Introduction:

Rural marketing involves the process of developing, pricing, promoting, distributing rural
specific product and a service leading to exchange between rural and urban market which
satisfies consumer demand and also achieves organizational objectives.

It is a two-way marketing process wherein the transactions can be:

1. Urban to Rural
2. Rural to Urban
3. Rural to Rural
Rural marketing requires the understanding of the complexities. Indian agricultural industry has
been growing at a tremendous pace in the last few decades. The rural areas are consuming a large
number of industrial and urban manufactured products. The rural agricultural production and
consumption process plays a predominant role in developing the Indian economy. This has
designed a new way for understanding a new process called Rural Marketing.

Reebok in India:
Reebok started its operations in India in 1995. Headed by Managing Director Mr. Subhinder
Singh Prem, Reebok had branch offices in Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore and ranks at the top
amongst international footwear companies in India. Reebok reaches out to its target customers
through its 500 exclusive Reebok Stores, 200 Shop in the shop outlets & 2500 dealer outlets.
Reebok has the single largest store in Hyderabad. Reebok is planning to add 55 new lifestyle
stores by the end of this year. It offers different segments for both men and women like sports
and fitness footwear, apparel, accessories, fitness equipment and the lifestyle section.
4 P’s approach of Indian Urban Market

The marketing mix or the 4 Ps of Marketing are Product, Price, Place (distribution) and
Promotion. Reebok's 4Ps are the following:

Reebok Product Mix

Reebok offers a wide range of Footwear, Clothing and Accessories for both Men and Women. In
the footwear product mix it offers in Athletic, Casual and Court in a color range like black,
brown, grey, white, blue and pink. The footwear mix is offered both in men and women. In the
clothing, Reebok offers like jackets, tops and bottoms for both men and women for activities like
yoga, tennis, walking, fitness and training. Accessories like bags, sippers, caps.

The Reebok brand focuses on three product lines:

1. Rbk, Performance, and Classic
2. Rbk product line features street footwear
3. Apparel, and accessories.
Performance line includes apparel and footwear designed for basketball, running, fitness,
football, soccer, tennis, and other sports.
Classic lifestyle product line includes footwear and apparel products, as well as classic
reinterpretations. The company distributes its products to athletic specialty stores and other retail
shops, as well as to sporting goods stores, department stores, and shoe stores.

Reebok for Men: Reebok offers a wide variety of footwear for the Men. It constantly upgrades
its shoes with new Comfort levels and offers in various designs, colors, sizes and prices.

The various footwear from Reebok are: Reebok swing, Reebok cover point, Reebok sweep,
Reebok Verona, Dhoni Trainer, Smooth fit select ride, Hex ride radiate SF, Reebok supreme.

Reebok for Women: Reebok offers a wide range of women footwear. Reebok offers: Premier
kfg, Premier road plus, Verona, Hexride ready, Jungle low, Rang de Basanti, Rangela, Swades,
Black, Satyam Shivam Sundaram, Cirque du soleil boot, Easytone flips, Easytone go outside.
Price:

The prices of goods sold at Reebok.com are comparable to those sold by their retail partners, so
as not to take away sales and revenues from their traditional channel partners. Reebok’s pricing
is designed to be competitive to the other fashion shoe retailers. The pricing is based on the basis
of premium segment as target customers. Reebok as a brand commands high premiums.
Reebok’s pricing strategy makes use of vertical integration in pricing wherein they own
participants at differing channel levels or take part in more than one channel level operations.
This can control costs and influence product pricing.

Place:

Reebok shoes are carried by multi-brand stores and the exclusive Reebok stores across the globe.
Reebok sells its product to about 20,000 retail accounts in almost 200 countries around the
world. In the international markets, Reebok sells its products through independent distributors,
licensees and subsidiaries. It could be established in Pondicherry to the urban areas as making it
available in showrooms and outlets.

Promotion strategy

Reebok provides great deals on quality footwear, apparel, and fitness equipment for women,
men, and kids. Reebok sports and lifestyle products are built on a strong heritage, commitment to
creativity, and the desire to constantly challenge the status. The company uses various
promotional tools to bring awareness among its customers. It offers discounts, vouchers, coupons
and custom made sneakers on their products. Apart from this, there are celebrity endorsements,
road shows, sponsorship events, television commercials, print ads, billboards, alliance events.
Reebok had separated 15% of its sales for its advertising and promotion activities.

Media vehicles:-Reebok uses various media tools to promote its brand and create awareness
about the products. Reebok uses television commercials, print ads, billboards, online advertising,
sponsorship events and various advertising campaigns for its promotion.
Print Media Advertising:- Print Media Advertising consists of newspapers and Magazines. It
also includes outdoor bill boards, transit posters, the yellow pages, and direct mail.

Television Media
Reebok had joined hands with various Television channels for its commercials. Reebok
commercials aired during NBA Basketball games, TNT basketball games, ESPN basketball
games and ESPN’s Sports Center.
Reebok had enrolled various celebrities both from athletic and non-athletic background for its
television commercials. The various ad campaigns were started for every launch of their new
products. Time to time new commercials aired on TV. Several tie-ups were made with different
television channels for its advertising.
.
Reebok campaign
In 2008, Reebok commercial of “Your Move” ad campaign featured celebrities like Bipasha
Basu and Mahindra Singh Dhoni.
IN 2007, global campaign of “Two People in One”, television commercials include Rahul
Dravid.
In 2007, “Run Easy” campaign, Indian cricket captain Rahul Dravid and wicket keeper M.S.
Dhoni featured in the Run Easy television commercials.

Internet Advertising
Reebok.com sells the same products on their web site as they do in the stores, providing the users
more ways of getting what they want. Reebok.com has not done much to promote its web site,
but they do put their web site address at the bottom of all their television commercials and print
advertisements. With Reebok.com being international, the marketing message will have to be
localized and "the choice of offline media will be determined on a country-to-country basis
4 A’s approach of Indian Rural Market

The rural market may be appealing but it is not without its problems: Low per capita
disposable incomes that is half the urban disposable income; large number of daily
wage earners, acute dependence on the vagaries of the monsoon; seasonal
consumption linked to harvests and festivals and special occasions; poor roads; power
problems; and inaccessibility to conventional advertising media.

However, the rural consumer is not unlike his urban counterpart in many ways.

The more daring MNC’s are meeting the consequent challenges of availability,
affordability, acceptability and awareness (the so-called 4 A’s)

Availability

The first challenge is to ensure availability of the product or service. India's 627,000
villages are spread over 3.2 million sq km; 700 million Indians may live in rural areas,
finding them is not easy. However, given the poor state of roads, it is an even greater
challenge to regularly reach products to the far villages. Reebok, has built a strong
distribution system which helps its brands reach the interiors of the rural market.

To service remote village, stockiest use auto rickshaws, bullock-carts and even boats in
the backwaters of Pondicherry. Reebok, which considers rural India as a future growth
driver, has evolved a hub and spoke distribution model to reach the villages. To ensure
full loads, the company depot supplies, twice a week, large distributors which who act
as hubs.

Affordability

The second challenge is to ensure affordability of the product or service. With low disposable
incomes, products need to be affordable to the rural consumer, most of who are on daily wages.
Some companies have addressed the affordability problem by introducing less price shoes in
nearby shops in rural areas.
Reebok, among the first MNC’s to realize the potential of India's rural market, has
launched a variant of its largest selling shoes brand. Reebok has addressed the
affordability issue by introducing the returnable priced.

Acceptability

The third challenge is to gain acceptability for the product or service. Therefore, there is
a need to offer products that suit the rural market. One company which has reaped rich
dividends by doing so is bata.

The companies that have tailor-made products for the rural market have performed well.
The company tied up with non-governmental organizations and offered reasonably-
priced policies in the nature of group covers. With large parts of rural India inaccessible
to conventional advertising media — only 41 per cent rural households have access to
TV — building awareness is another challenge. The rural consumer has the same likes
as the urban consumer — movies and music — and for both the urban and rural
consumer, the family is the key unit of identity.

Awareness

Brand awareness is another challenge. Fortunately, however, the rural consumer has the same
likes as the urban consumer — movies and music — and for both the urban and rural
consumer, the family is the key unit of identity. However, the rural consumer expressions differ
from his urban counterpart. Outing for the former is confined to local fairs and festivals and TV
viewing is confined to the state-owned Doordarshan. Consumption of branded products is
treated as a special treat or indulgence.