Work

Challenges in Marketing Socially Useful Goods to the Poor

Year: 2010

Type: article

Abstract: Market based solutions to alleviate poverty have become increasingly popular in recent years. Unfortunately, there are very few examples of profitable businesses that market socially useful goods in low-income markets and operate at a large scale. This article examines in-depth three case studies of multinational firms that tried to market unquestionably useful products -- clean water, eyeglasses, and nutritious yoghurt -- to the poor, and did not succeed commercially. The overarching lesson we draw from the case studies is that developing strategies for marketing socially useful goods to the poor, far from triggering a revolution in business thinking, requires firms to get back to the basic principles and rules of economics and business.

Source: California Management Review

DOI: 10.1525/cmr.2010.52.4.29

Authors: Bernard Garrette, Aneel Karnani

Institutions: HEC Paris, University of Michigan

Language: English

Topic: Innovation and Socioeconomic Development

Subfield: Business and International Management

Field: Business, Management and Accounting

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: No poverty

Open Access status: green

Funder: UNICEF