Advertising to Asia’s three billion plus consumers calls for more than a grasp of the latest computerized media planning tools. In some Asian countries there are large rural populations, many of whom are neither literate nor even TV viewers. Indeed, fully 30% of Asians are still illiterate. Until recently these were a forgotten market, found mainly in the Indian sub-continent, China, and Indonesia.

Not any more. For marketers like Unilever and Nestle, the basic needs of these impoverished peoples are a new long term opportunity. And so agencies like Ogilvy & Mather, JWT, and McCann Erickson are all pioneering new rural marketing initiatives.

Says Shelley Lazarus, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide’s president/CEO "This will give us a real competitive advantage if we can truly figure out how to make it work with clients like Unilever, who provide so many basic necessities. One idea is to train sign painters - signs may be the only medium in rural areas - who would go to the villages and paint a picture of the product and its name on the side of a hut. And we would build a whole cottage industry of sign painters as a way of getting advertising messages to the villages. It is wonderful that at the same as we get more involved with the internet and high technology we are also training sign painters. This really is back to the future."

Rural marketing techniques are still in their infancy. Many of the initial projects are perhaps better for community relations that global marketers - for instance McCann Erickson have pioneered street theatre in Bangladesh to communicated the benefits of oral re-hydration drinks to prevent avoidable deaths from diarrhea. " . . . . . . it is part of becoming proficient in delivering a message through any kind of medium to reach any kind of consumer," says Marcio Moreira, McCann Erickson’s chief creative officer and chairman for Asia/Pacific.

In India, Thompson Social, a JWT unit, has been exploring ways to persuade villagers of the benefits of contraception, immunization, and land irrigation. All life or death matters that naturally come before even rural consumers can take decisions about soap and detergents.

Some of the techniques involve creating situations where villagers can talk among themselves about products and their benefits, maybe with village headmen as opinion leaders. Rather than trying to persuade individuals to change, the goal is often to persuade whole communities to take a fresh direction.

 "Since the reach of conventional media is rather limited in rural communities, the most effective form of communication is interpersonal communication. When you can have people do your communication, in the language that everyone understands, what is the need for television?" says , Kunal Sinha, a director of Thompson Social.