I wanted to share with you extra thoughts on the idea of marketing to the bottom of the pyramid.
I have seen that the topic has interested much of my audience, and I understand the reason why.
Indeed, there are large markets to cover for people earning less than $2.5 a day. And this task is different from marketing to a western cultural millennials clientele.
It inspired me 2 thoughts:
You need Other Attributes To Succeed In Those Countries
You shall not use the same marketing technique, the same strategies in those countries and for those customers. This is the reason why it is such a hard task. You need a specific marketing approach. So far, I don't think much has been written about the topic, and I don't think any classes are dealing with the topics.
The Importance of Western Developped Countries
As a Health & Beauty purchaser, I constantly have in front of me global companies chatting about how the French market does not interest much their head offices. They rather invest in new growing countries, where growth is, and profitability higher, whereas France is growing slowly with high competition.
But marketing to growing country is a much different task. Moreover, thank god there are developped countries: It is where innovation lands. It is where you are able to test new products, new marketing approaches, it is where you can have volumes. Therefore it is important not to neglect developped countries, because it is where innovation can be built for long term growth.
