The Brief

Hindustan Unilever launched a massive door-to-door programme across rural markets in India. The major challenges were – managing a multitude of promoters with varying levels of literacy/ technical literacy; reducing pilferage; and making sense of all the data gathered. The solution had to be low tech, easily scalable, and fool proof. Thus was born Khushiyon Ki Doli - an education, sampling and demonstration program aimed to build a market for multiple HUL brands in rural India using a tool that was already in the hands of millions of consumers – the mobile phone.

Creative Execution

A team of trained promoters were mapped across areas through a tablet device and record sales and samples distributed. The tabs were geo-tagged, to increase efficiency and chart intelligent routes for promoters and monitoring any deviation from the allocated route. To reduce pilferage, a two way response mechanism was devised by doing a demo of HUL products to consumers who wanted to buy a product and record their brand preferences along with basic personal information. The next step was to make the consumer register by calling a tollfree number and input the promoter code to validate the sales data collected. The consumer received a call back after an hour enabling them to participate in a short quiz and a chance to win Rs 10 mobile talktime. This program gave us a treasure rich consumer data which we use to cross-sell and up-sell our products in the HUL portfolio.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

1 out of 2 consumers in rural India own a mobile phone. Consumers in these markets depend heavily on their local shop keeper or village assembly places for information on new products and recommendations. The Khushiyon Ki Doli model breaks these silos by creating one on one interaction and information flow between HUL brands and the consumer

Results

KKD is the biggest on ground execution carried by any FMCG company in India, with more than 1500 Promoters, 100 Supervisors, 20 Project Supervisors, 8 States, 17 Agency offices and 33 vendors. KKD reached more than 2 mil women, 0.3 million children & 38,000 retailers across different parts of rural India. These promoters are paid basis accuracy of data reported and customers engaged. The proof of efficacy of the KKD program is that 95% of the promoters were paid for completing the tasks assigned to them. This giant network of personal encounters and flow if information resulted in a 26% growth in sales for HUL’s mass consumer brands.