Growing the pie in emerging markets: Marketing strategies for increasing the ratio of non-users to users

Abstract

Emerging markets are the growth engines of the world but they differ significantly from developed countries. Multinationals tend to flounder in these countries due to the challenges posed by five key emerging market characteristics: market heterogeneity, sociopolitical governance, unbranded competition, chronic shortage of resources and inadequate infrastructure. Reducing the negative impact of these emerging market characteristics can increase the ratio of first-time users to nonusers thereby resulting in large scale market expansion. To this end, we propose eight marketing strategies rooted in the 4 A's framework: Affordability through democratizing and upscaling the offer; Accessibility through managing and reinventing reach; Acceptability through cultural and functional fusion; and Awareness through building brand identity and engaging stakeholders. Achieving these customercentric outcomes can help companies overcome the challenges and realize the true potential of emerging markets.