The Trickle Down Effect of Luxury in Africa’s Emerging Consumer Markets
A very interesting snippet in the news caught my attention yesterday. Fokke de Jong, Suitsupply’s chief executive, described the African customer as informed. “They understand luxury, as in they understand the inherent quality of products — unlike what you might have seen some years ago in some emerging Asian markets where customers were simply associating […]
Segmenting the African Middle Class without dollar figures
Continuing the thinking from my previous post on the various attempts to size and value the potential of the emerging African middle classes based primarily in dollar figures, I thought to take a step back from income data to see if I could approach the challenge of segmentation in a different way. Below is the […]
My 2 shillings worth on the size or value of the emerging African middle classes
There’s been a lot in the news of late about the size and worth of the emerging African middle class subsequent to the release of an as yet unseen report by an economist, Simon Freemantle, at Standard Bank, South Africa. The various headlines conflict each other, some say the middle class isn’t as large as […]
Global emerging middle classes are Africa’s GEMs
Kentucky Fried Chicken at The Junction, Nairobi, Kenya 2011 Photo Credit: Niti Bhan Bright Simons cautioned us about hyperbole and exuberance in a recent article published on the HBR site. In “Beware Africa’s Middle Class“, he points out with great clarity that the ’emerging market consumers’ spotted by the optimists over at the African Development […]
The Africans are not beneficiaries anymore
Innovating without knowing your customer is like being lost in the dark with your eyes closed: you’ll never know if you hit the light switch ~ @bdoorn My colleague on my current project in The Netherlands, Bart Doorneweert, tweeted that insight after our next to last user interview today (tomorrow is our last). While I’ve […]
Hub and spoke model for new product introductions
Nairobi’s Central Business District – Luthuli Avenue is the heart of the electronics and consumer appliance trade for Kenya. Chinese businessmen can be seen mingling with Somali traders and wholesalers come from all over the country to see “what’s new”. I saw recently introduced solar powered refrigerators (just 60W) on display, direct from China but […]
New Product Introductions in Informal Markets
“What’s new?” I asked Peter who runs this mari mari shop in a makeshift market just yards from Nairobi’s famous Kibera, and he proudly showed off the various features of this television set cum DVD player that can run on a small battery if need be. Yours for just $100. Don’t miss the bright pink […]
Design for the next billion 2012: What’s missing?
An upcoming project’s requirements led to the realization that there is a huge gap in design for the next billion (and more). The subsequent domino effect has left a lack in tools, methods, frameworks and thus, disciplines themselves, from the perspective of addressing the challenge of serving the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) population segment. […]
