“Market” research

Another perfect mild night in Samod, Rajasthan, the lightest of breezes blowing as we debate whether the big lizards catching insects under the lights qualify as authentic geckos or not.

I am recovering from learning about the definition of “cool and refreshing” to your average Indian. I purchased some “cool and refreshing” Jaljeera drink mixes at one of the single-cigarette vendor stalls; it looked like a “cool and refreshing” lemony kind of drink. The instructions also said you could add “more lemon” as required, so it sounded somewhat promising. It ended up, however, tasting like the equivalent of a curried egg dissolved in cold water, which was as difficult to finish as it sounds. I guess I should have been warned when I thought someone had farted after I opened the packet, but it was in fact just the smell of the spices that make up the concoction that is Jaljeera. Therefore the next 15 minutes that I spent trying to down said pickled egg also involved trying to decipher what this drink could possibly have to do with “cool and refreshing”. Certainly not much to do with my idea of refreshing which would have been the equivalent of the lemon thing I thought I was getting. It was some relief to learn that refreshing to an Indian means some sort of stomach refreshment rather than that to the palate…

Today falls under the category of why I love (and hopefully some would be bold enough to say ‘thrive’) working in a small, dynamic organisation so much: being in the position to do things you wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to do. Of course it helps when that small organisation is based in a small town in Rajasthan, India, and the opportunity involves something that would probably only happen in a few select areas of the world.

GreenOil are currently attempting to step up their marketing of their (ahem) revolutionary nano-tech vermi-compost, and that means trying to get their product into the minds of the average farmer in the surrounding area. So how do you do that?

Well, farmers have different time-clocks to the rest of us. They start work early (most of them before the sun comes up), even when they are doing something that doesn’t require them doing that, like transporting their produce to sell in the main vegetable market. So how do you work out how best to communicate your message to them? Well, unfortunately for those of us with those different time-clocks responsible for working out *how* to communicate that message, it means getting up with them and going to the same place they go- the main vege market.

Unfortunately getting up at 4:15am meant also relying on our compatriots to do the same, and we didn’t get to the market until about 6:00am. Kind of luckily, however, it was the day after a full moon. Why was that lucky? Because (and this is either partially accurate or complete bullshit, depending on which of my colleagues you talk to) according to Rajasthani Hindu belief, a full moon marks the time when the ghosts of your ancestors decide to pay you a return visit, and they don’t want to see you conducting any type of business when they drop by. So it meant that the market was ‘closed’ or that only 20% of the normal business was being conducted inside it. So it gave us a chance to walk around and see how a farmer might be fed the GreenOil Karishma (it means ‘Miracle’!) message.

How do you feed a Rajasthani farmer a message about miracles? A damn good question, and one that we are attempting to answer thusly: You plaster is on as many unused spots inside the market as possible, putting up banners, posters and you paint any unused bits of concrete. You “sponsor” the Chai stall (although my idea of having the stall guy make free Chai for every farmer was overturned- apparently you don’t give anyone free stuff in India because then they don’t value it- sounds vaguely familiar?… ;-) I can recommend his Chai if you’re even in the neighbourhood though)

So that’s our strategy- we are offering to make free signs for the wholesalers who buy vegetables as long as that sign can include our logo (kind of like the way Coke sponsors small take-aways), sweetening the deal by putting a picture of the wholesaler on it (after all, who would lose interest in a poster with them on it right?). We will go banner-crazy and paint every blank or decrepit wall. My “market” research involved trying to identify all lines of sight that I could in the market to work out which wholesalers we needed to approach. Whenever those stray cows get out of the way- you’ll see a Greenoil Karishma logo subliminally changing your obsession with chemical fertilizers ;-P

An early start and our whole Marketing strategy was decided by about 2pm- I’ll let you know how it goes next week. I presume you can tell I’m still loving it here…

Oh and BTW, anyone with any ideas on how to promote a new, unproven (at least from the farmer’s point of view) composting fertilizer to relatively receptive (and by receptive I mean willing to try new methods that will improve their productivity) is more than welcome to leave a comment.

Chalo!