The Indian rural market with its vast size and demand base offers a huge opportunity that marketers cannot afford to ignore. With 128 million households, the rural population is nearly three times that of the urban. This segment, commonly referred to as the `bottom of pyramid', presents a huge opportunity for companies. Over the years, marketers and researchers have realized that urban markets in India are fast reaching saturation levels and consequently rural markets in India have an immense untapped potential. The more daring marketers are aiming for availability, affordability, acceptability and awareness (the so called 4As). The rural market accounts for half of the total market for TV sets, fans, pressure cookers, bicycles, washing soaps, blades, tea, salt and tooth powder.

The insurance sector in India is one of the growing sectors of the economy and it has come full circle, from being an open competitive market to being nationalized and back to being a liberalized market. Tracing the development in the Indian insurance sector reveals a 360 degree turn, witnessed over a period of almost two centuries. After the opening up of the insurance sector, commercial banks have come to occupy an important role in insurance distribution, particularly for private life insurers.

The first paper of this issue, "Walk Their Walk, and Talk Their Talk: The Mantra of Success in the Hinterland", talks about typical communication strategies that marketers need to adopt to cut across the rural psyche. Rural marketers have their own unique features and the traditional advertising media generally proves to be unsuccessful in rural markets. This article explores the need for a customized communication strategy for different rural markets.

The second paper of this issue, "Service Quality Perceptions of Life Insurance Policyholders in Northern India: Pre-Privatization vs. Post-Privatization", focuses on service quality factors affecting the customer satisfaction levels of LIC policyholders and the acceptability factor is compared to the reliability and assurance factors. It shows that respondents who had purchased insurance policies before privatization had higher satisfaction levels compared to policy holders who have taken insurance after privatization.

The third paper of this issue, "A Conceptual Research on the Association Between Celebrity Endorsement, Brand Image and Brand Equity", shows celebrity product endorsement framed in a co-brand context. The endorsing party is no longer simply an agent receiving a financial reward for product support or backing; but he/she contributes to build the brand equity of a company. It also explores how company-based brand equity is impacted through celebrity endorsements.

The purpose of the Case Study, "Intel Enters Third World Countries: Charity or Business?", is to investigate the objectives behind Intel venturing into Third World Countries that have unexplored latent markets. The case also aims at studying the association and competition between One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) and Intel.

Finally, we have included a Book Review on Primetime Women: How to Win the Hearts, Minds, and Business of Boomer Big Spenders. This book focuses on primetime in the lives of women who are in their 50s-70s. It gives informative insights and offers marketers strategies to capture today's most powerful and influential target, women. It also focuses on understanding the hearts and minds of boomer women.

-- Maruthi Suresh
Consulting Editor