Marketing with a human touch

When Neeru, a resident of Manoharpur village on the outskirts of Agra, attended a driving camp conducted by Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) a few days ago, nobody thought she would learn the ropes and start driving a tractor so soon.

But M&M’s technicians made sure she and many other girls do that in style. Neeru even took Agra’s Mayor for a drive in the tractor. M&M has been doing this for a few weeks now under its “Nayi Disha, Nai Soch programme”.

Mahindra Group Vice Chairman & MD Anand Mahindra says an initiative like this isn’t just another corporate social responsibility programme. “Yes, it is our way of giving back to society. But it can be profitable too. Can you imagine the impact such a programme has on a rather conservative social milieu? The emotional connect with the parents of these girls or the villagers who attend such camps will also serve another useful purpose. When they decide to buy a tractor, chances are they will opt for an M&M tractor,” he says.

Like M&M, a host of companies have woken up to the fact that apart from making a significant impact on people’s lives, their social contributions can be profitable too. So the backward backwaters are now at the forefront of big corporate thinking.

Take the eco-friendly Pattori village in Madhepura, Bihar. After the village was wrecked by the Kosi river two years ago, the Mahindra Foundation & Mahindra Consulting Engineers (MACE) stepped in to rebuild the village by setting up disaster-resistant dwellings with all social infrastructure facilities like water supply, sanitation, solar lighting, an amenity building, cattle sheds, machaans (raised resting platforms) and so on. To keep costs in check, MACE ensured the extensive use of locally available materials and skill sets and employed the local workforce.

M&M is now using this experience to build ultra low-cost housing in other parts of the country as a profitable venture.

Examples like these are the reason companies are increasingly saying that marketing with a human touch is the way to go, specially in remote villages. Ask Godrej & Boyce. For Chotukool, its nano refrigerators, the Godrej group junked the traditional model of a proprietary channel with a sales force and a distributor-dealer chain. The company has joined hands with micro-finance institutions and has gone in for an innovative scheme which can serve two purposes: give employment to local villagers to increase their participation in the success of the project and keep the venture profitable by keeping distribution costs low.

So the bullock cart stops in one of the dusty alleys in Osnamabad, a small town in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra and two village girls, dressed in traditional Marathi Kasta Saree, step out in style with the products they have helped co-create with Godrej engineers. The quality of the sales pitch of these girls, who have passed Class 10, would do an MBA proud. For, they know the products well, as the company involved them right from the conception stage to designing and marketing Chotukool.

There are other innovations galore. While Google is developing online bulletin boards that can be used by villagers who don’t know how to read or use a computer, companies like TVS are using programmes like Women on Wheels that trains women to ride two-wheelers. As a part of this campaign, TVS has set up driving learning centres called TVS Scooty Institute at its dealerships where girls over 16 years of age can take a week’s training for just Rs 350.

Since women account for more than 70 per cent of Scooty sales, the campaign, positioned as empowerment of women, was a smart move. The strategy – train and sell – is also in tune with a TVS-IMRB research study which found that any girl who learns to ride on a certain brand of bike would invariably like to buy the same brand — the training being a big influence on purchase decision.

The study also showed that while it is normal for men to lend their bikes to their male friends who want to learn how to ride, women face stiff resistance from even family members. What makes it worse is that there aren’t many formal two-wheeler training centres in the country. The findings prompted the company to set up the Scooty Institute.

Since most two-wheeler sales are in small towns, TVS launched the institute in areas with population of 100,000 to 500,000. The women undergoing training are in the age group of 18-25 and who don’t want to depend on family members or the public transport system for commuting.

TVS is now planning to scale up the programme, under which dealers approach girls’ schools and colleges to offer training in riding two-wheelers. Studies have shown that one in every five students has bought a TVS brand within three months of the training.

Showing that we care has never been so profitable.