villages telling the people about the pros of using advanced oral care products and the cons involved in tradition oral care system, this was quite difficult as rural people always felt that natural was the best. Colgate trained these salesmen to convince the rural population and make them try the free sample that Colgate was distributing free.

DISHADisha is a rural marketing program conducted by colgate to promote the product. Colgate saw the massive potential existed in the Haats across the rural areas. Haat is a market, especially one held on a regular basis in a rural area. Disha covered 47000 Haats which had a market size of US $ 1.0 billion (Rs. 623.45 Crores Approx.). Colgate used unemployed youth in rural areas to promote its product. By this way Colgate could a tremendous cost reduction of 1/100 of the conventional cost. Colgate covered a lot of villages which increased from 162 in December 2004 to 4620 in December 2007.

OHM - ORAL HEALTH MONTHAs the world leader in Oral Care, Colgate has always been at the forefront of initiatives that improve the oral health condition. With an objective to increase Oral Care awareness, Colgate-Palmolive spearheaded Oral Health Month (OHM), an annual initiative dedicated to spreading oral health and hygiene awareness throughout the world. Since its inception in 1998, the initiative has successfully reached out to millions of people across countries.The oral health condition among Indians is worse than other countries. A survey, recently conducted by IMRB International for Colgate-Palmolive (India) Limited reveals the following: A mere 2.5% Indians visit a dentist at least once a year compared to a global average of 48% 67% Indians have never considered a dental check-up 30% of the Indian population consults a dentist only if they believe they have a dental problem Out of those that do finally seek treatment for their dental problems, 1 in 3 have to get tooth extractions as generally it is too late to do anything elseIn India, Colgate-Palmolive in partnership with Indian Dental Association (IDA) has been conducting Oral Health Month since 2004 covering a wide spectrum of activities designed to spread oral health awareness and good oral hygiene practices.Oral Health Month has grown phenomenally in the past ten years and has emerged as a leading campaign for promoting oral health awareness in India. Owing to its success, since 2009 Colgate-Palmolive earmarked two months instead of the traditional one month, dedicated to spreading the message of oral health and hygiene. In 2012, October and November, the mission of this program was Mission Zero Cavity. Taking this initiative forward, in its tenth year in 2013, Oral Health Month focused on the mission to achieve a Healthy Mouth.In 2014, we took Oral Health Month to 1300+ towns with a total of 35,000 dentists with the theme of a Pledge for a Cavity Free Future. The two-month long oral care awareness drive covered in-clinic free dental check-ups, school contact programs, free dental check-ups in mobile dental vans, retailers outreach program and many more such activities to engage more than 5.5 million consumers.

OPERATION RED STORMColgate wanted to strengthen its rural initiatives. It launched a new village contact programme called as Operation Red Storm. Operation Red Storm covered nearly 35000 villages. It successfully seeded (Seeding Program) the products across all the markets in those villages using vans.A Seeding Program is a form of marketing, conducted in the name of research, designed to target product sampling towards selected consumers. In the marketing research field, seeding is the process of allocating marketing to specific customers, or groups of customers, in order to stimulate the internal dynamics of the market, and enhance the diffusion process.Operation Red Storm helped Colgate to collect valuable data on potential villages and the down trade channels. Operation Red Storm could counter HLL which has launched Rs 5 packs of Pepsodent Regular Fresh Flavour and Pepsodent White Family Flavour aimed at rural markets.

MAHA TECH MELA (MAHA KUMBH MELA)Big gatherings in India are the best place to find people altogether, especially in the rural areas. The Maha Kumbh Mela which is worlds largest gathering of humanity ever is the greatest show on earth. Hindu pilgrims turn up in huge number at the Maha Kumbh Mela. Big brands such as Eveready, Airtel, Coca-Cola, Alpenliebe, Honda, Britannia, Dabur, Lifebuoy, Idea etc. marked their presence at the Mela.Colgate was amongst them who had set-up its consumer interaction outlet in the form of a mobile booth. However, to stand out from the rest of the brands, Colgate had to do something different to grab the attention of the masses and make the interaction engaging and interesting. This triggered Colgate to think something apart from the usual clich traditional ways of marketing. Undoubtedly, there were several challenges that Colgate had to face and the solutions to which they discovered:

Challenge 1 What is the best media vehicle to reach out to them?Solution The ubiquitous mobile phone was the only medium that the pilgrims carried along with them always.Challenge 2 Most of the pilgrims belonged to low-literacy rural areas, so what could have been the attraction hook?Solution Colgate came up with the solution of implementing voice-based communication.Challenge 3 How could Colgate target millions of devotees who arrived from different parts of the country? How to know about their whereabouts?Solution Location based targeting was the option to which Colgate could resort to.

It was then that the Maha Kumbh Mela was turned into the Maha Tech Mela by Colgate wherein it tagged three cell towers around the Maha Kumbh Mela and created a virtual circle of 3-5 kilometres radius to enable precise targeting. With a limited budget of $8,000, Colgate had to put its best foot forward by being extremely strategic in its mobile marketing campaign.Thus, all those local Airtel subscribers or those roaming on Airtel connection who entered the virtual circle set-up by Colgate were targeted instantly. Furthermore, those devotees received a call personally from the legendary Indian radio personality Amin Sayani. While on the call, Amin would tell them to visit the Colgate booth and get Rs. 10/- small pack of Indias #1 anti-cavity toothpaste. Not only this, the pilgrims could even get a chance to win exciting prizes while having fun at the Mela.

Results Achieved by ColgateThe brand managed to conduct successful mobile marketing under a prescribed budget. This concept worked really well for Colgate and pilgrims in huge number turned up at Colgates booth. Thus, through the massive word of mouth publicity and personal call to the devotees enabled an altogether new avenue for the company to reach out to the consumers. Within the limited budget mount, Colgate successfully managed to interact with new customers, only through mobile marketing.During the Maha Kumbh Mela, Colgates strategic mobile marketing technique thus attracted foot traffic to such an extent that the visitors rate increased by over 300% of the pre-promotion period. All in all, this campaign attracted over 7,00,000 visitors.

CONCLUSIONColgate is one of the brands which has always rolled out high quality products. Whether it is urban market or rural market people have always asked for Colgate products from a particular category. But still Colgate doesn't want to leave the market untapped. It has always been well aware of the huge rural population of India and it has created a lot of initiatives for rural India which has been a great success. It has ensured to take out its competition in its each and every mission.TEAM 3Page 2