South Indian villages to experience mobile advertising

Mumbai: Consumers in Mumbai and other metros in India have got used to mobile product marketing, with long vehicles carrying advertising hoardings. It is now the turn of consumers in rural markets in south India to witness such ads.

Sanguine Media Ltd., a Chennai based specialised marketing promotions and events firm on Wednesday launched Samrat, a custom-designed vehicle for mobile product marketing and brand promotion initiatives,aimed at penetrating rural markets.

Based on a long wheelbase truck chassis, Samrat is designed and equipped with state of the art equipment specific to requirements for field marketing initiatives in rural areas. These include features such as IT equipment to help advertisers monitor their promotions in real time; 'ready to roll' audio-visual equipment with large screen projection; special sound and light equipment; stage for live events and game shows; modular design of space for mobile exhibitions accommodating at least 10 different brands on a single platform; and air-conditioned inflatable rooms for use by brand ambassadors.

D V Vinod Gopal, managing director and chief executive, Sanguine Media notes that Samrat is designed based "on our extensive experience in rural marketing promotions and understanding of the rural consumer. The design incorporates nuances that are effective, not only from the rural public's point of view, but also to facilitate field logistic support including storage space for products as well as promotional collateral and support props."

Samrat's modular design makes it possible to simultaneously promote up to 10 brands, enabling cost sharing among various companies. "Our field experience shows that single product promotions do not elicit as much response as multiple products do," he adds.

Samrat will also tap 'shandies' and 'melas' that are big cluster points for rural consumers. Three village markets can be covered in a day reaching out to about 12,000 people. Sanguine estimates that a fleet strength of 800 vehicles is required for covering every village each quarter in South India alone.

It can also be used as a rural distribution and retail vehicle. According to Vinod, Sanguine already has enquiries from multi-national financial majors to take their products such as IPO forms and insurance to rural India using Samrat.

Sanguine Media, a public limited company, acquired Godavari Ads, a specialised rural marketing and event management services company, in July. Godavari Ads has been servicing corporate clients like Coca Cola, ITC, GSK, Britannia, Dabur, Nestle, NFCL, GTC and Dalmia Consumer Care. Godavari has operated more than 85 vans a month for providing rural marketing services across South India.

Sanguine recently also took over Rohinie Media, a Coimbatore-based media company, which provides sales promotion, print media advertising and rural marketing activities to clients based in Coimbatore and Madurai region. The company aims to achieve revenues of Rs21 crore in the current financial year and Rs33 crore in 2007-08.