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CorporateCaseStudy

HariyaliKisaanBazaar

Corporate Case Study 2010

2010

HariyaliKisaanBazaar
Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar is a unique rural retail initiative based on building trusted farmer relationships. It focuses on creating a rural hub that makes agri, consumer products, and agriservices available to farmers in a fair, transparent and convenient format. Hariyali is the first company to implement such an initiative and the initial response has been very encouraging in terms of footfalls and conversion. It currently has over 280 such bazaars in operation across the rural domain of 8 states. The Hariyali Concept focused at increasing rural economy by providing free agricultural advice and bridging the last mile gap in the technical know-how. It also aims to build a relationship of trust, reliability and fairness and then, leveraging these relationships through one stop shop retailing. Each "Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar" centre operates in a catchment of about 20 kms. A typical centre caters to agricultural land of about 50000-70000 acres and impacts the life of approx. 15000 farmers. Today there are about 280 Hariyali outlets set up across eight states Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. The product and service portfolio of Hariyali are depicted below:

All of these products are customized to suit the regional flavor and demands. The trust farmers get from the agri products sold at Hariyali, has spilled over to the other offerings as well. Today they hold the same faith in the food and grocery, household as well as lifestyle sections. Also, IT has been a critical backbone to serve the chain of outlets. It is being used to provide online support on latest technical advancements, weather forecasts, mandi (market) prices, fair & transparent billing to farmers as well as in maintaining extensive farmer databases with micro information about the farmers' field to provide customized service to the farmers.

DontMisstheBuzz
It was first day for Tarun at office, and he had his first task allotment meet with Mr. Nirmal Branding and Marketing, HKB. Nirmal is a man whose core responsibility was increase the brand visibility and brand effectiveness of Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar. Tarun had done his homework, and knew Hariyali had a task in hand, in terms of marketing. Mr. Nirmal greeted Tarun, and started taking him through few company presentations. Tarun understood that the current focus of the marketing team at Hariyali is to create a strong recall value in the minds of consumers and non-consumers about brand Hariyali. The key focus of Hariyali is the bottom of pyramid and rural customers. From Nirmals presentation, Tarun got an idea that though Hariyali started as an agri-centric model, the non-agri categories like food and grocery, consumer durables and apparel were equally critical & it was important to develop a customer base in these categories. In the casual discussion that followed Nirmal explained to Tarun Hariyali had a major perception barrier which had to be worked upon. The non customers perceive Hariyali to be a shop only for the affluent, when the reality is Hariyali prices are lower than the average market prices. Another major issue was the lack of trails from the female section of society. Tarun knew the main competition for Hariyali, both in terms of sales and mindshare, came from the local kirana stores and local shops. A large part of the rural customers had still not made the mental leap from the kiranas to the modern retail format. Joh dikhta hai, woh bikta hai.., said Mr. Nirmal; and Tarun understood it was very important to keep Hariyali in the minds of the people consistently. Timely activities had to be planned, and executed in a phased manner. The brand Hariyali needed to be engraved into the minds of the rural population.

The Issue Fortunately or unfortunately, rural marketing doesnt work in the same way as urban. It is not easy to reach out to the rural masses via the conventional marketing channels like TV, newspaper and radio. Mr. Nirmal wanted Tarun to design a buzz marketing campaign for Hariyali, which would keep brand Hariyali in the minds or people, make them a part of their conversation, and eventually a part of their lives. Footfall to the outlets has to be increased, and somehow the BOP audience had to be convinced of the value Hariyali has to offer. Help Tarun make an implementable buzz marketing plan for the BOP mass, which would add to the brand value of Hariyali and increase footfall to the nearby outlets. Also keep in mind, if people dont see value in Hariyali; they wouldnt want to travel all that distance to reach a Hariyali outlet.

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