Designing farm advertisement for rural audience: A study in uttarakhand

Agriculture is backbone of Indian economy. There is significant growth in agricultural production due to use of new technology and farm inputs. With emergence of technological innovations, there is widespread use of farm machineries in general and tractor in particular in modern agriculture. Tractor has become a way of life for most of farmers. It is becoming popular amongst farmers due to its multiple functions. With availability of bank loans and subsidies by the government of Uttarakhand the adoption of tractor is increasing even among small and marginal farmers also. There are various brands of tractors available in the markets and number of advertisements being published in different media by tractor companies. For reaching this new technology to farmers, advertisements act as communication link between farmers and companies to inform the potential buyers. But are these ads understood by the farmers? Advertisers have good experience of reaching urban masses. However, ads for rural areas especially farmers need to have different treatment. Keeping the above in view the research study proposed to design farm advertisements for rural advertisements. The present study was carried out in two villages of Rudrapur block, namely Lalpur and Shimla Pistaur of Udham Singh Nagar District. The study found that the farmers used attracted towards the ads which used Hindi words or local language as text, image of local progressive farmers or grampradan or any award winning farmer or village leader instead of movie stars and depiction of traditional dress of farmers in advertisements adds sense of belonging towards ads. They perceived colours as reflection of product and helpful to recognize the brand.