The Infomercial Comes to Life in India's Remotest Villages. By Eric Bellman
Traveling Salesman Mr. Sharma Sings, Jokes To Spread Gospel of Global Consumerism
WSJ, Jun 10, 2009, page A1
BENIPUR VILLAGE, India -- Advertisers in India can't rely on TV, radio or even newspapers to reach the country's 700 million rural consumers. So they use Sandeep Sharma.
On dirt roads across the subcontinent, the former wedding singer cracks jokes, gives demonstrations and stages game shows to spread global consumerism, one village at a time.
He is one of thousands of traveling performers who bring the world's biggest brands to audiences of a handful in the remotest reaches of the nation. He offers free Castrol oil changes for tractors. He dishes out bowls of Nestlé noodles in village schools. He pushes Unilever soaps and creams. He promotes tooth powder and condoms.
"Stick to the countryside if you want to be successful," the 34-year-old says, beaming after a recent performance before a small crowd of villagers in stifling heat. "When we arrive, the whole village comes out."
It's a good time to be a traveling salesman in India, relatively speaking. Insulated from the worst of the global recession, India's rural consumers are spending as never before. International brands -- eager for ways to offset contracting markets elsewhere -- are sending out armies of salesmen like Mr. Sharma. Overall advertising spending climbed about 10% in India last year. Rural advertising grew at more than four times that rate.
The standard procedure for Mr. Sharma starts with kowtowing to village elders in order to get permission to set up his mobile stage and to try to find out who in the village has money. He then rouses the villagers. He used to walk around with a megaphone announcing the show, but dogs chased him. Now he drives around in his truck with the music turned up or hands out candy to children, asking them to bring out their neighbors.
Mud Huts
One recent afternoon in the single-road village of Benipur (pop. 5,000), he opened the back of his truck to reveal a stage, speakers and bright posters. The village is a sandy strip of one-story houses and simple shops, most of them brick but a few made of mud with thatched roofs. The road up to the village is flanked with carefully constructed 10-foot towers of cow dung, burned as fuel for cooking and heating. Trucks, tractors, scooters and herds of goats slow as they see the stage. A curious crowd grows. The music starts. Mr. Sharma shouts into the microphone.
"You have to sacrifice so much in life, but these Nokia handsets have all the extras," he says, waving his hands. "Nokia makes life easier."
He pulls barefoot people onto the stage and quizzes them about the product. When they answer the questions correctly, they get a Nokia keychain in the shape of a guitar. Two other performers do a skit mimicking characters from a popular Hindi film.
"Brother, why would you need a cellphone?" one performer asks as he passes the only microphone. "To flirt with the most popular girl in the village," comes the answer. The crowd giggles.
As Mr. Sharma pitches, village life goes on. Next to his truck, villagers pump water from a well. Across the street, a couple of farmers shoe a horse. Two cows, unmoved, stand across the street for the whole show.
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Wednesday, June 10, 2009
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Audience of Men
ReplyDeleteThe crowd is all male. And the men push to get closer to the stage, laugh and shout answers to the questions. Mr. Sharma uses a flip chart to demonstrate how to dial a cellphone, put names in the contact list and change the ringtone. The 30-minute show brings in three handset sales.
Mr. Sharma has been working the circuit for five years for Linterland Rural Communication, the rural outreach company connected to Lowe Worldwide, an agency owned by Interpublic Group PLC. He earns about $350 a month, a higher-than-average rural wage; less-experienced salesmen take in $200.
Selling in the village takes a lot of interaction -- but not too much. Mr. Sharma and the salesmen for Unilever soaps and skin creams talk to women from behind flip charts so there is no direct eye contact that could offend the menfolk.
"It's the men, not the women that get upset," says Mr. Sharma. "Usually a husband or brother stands nearby and asks all the questions, even for women's products."
Mr. Sharma's favorite promotion is a village version of "American Idol" that Linterland developed to promote Close-Up toothpaste. Every village has one or two great singers, he says. "They just never get a chance to show their talent."
Mr. Sharma's specialty is rattling off the slogans of the brands that have hired him. Nestlé noodles are "Easy to eat, fun to eat." "Castrol promises 33% more." And, "Did you wash your hands with Lifebuoy today?"
He travels by road more than 5,000 miles a month, visiting as many as three remote villages a day, often getting stuck on dirt roads and in floods. He sleeps in cheap hotel rooms with the four others on his team, or in his truck. He can't go home for months at a time, bathrooms are scarce, and he has trouble finding appetizing food.
His hair is orange from being in the sun all the time. He usually gets two shirts monogrammed with the logos of the latest promotion. He washes one by hand every day so he has a clean one for the next day.
It isn't quite the fulfillment of his dream of singing at the best hotels, but he does get to perform every day and has made a lot more money than he made singing at weddings. "Now, I can afford to be married," he says during a break behind his truck. He tied the knot last month. His bosses have promised him that he won't have to travel so much now, but he has a better idea.
"I will anchor shows together with my wife," he says. "Then we will get double the pay."
—Vibhuti Agarwal and Sonya Misquitta contributed to this article.