Consumer behavior is influenced by internal and exter- nal factors. One external factor that sets real boundaries

for consumers is their level of income. Some marketers refer to strategies directed at different income tiers as targeting certain levels of a pyramid. Marketing to the "bottom of the pyramid," focusing on consumers with very limited financial means, became well-known in 2004 when C. K. Prahalad wrote the book The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. He envisioned companies marketing affordable products to the billions of consumers around the world with limited income and unmet needs. He believed that companies could help consumers and be profitable at the same time.130 The number of potential bottom of the pyramid (BOP) customers worldwide is huge, currently estimated at four billion and projected to grow to six billion over the next 40 years. Since these consumers earn less than US$2 per day, successful BOP strategies are usually focused on offering low cost/low price products in smaller sizes. The

strategies may also include innovative distribution or financ- ing, and may involve educating consumers on the use of the

product.131,132 India has been a major target for BOP marketers. When Prahalad's book was published in 2004, there were over 1.1 billion residents there. As recently as 2013, the World Bank estimated that 30 percent of the population was under the $1.90 a day BOP level.133

Unilever, maker of Dove soap, has been one of the lead- ers in BOP marketing in India. It sold the company's Wheel

detergent as a "sachet"a single-use package offered at a low price and packaged in a way that was consistent with the shopping habits of Indian consumers who often shop daily for necessities.134 To spread the word about Wheel, Unilever used an unorthodox sales force: 70,000 Shakti women to go into 165,000 rural villages to sell the product.135 Shakti means "strength" or "power" in Hindi and these village women provided the power of existing

relationships and an intimate knowledge of communica- tion styles and the geography, helping sales of the packets

to reach a quantity of 27 billion per year.136,137 Another Unilever program sold small sizes of its Lifebuoy soap and involved educating 300 million consumers about the health benefits of washing hands.138,139 One of Unilever's chief rivals, P&G, took notice of Unilever's success in India and worked to find ways to capture market share in a category in which they were the global market leader: razors and blades.140 They felt

Success at the Bottom of the Pyramid? Unilever & P&G Show It's Possible

M12_SOLO5691_13_SE_C12.indd 469 31/10/2018 20:19

470 Section 4 Consumers in Their Social and Cultural Settings

CS 12-2 Are companies targeting the bottom of the pyramid taking advantage of vulnerable consumers with limited resources? CS 12-3 More than half of U.S. workers earn less than $30,000 a year, barely above the poverty line for a family of five. What would you recommend to a company looking to target bottom of the pyramid consumers in the United States?

first began marketing there, with the most recent World Bank estimate of the BOP population at just a little over 5 percent.

That still represents over 71 million people, and other coun- tries have percentages as high as 85 percent.145 Considering

the worldwide need and opportunity for low cost products, companies will likely continue to pursue innovative strategies to reach consumers at the bottom of the pyramid. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS CS 12-1 Using the "4A's" framework in Figure 12.1, analyze the considerations that went into the development of the Gillette Guard razor for the Indian market.