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[Abstract] Companies are always looking for tools and ways to increase the brand visibility and communication. Brand communication to the consumers is always an important marketing goal of marketers. In doing so, they spend a lot through their marketing services firm, which provides the advertising and communication services to the client firms. Most of the marketing services firms bill their client heavily mainly due to using easily deployable medias, like TV, print papers, etc. But in South Asian countries like Bangladesh, there are many rural or semi-urban areas which are traditionally media poor and have little access to print. Companies can use point of purchases (POP), like retail outlets and surroundings, for brand communication. The author personally visited some rural and semi-urban areas as part of the distributors' sales representative team and pointed out some simple, cost-effective ways to effectively reach the customers, such as brand communication.
[Keywords] brand communication; rural marketing; brand visibility; cost effective techniques; retail outlets
Introduction
Brand communication to the consumers is always an important marketing goal of marketers. Brand visibility is one major way to communicate the brand. Companies are always looking for tools and ways to increase the brand visibility and communication. In doing so, they spend a lot through their marketing services firm, which provides the advertising and communication services to the client firms. Marketing services firms are very good at convincing the clients with their high-sounding media plans. They convince the client firms, mostly a bit less smart in judging the show of the marketing services firms, about the necessity of spending lots of money in the media - TV, radio, bill- boards on the streets, the internet, and others. All companies, especially small manufacturers, cannot afford to compete on the basis of media expenditure.
But the important point to raise is that there are many areas in rural and semi-urban landscapes of Bangladesh which are not media reach. Understandably, exposure to the multi-channel television, the internet, and print newspapers and magazines, is quite low (this is a pretty obvious fact locally known in Bangladesh; statistics from various sources would confirm this situation). So, using these media channels for brand communication cannot be that effective.
So what can be done to utilize this scenario? How...