Hero Honda takes rural road to up sales

The two wheeler market leader plans to cover 100,000 of the 600,000 villages in the country by the end of this financial year under a campaign named Har Gaon, Har Aangan (every village, every household).

Anil Dua, senior vice president (marketing and sales), Hero Honda, told Business Standard that the motorcycle market dipped by 12 per cent in 2007-08. "If some leading players reported a sharp sales drop in 2007-08 and we had a flat growth, it only means we have done better and improved our market share." Hero Honda has a 54 per cent share in the Indian motorcycle market.

Dua, 42, who spent the first 16 years of his career with FMCG major Hindustan Levers and a year with shaving products manufacturer Gillette, said the rural initiative was started seven months back and is fast gaining momentum. "We have so far covered a few thousand villages. Most of the ground work in terms of collecting data on demand and spending pattern in our villages is done by our dealers," he said.

Hero Honda has 3000 dealers and service outlets in India. The rationale for this rural initiative is simple, said Dua. "The two-wheeler penetration in the urban market is 25 per cent, while it is only 10 per cent in the villages, where 70 per cent of India lives," he explained.

This new initiative, internally referred to as "HGHA", has been supported by marketing strategies. "Rural elders have been roped in to communicate our message to prospective customers. In villages, the opinions of people such as village panchayat heads and teachers are taken seriously," he said.

This is not the first time that companies have adopted rural-centric marketing plans in India. FMCG majors including Hindustan Lever and Proctor & Gamble implemented similar plans many years ago.

Within the automobile industry itself, Maruti Suzuki launched panchayat schemes in March 2007 under the banner