ent from those of lower-income residents of Brazil’s favelas. The concept of emerging markets is usually too general to design a product around, sometimes even if the target market is just one country. So designers often segment the wealth pyramid into slices that fit their target market:

• Designing for the other 90 percent

• Design for the bottom of the pyramid

• Design for sustainable development

• Innovation for emerging markets

• Design for social change

• Design for global development

• Design for emerging markets (DEM)

These terms aren’t mere semantic distinctions. They’re fundamental to understanding who you’re designing for, what the needs of those users are, how you hope to enrich their lifestyles and well-being, and why the enterprise wants to reach that target market.

set pen to paper. Failure to understand the target market covers a multitude of sins, but sometimes unfamiliarity with the target market results in a stunningly fundamental oversight.

Case in point: Kellogg’s bid for a place at the Indian breakfast table.

“Kellogg’s set up a branch in India and started producing cornflakes...What they didn’t realize was that Indians, rather like the Chinese, think that to start the day with something cold—like cold milk on your cereal—is a shock to the system,” says Indian cultural critic Homi Bhabha. “And if you pour warm milk on Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, they instantly turn into wet paper [ 4].”

Kellogg made the error of transposing developed-market experience onto an emerging market, assuming that people in Bangalore started their day in the same way as people in Battle Creek, Michigan. Products and services created for the American or European market are not necessarily relevant to a user in India or Africa—the conditions are dif-

ferent, the use patterns are different, the thinking is different. Product ideation should reflect the fundamentally distinct characteristics of consumers in emerging markets.

That means basic product concepts may need to be completely redesigned. Kellogg’s ended up pulling its cornflakes from shelves and reengineering them to stand up to warm milk.

Did Kellogg’s ever actually ask an Indian what he ate for breakfast? Ultimately, the only sure way for companies to avoid mistakes is to pose the right questions. And not just those specific to a product’s use, but broader, more fundamental questions that can really

[ 4] Bhaba, H. “A Humanist Who Knows Corn Flakes.” Harvard Magazine 108, no. 1 (2005): 64-65. <http:// harvardmagazine. com/2005/09/a-human- ist-who-knows-cor. html>

Cornflakes Like Wet Paper—

Marketing with Blinders On The most serious mistakes designers make in preparing products for emerging markets usually occur before they even