Bottom of Pyramid Economics: Will Marketing Be Next?
April 20th, 2010 by Hugh Kennedy
This week’s Economist has a superb series of articles on disruptive innovation and how emerging nations are pushing far beyond our Western preconceptions of cheap, outsourced software engineers cranking out ‘spaghetti code’ for our in-house applications. In fact, many of the world’s most promising innovations are being conceived in India and China, not just manufactured there. My favorite example of this frugality is GE’s recent Mac 400, an ECG machine that costs only $800, has 4 buttons, and has reduced the cost of an ECG test to $1 per patient. Perhaps you’ve seen the ad for this little miracle on YouTube. Try requesting an ECG in the U.S. for less than the cost of a small cup of Starbucks caffeinated sugar water and see how far you get.
A piece from yesterday’s Times of India revisits some of the same ground while also eulogizing Professor CK Prahalad, in many ways the Deming of Indian innovation. (Being Indian, Prahalad also managed to hold down a professorship at U Michigan and publish a roomful of business books.) Prahalad and RK Krishna Kumar (of Taj Hotels) hatched the idea of Hotel Ginger, a disruptive innovation that offers clean, efficient business hotel rooms for the princely sum of $22 a night, about a fifth the cost of Aloft here in the U.S. And yes, you get free wifi.
This barrage of developing world optimism has me thinking about creativity. Chinese agencies can produce a start-to-finish print ad for about $1,000, so our Japanese partner tells us. They’re pretty awful, from what I’ve seen, but how long will it be before the integrated digital campaign equivalent of an $800 ECG machine arrives? In the rarefied realms of multi-channel content syndication and contextual campaign integration, I’m sure that the best ideas will, as always, win the day. Just don’t be surprised if you look up someday soon to see one of those ideas being sketched out on a $29 iPad killer.
