Lowe and Partners launches rural marketing software, Linscan

The software designed by Linterland leverages the mobile platform to help marketers identify the most potential rural markets in real time.

Lowe and Partners has launched Linscan, a strategic rural marketing software that will aid marketers to tap the most potential markets across rural India. The software has been designed by Linterland, Lowe and Partners' rural marketing arm.

Linscan is claimed to be the world's first rural marketing software that incorporates the mobility platform, thereby enabling marketers to effectively plan and control in real time. It helps marketers to answer questions such as where to reach the potential target audience, how to find them and the optimum way to address them.

The newly launched software enables companies to prioritise markets at a micro level through quantitative and qualitative analysis of markets. It also helps to plan distribution points across geographies, and identify the right kind of media options that will lead to cost effective marketing initiatives.

Commenting on the launch, Kevin D'Souza, executive director, Linterland, says, "The Linterland team has spent over a year to pursue and develop this programme so that marketers vying for a bigger share of the rural wallet of India's burgeoning economy could have a better planning and operations mechanism that embeds accountability of media spend, distribution and sales efforts."

Using the mobile platform, the software offers real time field force management. The field force can be accessed by proven longitudinal and latitudinal identities, enabling better market reporting systems. It enables carrying out real time surveys that can be logged in and updated over time, and offers feedback of consumers across the length and breadth of the country.

According to Sharad Varshney, senior vice-president, Linterland, "Linscan is an effort to make the complex simple in rural market planning."

Linscan is a web-based GIS tool that can be replicated across international geographies, highly secure and compatible across all widely accepted mobile platforms (RIM, Android and Windows). It is versatile and can operate from low bandwidth locations where just text could be uploaded or ideal situations where data and visual uploads are possible.

Pravin Sawant, chief technology officer, Lowe and Partners, says, "Linscan is a prime example of how business insights and technology can synergise to realise path breaking ideas."

The information base is geo-coded census information that can be updated as and when newer data is available. Linscan also enables multiple information uploads that can be utilised. Clients can even map sales data to give a true picture of input against output.