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Bottom of the Pyramid

Better Essays

The quest for the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid: potential and challenges
Dennis A. Pitta
The University of Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, and

Rodrigo Guesalaga and Pablo Marshall
´
Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this article is to examine the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) proposition, where private companies can both be profitable and help alleviate poverty by attending low-income consumers.
Design/methodology/approach – The literature on BOP was reviewed and some key elements of the BOP approach were proposed and examined.
Findings – There is no agreement in the literature about the potential benefits of the BOP approach for both private companies and …show more content…

Those studies portray the poor as motivated by similar desires as the rich. They want quality products and any company that can supply those products at the right price will gain their business. Some of the case studies show the strategies for reducing the effective price of products through packaging and developing lower cost sizes.
Prahalad and others describe the untapped potential of the
BOP, and list strategies that companies may use to tap that potential. An opposing branch of the literature (Karnani, 2007a;
Martinez and Carbonell, 2007) analyzes the nature of the
BOP market, the applicability of the case studies that
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0736-3761.htm Journal of Consumer Marketing
25/7 (2008) 393– 401 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0736-3761]
[DOI 10.1108/07363760810915608]

393

The quest for the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid

Journal of Consumer Marketing

Dennis A. Pitta, Rodrigo Guesalaga and Pablo Marshall

Volume 25 · Number 7 · 2008 · 393 –401

The “top of the pyramid”

customers, and labeled them as Platinum or Gold. In contrast, those with lower to very low LCV’s earn the value labels, Iron and Lead. They point out that a single Gold or
Platinum customer may have a Lifetime Customer Value, many times higher than that of someone in the Iron or Lead tier. Specifically, one Platinum customer may be worth more

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