Marketing to the Bottom of the Pyramid

Question (1): As a junior member of your company's committee to explore new markets, you have received a memo from the chairperson telling you to be prepared at the next meeting to discuss key questions that need to be addressed if the company decides to look further into the possibility of marketing to the BOP segment. The ultimate goal of this meeting will be to establish a set of general guidelines to use in developing a market strategy for any one of the company's products to be marketed to the "aspirational poor." These guidelines need not be company or product specific at this time. In fact, think of the final guideline as a checklist-a series of questions that a company could use as a start in evaluating the potential of a specific BOP market segment for one of its products.

Question (2): Marketing to the BOP raises a number of issues revolving around the social responsibility of marketing efforts. Write position paper either pro or con on one of the following.

a. Is it exploitation for a company to profit from selling soaps, shampoo, personal computers, and ice cream, and so on, to people with little disposable income?

b. Can making loans to customers whose income is less than $100 monthly at interest rates of 20% to purchase TVs, cell phones, and other consumer durables be justified?

c. One authority argues that squeezing profits from people with little disposable income and often not enough to eat-is not capitalist exploitation but rather that it stimulates economic growth.