The real India lives in the village. Rural marketing is the new buzzword as the new marketing mantra for the survival and the growth of and the success forcing companies to go rural. These statements tell the importance of rural marketing for the survival and the growth of any marketers and is supported by the facts given below-

The total FMCG market is in excess of US$16.4 billion and is set to treble from US$11.6 billion in 2003 to US$33.4 billion in 2015. It is currently growing at 14%. With 12.2% of the world population living in the villages of India, the Indian rural FMCG market is something no one can overlook.

MarketingMix :
Marketing mix refers to the set of tools used by a company to promote and sell its brands or product in market.
“The most important decisions, and indeed the essence of the marketing manager’s task within a company, are decision about the controllable marketing variables: termed the 4Ps: product, price, place and promotion.”
On contrary to the traditional 4P’smodel, some of the marketers are adopting the 4A’smodel, which is considered to be more customers oriented. As per figure 2, “The4A’s of rural marketing mix i.e. Affordability, Availability, Acceptability and the Awareness have been now universally accepted both by practiconers and the academicians, as touch stone for the success of any product/ business strategy in the rural market. What 4P’s are to main stream marketing, the 4A’s are for the rural marketing.”

Marketing Mix –The HUL Way:

How far should a giant company go to understand poor customers in faraway markets? How does such a company manage to sell its product profitably to hundreds of millions of people, dispersed and isolated, with hardly any disposable income to spend? How does it develop brand loyalty in markets where, for generations, people have chosen to buy the product that was cheapest or the