Abstract:

In countries such as India, where about 70% of the people live in rural areas, the rural market holds a lot of marketing potential. There is a wide difference in the standard of living between urban and rural India. In order to launch products in the rural market and develop advertising that reflects the rural ethos, there is a need to understand both the rural context and consumer. This paper details how a social research technique known as the participatory rural appraisal (PRA) was adapted to commercial research and used along with conventional focus groups to yield rich data for marketing and communication development.