ENO Cracks The Big Rural Opportunity

Despite massive presence across town tiers and socio-economic groups, the big growth challenge remains increasing penetration in rural areas. Eno has addressed the dual challenge of reaching the rural audiences in relatively media dark areas and building communication with rural consumers at the heart with a new campaign.

The 4G wave, driven by Jio’s aggressive expansion and the increasing ownership of phones has acted as an enabler for marketers, as it is now possible to capture the imagination of the rural consumer by serving audio-visual content through social platforms like Facebook and KaiOS, in the otherwise media dark clusters like UP, Bihar and other rural markets.

In September this year, the brand launched a new digital campaign on Facebook and Jio’s KaiOS platform, by targeting users in core rural markets of Bihar, Jharkhand, MP, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Orissa, garnering a massive reach of over 35 Mn viewers.

The methodology to drive this initiative was a first for any brand on these platforms - The village pin codes obtained from India Postal data were mapped to the Census of India and then subsequently combined with internal business KPIs to identify the right villages to target. These pincodes were than shared with Facebook to map the audience size available on the platfrom.

While reaching rural consumers was important, it was also critical to build communication that resonated with rural audiences. In a first ever for Eno, and a rare industry practice, a new Digital Video ad was created specifically for rural consumers with a key rural insight. In doing so, Eno addressed the core brand of establishing superiority over common home remedies and also extending the very successful “Gadbad Gadbad” creative platform.

Anurita Chopra, Head of Marketing, GSK Consumer Healthcare said “Growing Rural Penetration is one the key strategic tasks for Eno, something most brands have struggled with because the inherent challenges with traditional Media. Our idea was to expand our rural reach using the power of 4G Tech, in markets we never had before. Engaging with Rural audiences with relevant, localized content is a key pillar of the campaign.”