With the increasing role of digital media in rural marketing, agri-input industries find new challenges and opportunities in reaching out to farmers in a fast-changing technology environment.
Parijat Industries, leveraging the advantages of an associated Media Production Firm (LRCF) and technology company (Parijat Innovations), intensifies use of its engagement with digital media such as YouTube, WhatsApp and regional Cable networks to reach out to farmers and dealers nationwide.
Working in 16 Indian states, Parijat was one of the early birds to recognize the potential of Social media and last mile communication in the Agrochemical sector for market and brand extension with farmers.
Social Media and ecommerce are penetrating Indian business environment at an ever-increasing pace and technologically driven companies are hoping to cash in on the opportunity with their infrastructure in place.
Having started 3 years back, Parijat has created a pool of media content, in 7 different Indian languages for a blitz targeted on farmers, with short clips and longer films featuring training, brand building and product information for market extension.
Parijat's crop-focused tutorials, produced as entertaining films with plot-lines and storyboards are consumed as entertainment through cable-TV networks by over 5 Million farmers.
More From This Section
The films currently covering- Cotton, Paddy, Sugarcane and Soybean- provide start to end agricultural best-practices while also enabling a unique brand creation strategy.
Parijat also has a fleet of 183 vans fitted with LCD screens that run nightly film screening in states across the country.
According to reports, WhatsApp crossed 200 million users in India in 2017, with a large proportion being rural users.
Shorter digital media including animated infomercials designed specifically for consumption through mobile phones, has been a key reason for Parijat's success in launching new products.
The WhatsApp video campaign for its cotton white-fly control product Daita, won the marketing wing of Parijat a national level award for rural marketing.
It included separate material for dealer education, and farmer education as well as branding media.
The digital campaigns through YouTube, local cable TV networks, WhatsApp and LCD vans perform an incredibly successful lead generation function, bolstered by a national toll-free helpline which helps convert brand recognition into business.
The success of the model in India has led Parijat to adopt these practices in its international markets as well, creating French content for West African cotton farmers.
The third-layer to the rural marketing strategy as Parijat is the arms of agronomists and agricultural scientists providing details input, demonstration and training to farmers to add depth to the engagement initiated by digital media.
Aditi Anand, Director of Parijat Industries, says that "Technology is actually the ultimate leveler in rural marketing. Our strength in producing high quality video content in multi-lingual formats allows us to access opportunities for nonlinear market expansion and brand building. Digital and social media are going to be paradigm game changers and the challenge for progressive companies is immigration and integration of these new tools with feet on ground marketing and sales infrastructure. By entering early, we have acquired the necessary momentum for harnessing the potential of social media."
Parijat Industries is an integrated crop protection and public health chemicals manufacturing company, with its head office in New Delhi and manufacturing facilities in Ambala, Haryana.
Parijat's branded agrochemical products are sold in India and in countries on all five continents. With over 400 international existing and ongoing registrations Parijat has established deep technical and regulatory depth in five continents.