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LEAD FEATURE 4 September 2011, EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING 23
Samit Garg
CEO,
E Factor
“All leading MNCs and
Indian brands are now
shifting their focus to
capturing the rural markets
as it is an important growth
area to their top and
bottom lines.”
lakh Indian and foreign tourists.
“Rajasthan Tourism has done a fabulous job of promoting
this festival over the years. Last year, the Rajasthan Tourism
board decided to promote sports and a new attraction to
the festival. They decided to host the first international hot
air balloon festival during the Pushkar Mela,” Samit Garg,
CEO, E Factor, told ExM. “E Factor Adventure Tourism is
the single largest hot air balloon company in the country.
We made a pitch to the Rajasthan Tourism board to sponsor
our IP of the largest Indian International Hot Air Balloon
festival in India. In the first year, we had participation from
15 countries. It was held across three days and the pilots
flew Indian and international tourists over the sand dunes,
palaces, forts and the Pushkar fair.”
Seven brands – Gitanjali Lifestyle, Fly Kingfisher, MSN,
UTV Action, Big FM, Dainik Navjyoti and Sahara News
– associated with the hot air balloon festival at the
Pushkar Mela in the first year. Calling it a successful
rural engagement, Garg said that the festival is the right
platform for FMCG, healthcare, telecom, mobile handsets
operators, bikes, tractors and agriculture products as well
as banking institutions that aim to target rural India.
Garg believes that all leading MNCs and Indian brands are
now shifting their focus to capturing the rural markets as it
is an important growth area to their top and bottom lines.
“Most of the population in these markets is uneducated and
penetration of media is low. We at E factor are creating
intellectual properties with our new division E Factor Media
where we lease out our properties to brands for three to ten
years as advertiser funded properties. These properties are
a blend of entertainment and engagement as it gives the
brands a correct mix of media which is customized to the
brand’s target audience as well its brand positioning. On-
ground activation and events are a part of the campaign.
Most times the valuation of exposure is five to eight times
the money spent on the advertiser funded properties, which
are annual properties built over the years and audiences,”
Garg told ExM.
The winds of brand marketing are shifting towards the rural
market and, given the fact that conventional advertising and
marketing strategies are not able to tap this audience, the
experiential marketing industry appears to be the best bet
ahead for these brands. However, the road ahead into the
minds of the rural audience will not be an easy task even
for the experiential marketing industry, but there are tools
at the industry’s disposal. Intellectual properties are one of
those tools and leveraged appropriately, present a way for
brands to garner attention from a massive audience.