Natural born icon MS Dhoni is going from strength to strength, symbolizing small town Indians who are powering cricket. It's clear from the profiles of our new cricket heroes, small towns have the talent, the ambition and the purchasing power. So why are marketers fixated on the metros? Especially, when it comes to their media budgets?

The answers are in ‘The Dhoni Effect’ a study by Ernst &Young on India beyond the metros, which will release next week. E&Y's Farokh Balsara, said affluence levels are going up, the connectivity to the smaller towns and the logistics are improving, creating a spurt in consumption.

But small town India looks up to the metros and that’s why marketers or media buyers justify the higher spends on the metros, he explains.

Excerpts from an exclusive interview:

Q: Take us through the key highlights of the study?

A: We are seeing a new trend emerging; the metros are growing and they are doing fine, but in addition to these six, almost 22 key urban towns are coming up and they are getting bigger and more affluent. Beyond those, we have another 8,200 towns in the rest of urban area and there the growth is even faster.

From a marketer’s standpoint, various things are happening; (1) affluence levels are going up (2) the connectivity on to the smaller towns, the logistics are improving (3) organised retail is growing into those key urban towns and smaller towns much faster. Suddenly you have affluence combined with availability of products or at least a means to get those products out to those places and that is creating the spurt in consumption.

Q: The new cricketers Praveen Kumar from Meerut, Iqbal Abdulla from Azamgarh, RP Singh from Raebareli, Dhoni of course from Jharkhand. So are these the rest of urban India towns or Piyush Chawla from Moradabad, are these the key urban towns?

A: Ranchi, where Dhoni comes from, is one of the key urban towns; it’s now the part of KUT as we call it. Some of the towns that you mentioned will be part of rest of urban India – ROUI.

Q: Your report clearly says that markets are fixated on the metros. Now what is wrong with that?  Now again, I go back to the cricketers and clearly satellite television is where they watched India play cricket and that’s where they have picked up their inspiration and perhaps even lessons from?

A: Small town India will definitely look up to the metros and that’s why marketers or media buyers justify the higher spends on the metros, because people create that ripple effect and build brands at the metros, so that people in small towns then aspire for and want to buy those brands. That argument was good only up to a point and beyond that it’s far too costly to keep advertising in the metros.

Q: What about local media in terms of outdoor and maybe even cable TV? Is that something that also should be in the consideration set of marketers if they are focusing on these towns?

A: Not so much the cable TV, which is very unorganised and the measurement is not possible, but we are seeing a trend towards radio growing much better again in some of the key urban towns out there and people wanting to use that local media, outdoor also is a good example to reach out to those people out there.

Q: You clearly mentioned that there is more opportunity for below the line (BTL) to offer marketers connect - especially in the small towns; you want to elaborate on that a bit?

A: Say five-years back, 15% of the spends were below the line and rest mainly on advertising across different media. But we are now seeing a trend where increasingly almost 40% of the spends that the market has is on BTL because clearly the amount of fragmentation in mass media and the wastage and the increasing rates are acting as a deterrence for some of the smaller brands.

Q: I had been reading reports that MS Dhoni has decided to complete his graduation and study Commerce. Now is that indicative also adding another layer to the rise of small town India - the fact that there is this aspiration not just for our affluence, but really for education. I mean he really need not bother, isn’t it?

A: I think there is a key message of what’s happening under the layer in small town India and it’s something that marketers need to keep a close tab on, because the youth want a voice and they want to get there to the metro level much faster than many marketers think. The sooner marketers realize that, the better it will be for their products and brands.

Look out there for the full report when it releases on Wednesday, March 19. ‘The Dhoni Effect’ - Rise of the small town India.