Tag Archives: bop marketing

Is the pay per use business model changing household purchasing dynamics?

By Niti Bhan | Published: January 17, 2016

The process of writing the previous post on India’s energy efficient cook-stove development efforts made me pause and reconsider my assumptions. Here’s the snippet that struck me in the article. Philips took its India stove to more mature markets in Africa, where a raft of foreign-funded stove projects had familiarised customers with the product. This […]

Posted in African Consumer Market, Airtime, Base of the Pyramid, Business Models, Consumer Behaviour, Innovation Planning, Kenya, Marketing, Mobile platform, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Research, Technology, User research | Also tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why social enterprise marketing tends to fail – hidden competition, invisible consumers

By Niti Bhan | Published: July 25, 2014

A couple of years ago, I was frequently in East Africa, consulting with a consumer product company  set up as a social enterprise in the renewable energy sector. An extensive distribution network across Kenya had been established through what they called TT – traditional trade. Yet their sales were nowhere near the figures one would […]

Posted in African Consumer Market, Marketing | Also tagged | Comments closed

Part 3: Synthesis and Insights from original research on rural economic behaviour

By Niti Bhan | Published: October 31, 2013

One can conclude from synthesizing the data collected across the geographies and the range of “BoP” income levels that rural households demonstrated similar patterns of behaviour in their management of household expenses on irregular income streams. These are: the rapid conversion of cash into tangible assets such as goods or livestock, the  subsequent storage of […]

Posted in Africa, Assumption filter, Base of the Pyramid, Business Models, Livestock, Projects and Reports, Research, Rural Economy, User research | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Timely and relevant or obsolete? Kotler’s BoP in India

By Niti Bhan | Published: February 12, 2013

Syamant just sent me this Business Standard article on Philip Kotler’s Centre of Excellence to open near New Delhi to focus on the BoP specifically. That is, the Bottom of the Pyramid which was the title of CK Prahalad’s seminal book on high volume, low cost markets in the informal economies of the developing world. […]

Posted in Assumption filter, Base of the Pyramid, Business, Emerging Markets, India, Marketing, Perspective | Also tagged | Leave a comment

Prioritizing whom you put at the center of the strategy and why

By Niti Bhan | Published: November 4, 2012

The tacit mandate for companies interested in the BoP market is that your product or service must either fill an ‘unmet’ need (of which the poor have many), or provide a way for them to enhance their livelihood or quality of life. Why else would they divert their limited and hard-earned cash for your product […]

Posted in Assumption filter, Base of the Pyramid, Design, Frameworks, Indigenous & Traditional, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Process, Projects and Reports, Strategy, Systems, UCSD, User research | Also tagged , | Leave a comment

Target market strategy for upwardly mobile BoP segments

By Niti Bhan | Published: September 16, 2012

* BoP – referring Prahalad’s Bottom of the social and economic pyramid, MoP – middle This visualization of the emerging consumer market opportunity in India is by the insightful analysts at Nomura Research Institute, Japan. When taking this in conjunction with the information collated in my previous post on the imminent boom in upward mobility […]

Posted in African Consumer Market, Analysis, Base of the Pyramid, Consumer Behaviour, Emerging Markets, Frameworks, India, Innovation Planning, Marketing, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, South Asia, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa | Also tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Emerging evolution of global BoP markets by mindset and income

By Niti Bhan | Published: September 15, 2012

 Japan’s Nomura Research Institute have an interesting take on the evolution of the existing global population currently demarcated as the BoP (Base or Bottom of the Pyramid). While it is not surprising that income levels are expected to increase, given the signals already observed in frontier markets and rapidly growing economies, what was intriguing was […]

Posted in African Consumer Market, Analysis, Assumption filter, Base of the Pyramid, Consumer Behaviour, Emerging Markets, global, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa | Also tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Convenience as a service

By Niti Bhan | Published: February 6, 2012

Convenience can mean different things to the household consumer, depending on their location. In urban Chicago, its stocking up the freezer and pantry with a trip to a megastore like Costco while in Singapore it might be the ubiquitous neighbourhood hawker stand where rice, meat, two veg can be had for as little as $2.50 […]

Posted in Analysis, Base of the Pyramid, Emerging Markets, Frugality, Kenya, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Projects and Reports, rural, User research | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Questioning the value of the term Base or Bottom of the Pyramid aka the BoP

By Niti Bhan | Published: November 18, 2011

Siim Esko wrote a short piece on his blog BoP Strategies after a conversation we recently had. Since much of his work focuses on the BoP in India and I’d just returned from the Kenyan tour, it was but natural for us to compare and contrast the challenges and the conditions of the lower income […]

Posted in Analysis, Base of the Pyramid, Business, Design, Marketing, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, rural, Strategy, urban, User research | Also tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Response

But why aren’t they buying my fantastic life saving product?

By Niti Bhan | Published: November 5, 2011

An all too common a question blurted out in frustration by well intentioned social enterprises attempting to crack the code of the informal economy at the base of the pyramid, usually ending with the rejoinder “when they can spend double the amount on a phone!” So why aren’t people sensibly rushing out with their hard […]

Posted in African Consumer Market, Base of the Pyramid, Business, Consumer Behaviour, Ecosystem, Emerging Markets, Frugality, Innovation Planning, Marketing, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, rural, Scarcity, urban, User research | Also tagged , , | Leave a comment


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