Selling solutions at the BOP: Does marketing matter?

The BOP, according to its economic definition, is defined as the largest, but poorest socio-economic group. In global terms, this is the four billion people who live on less than US$2.50 per day.

Targeting the demographic

The phrase 'bottom of the pyramid' is used in particular by people developing new models of doing business that deliberately target that demographic, often using new technology.

Thinking of marketing within this context is a really exciting challenge. If marketing is conventionally viewed as the customer interface linking consumer and business, how does it need to evolve to communicate to people, with human needs, and not consumer behaviours?

We live in a country that is defined by its lack of services and solutions rather than its excess of choice, and as a result there is a unique opportunity for individuals and companies who can fill this void with more affordable and safer alternatives.

The challenge for entrepreneurs is not in identifying opportunities; it is selling these ideas to consumers who have a zero penchant for risk and natural suspicion towards the new. That is where the role of the marketer becomes the most relevant.

Generate a demand

In developed markets, the advertiser, or marketers', job is to position a brand in a way that taps into a consumer mindset and generates a demand. Seth Godin, in his article "Marketing to the bottom of the pyramid", writes that Western-style consumers have been taught from birth the power of the package. We see the new nano or the new Porsche or the new convertible note on a venture deal and we can easily do the maths: [new thing] + [me] = [happier].

This is not the case at the BOP, where you have individuals and communities who exist within a set of circumstances. They are not on the lookout for innovation or new solutions to transform their environments as their primary focus is on sustaining and surviving.

While they may have a host of needs, electricity, clean water, infrastructure and communications, for example, they are unable to articulate these because they are unaware of potential solutions. A person who uses a paraffin lamp is able to tell you that paraffin is dangerous, but because they are unaware that there can be an alternative, there is no demand for a product that can provide light in a cheaper, safer way.

Great products, which as a business case have seemed fail-proof, have failed simply because idea originators didn't understand how to market their products to the BOP consumer.

Understanding people

In the video The Double Bottom Line two companies that provide BOP solutions talk about their marketing strategy and the lengths it takes to earn the right to engage with consumers at the BOP. This includes gaining the community leaders trust, visiting people multiple times, drinking tea in their homes and creating influencers as unique ways to get people to interact with their solutions.

This is what good marketers should be doing, understanding the human psychology of their consumer base to such an extent that they are able to take unarticulated needs and transform them into a demand for a product that will dramatically improve their daily lives.

In a report by TNS entitled A shifting base: the BOP in context, BOP is described as a market that, "Although it remains financially impoverished, is not emotionally or imaginatively so."

This is where the opportunity for marketers presents itself, identifying new ways of engaging and educating the market about the tangible benefits of this product, assuaging the skeptics, and ultimately earning the trust of communities to ensure sustainability of the product and enable communities to grow and adopt life-altering solutions.

Marketing can go beyond merely perpetuating the cycle of meaningless consumerism and have a positive impact on people, the planet and growing the economy in emerging markets.