Vritti i-Media Silver Partners at the 4th Annual Rural Marketing Strategies Conference

4th Annual Rural Marketing Strategies Conference

Vritti i-Media are proud to be the Silver Partners of the 4thAnnual Rural Marketing Strategies Conference by marcus evans, a leading global strategic business events firm. The event will be held in Juhu on the 21st and 22nd of July 2011 and the theme is ‘Establishing a cost effective reach model and prying into rural consumer behavior to fully optimize the rural potential’.

The 4th Annual Rural Marketing Strategies Conference brings together top level industry professionals that are looking to overcome the numerous challenges that they are faced with while marketing to rural areas and discover ways and means of innovative marketing and sales methods that will aid in effectively reaching out to the rural populace. The chairpersons at the conference are R V Balasubramaniam, Vice President, Reliance Industries and Benjamin Mathew, Partner & Co-Owner, MART. Speakers include representatives from ITC, Godfrey Philips, Tata Tea, Nokia, HDFC Bank, Acer and other such prominent companies.

Mr. Veerendra Jamdade, CEO Vritti Solutions Limited, a first generation entrepreneur and a reputed rural market expert with over two decades of experience in the rural spaces will be the keynote speaker at the event and will share inputs on how corporates and brands can effectively reach out to rural consumers in India.

Some of the topics that well be discussed at the event will include deciphering the behavior and psychological mindset of the rural consumer, creating brand awareness in media dark areas using traditional media and innovative ideas to appeal to your rural consumer, customising your products and services without diluting the quality to capture your rural customers and also acknowledging the purchasing power of your rural consumer.

audio ads at bus stopsWhere would we be without the current advancements in Technology? Cell phones, televisions, internet? It’s hard to imagine our lives without technology these days, even if we were to take out just one of the above. In fact, right from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed after a long, hard day, it is ‘technology’ that makes our life easier.

Technology is applied everywhere. What man once did with his hands, is now done with a simple press of a button. Right from machines that dry our hands to machines that polish our shoes to machines that heat up food, yes, we’re talking about the Microwave, everything is possible with the help of technology. The same can be said about the role technology plays in media content delivery.

audio advertisements at bus stops

Messenger Pigeon

We’ve come a long way since the times of the kabootar and the messenger of the early days and other so called ‘ancient’ forms of communications. Nowadays delivering a message by means of technology is the proverbial ‘piece of cake’. There are so many effective mediums that are on offer that serve the purpose of sharing information, that too quickly and efficiently. Media content delivery through the television, radio, audio ads has shown that delivering content to the masses is no longer a task that needs to looked at as cumbersome. It can in fact be used to such perfection and with such ease that the message can be delivered to the right target audience, at the any place and at any time.

Audio ads at bus stops, for example, depict exactly how technology can be used to effectively deliver media content to the masses and ensure that the message is heard by the right target audience. Just one of the many advancements that allow for technology to play a role in media content delivery.

rural marketing

Audio Keeps You Happier

Tuning into the radio makes people happier and gives them higher energy levels than watching TV or browsing the Internet, a new study has found. The study conducted in Britain showed, that based on a survey, radio came out n top, beating both TV and online, with respondents recording a 100% lift in happiness and 300% boost to their energy levels when listening to the radio.

Watching TV and surfing the web boosts peoples happiness and energy levels but failed to come close to the positive radio listening has on a person’s well being. The study found that listening to the radio increases peoples happiness levels almost twice as much as watching TV does and gives them four times the amount of perceived energy.

rural marketing

Audio Ads

Similarly radio triumphed peoples feeling when they were online, especially in the energy stakes. Those listening to the radio said that they felt three times more energetic than they did when browsing the web. A separate part of the study also used brain scans to further monitor people’s reactions to radio. Having mentioned the wave activity in six persons’ brains (three men and three women), the results showed radio stimulates positive brain engagement levels and they are more responsive to audio advertisements preceded by editorial content.

It just goes to show that audio as a medium when it comes to advertisements in the form of audio ads can be extremely effective, especially if it is the form of a catchy tune or jingle.

Veerendra Jamdade, CEO, Vritti Solutions adds, “This is an interesting finding which is applicable to a universal set of audience. It’s as simple as music makes people happy. In India, the oldest mode of audio media is radio. Over the years, radio has been developed as an interactive mode of communication. It has connected to millions of audience and the impact has been far reaching. Advertisers have realized the potential and look for innovative ways of using audio as a medium to communicate with consumers. The findings of this report validate the growing interest of advertisers in the audio medium. Innovative use of this medium can not only facilitate greater audience engagement but also assure higher brand recall.”

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Vritti i-Media successfully marketed Lemon Mobile through their Digital World Audio Network (DW AN). The jingle was used as the audio advertisement at bus stops and was played at regular intervals.

Vritti i-Media was felicitated with 3 awards at the prestigious Outdoor Advertising Awards 2011 held at the 7th Annual Outdoor Advertising Convention (OAC) 2011 on 18th June 2011 in Mumbai. They won the gold award in 2 categories, creative award for single execution in Transit Media and zonal media owner of the year for West region along with a Silver award for best format innovation for new media.

Gold – Transit media– Awarded to any single execution on any transit format including airports, bus stations, railway stations and all types of vehicles including those created specifically for the purpose of advertising.

audio advertisement

Gold and Silver Awards received at the Outdoor Advertising Awards 2011

Vritti won it for its iconic ’Lokmat Campaign’ which was conceptualized by the team for the Lokmat media group. Every morning at 6AM a jingle was released on Vritti’s audio network on MSRTC bus stands saying “Aajacha Lokmat Vachalat Ka?” (“Have you read today’s Lokmat?”) followed by three to four headlines from the newspaper.  Vritti i-media’s unique features of being on-line, dynamic content change, mandatory audibility and presence in the market place were fully utilized in this campaign to derive maximum mileage for the brand.

Silver – Best Format Innovation – New Media – Awarded to outdoor media concessionaires who have created new and innovative advertising formats.

Vritti has introduced two new advertising formats for “Audio advertisement over Passenger Information system at State Transport bus stands” and “Audio-Video advertisement over Passenger Information system at Highway hotels”.

 

Gold – Zonal Media Owner of the Year – West – Awarded to concessionaires who have media presence in the West zone

The award is a reflection of the strength of Vritti’s medium and the power it holds to revolutionize Out Of Home (OOH) communication in India.

Vritti were selected as winners by the jury who consisted of Punitha Arumugam – Group CEO – Madison Media, Ajay Kakar – Chief Marketing Officer – Financial Services – Aditya Birla Group, S Yesudas – Managing Director, Indian Sub-continent, Vizeum (Aegis Group), Rameet Arora – Senior Director Marketing – McDonald’s India, Praveen Vadhera – Country Head – OOH – 141 Wall Street along with other eminent industry professionals from some of India’s most reputed organizations.

audio advertising

Mr. Rajesh Radhakrishnan, Director HR & Marketing and Mr. Veerendra Jamdade, CEO & Director Technical, Vritti Solutions

Since 2005, The Outdoor Advertising Awards (OAA) have been celebrating the achievements of media planners, concessionaries, printers, creative agencies and brands who have added a new dimension to the Indian OOH industry. The OAA honor those who have contributed to contemporizing, energizing and leveraging the possibilities in OOH for best effect. In its seventh edition, OAC 2011 was conceptualized around the theme, ‘Think Tomorrow’. Headed by Mr. Shashi Sinha – CEO – Lodestar Universal India, the event brought together industry stalwarts to discuss the opportunities ahead and the best course of action to move the outdoor advertising industry forward as a whole.

This medium is fast emerging as the most engaging and cost effective medium to reach out to the rural audience as compared to hoardings or other traditional media like newspapers and television.

 

audio adsVritti i-Media wins Gold in the ‘creative award’ and ‘media award’ categories for single execution in Transit Media and zonal media owner of the year – west (India) along with along with 1 silver award for Best format innovation in New Media at the Outdoor Advertising Awards 2011

Lokmat used Vritti i-Media’s audio network in 4 different locations across Maharashtra at MSRTC bus stands for a period of 3 months starting January 2011 and achieved great results 

"Rural Marketing, Vritti"

LUX

HUL wanted to create awareness about Lux Sandal and cream bathing, a new variant of Lux Soap among consumers in the tier 2 and tier 3 cities. This variant of Lux was meant to target the ladies of Maharashtra where Sandal, or chandan as it is popularly known, is considered to be very good for the body and makes the skin softer. As a result any soap made of chandan sells easily in Maharashtra. HUL wanted for there to be an increase in recall about Lux Sandal and Cream soap in the target market as opposed to competitors in the same category as well as an increase in the market share of Lux Sandal and Cream soap in tier 2 and tier 3 cities by highlighting the benefits of using this soap.

For meeting their objectives, HUL approached Vritti i-Media to run their campaign. Vritti i-Media along with their DW Audio Network which is a unique, innovative and cost-effective digital technology enabled media delivery solution that enables companies to market and advertise their products and services to Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities and rural markets in the form of audio advertisements. Vritti i-Media have also been appointed as the sole Authorized Agency by MSRTC to run commercial audio advertisements that are played along with the buses arrival/departure announcements on public address systems at bus stands across Maharashtra.

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The audio advertisement jingle was created and ran for a duration of 30 days from the 15th of December to the 15th of January. HUL wanted to have all the ST Bus stands that were under Vritti i-Media and therefore the same jingle was run across all of the 85 bus stands under Vritti i-Media without any changes in the advertisement. This included urban, semi urban and rural locations like Pune- Narayangaon, Solapur- Barshi, Kolhapur, Marathwada – Beed and Vidarbha – Yeotmal.

Once the ads were aired, it could be seen that there was a positive response from the target market. A survey was done on 100 women at bus stops to test the response of the audio ads. The survey focused solely on the women present at the bus stand. The findings showed that there was a deeper emotional connect to Lux Sandal and Cream than compared to other soap brands and women preferred using it rather than other soaps.

"rural Marketing" "rural advertising"The survey pointed out that the amount of people using Lux Sandal and Cream was at a very high level which was 71%. The soaps fragrance and color were found to be the most liked attributes. 19% were of the opinion that the soap had a good effect on skin and made it smooth and soft. Even amongst non users of the soap there were favorable comments as a great deal of them confirmed that they would like to try Lux Sandal and Cream soap.

Thus Lux were able to use Vritti i-Media’s DW Audio Network to tap the rural market and enhance their presence in rural areas resulting in a larger brand recall and market share.

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Mr. Mahesh Sachan, Marketing Manager, Tafe/ Eicher Tractor heaps praise on Vritti i-Media and shares his thoughts on how beneficial the audio ads at bus stands have been for Eicher.

Mr. Nilesh Landge, Sr. Manager, Operation and Corporate Business, Vritti Solutions tells us how i-Media can help a brand reach its rural audience and can customize the message to each region.