India is a land of great contrasts. On the physical front, the country’s northern border is marked by the barren, snow-capped Himalayas, south of it lies the low, fertile Ganges Plain, the west is made of the Great Indian Desert, while the eastern region, in sharp contrast, is the recipient of some of the highest rainfall in the world during the monsoon. Cultures, traditions and habits of people of each of these regions have developed around the resources they enjoy and hence, the differences between them are as vast and different as the physical terrain they occupy. Linguistic, religious and economic differences have only added to the diversity of this second most populous nation in the world. The urban-rural divide is another manifestation of the existing contrasts in the country. Rural India, home of more than 70 percent of the country’s population, is considered to be the largest rural market in the world. Yet, corporate houses in India, for long, neglected this vast potential market, because of the inherent difficulties associated with catering to such a large, scattered and diversified consumer base. Factors like low standards of living, people’s traditional outlook, and socio-economic backwardness only aggravated the marketers’ lack of inclination to reach out to the rural poor. They preferred, instead, to make profits from the large margins they receive by selling to the elite categories living in urban areas. However, increasing competition and saturating Indian urban markets have now forced companies to seek out rural markets that promise to be an extremely viable alternative. Very few companies have really managed to understand and exploit these territories with success. Undeterred though, many companies like HLL and ITC have used innovative strategies to win over rural customers with great success.
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