[ 5] Chavan, A. L. and D. Gorney. “The Dilemma of the Shared Mobile Phone —Culture Strain and Product Design in Emerging Economies.” interactions 15, no. 4 (2008): 34-39.

[ 6] Bhan, N. “The World Washer; Whirlpool Enters the Indian Market.” Case study. Whirlpool Corporation, 1990. <http://www. emergingfutureslab. com/ about.html>

[ 7]Coleman, G. “Breakthrough Strategies for Commercial Success in Emerging Markets.” Deloitte Development LLC, 2007.

inform designers about the local market:

• How will the product or service help people improve their productivity and lifestyle?

• Will it answer health-related issues or even be considered healthy?

• Will its content, function, or design run into cultural norms that will impede its adoption?

Designers need to adopt an entirely different mind-set about their target market. Only that way can they develop products that are truly resonant with the market—successful over the long term and genuinely enriching to customers’ lives and to society as a whole.

That kind of research is a nontrivial undertaking. Design teams need to observe both distinct cultural practices and subtle nuances. They may need to delve into a country’s history, religious beliefs, climate, geography, languages, aesthetics and, sometimes, its popular culture. Standard economic measurements like expected growth rate are certainly useful in evaluating an emerging market, but the history of emerging-market design is littered with the wrecks of product launches that foundered on subtle nuances like speech protocols or the ways dining implements are used [ 5].

Each question that designers, marketers, and corporate anthropologists ask—or don’t ask or ask in the wrong way—may have multimillion-dollar consequences. When it comes to emerging-market product launches, the devil is often in the details.

global strategy, the Whirlpool Corporation designed a single, stripped-down washing-machine platform for emerging markets. Dubbed the “World Washer,” it was launched in Brazil, Mexico, China, and India, with slight feature design and styling modifications for each market to reflect local tastes. Exterior accents were added for China, for instance, where washing machines sit right in the living room and are something of a status symbol. “Delicate” was relabeled “Sari Cycle” on the Indian model.

The washing machine ended up doing very well for the company—everywhere but India. Sales in South India were notably abysmal.

With tens of millions of dollars at risk, Whirlpool dispatched a team to the subcontinent to find out what went wrong. They finally realized what was going into the machines—traditional South Indian clothing such as lungis, dupattas, mundus, angavestrams… and, of course, saris. Little more than sheets of very fine cotton or silk, six to nine yards long, the garments were getting caught, entangled, and shredded in the millimeter-wide gap between the machine’s agitator and drum.

That single millimeter forced Whirlpool to completely restructure its business model and abandon its joint venture, in addition to designing a new washing machine for India. It took the company years to recoup its losses and regain significant market share in the subcontinent [ 6].

Because its designers did not broadly, deeply, and fundamen-

tally understand specific target markets, the World Washer failed to live up to its name. The basic mistake Whirlpool made— in a variant of not understanding its target market—was to assume that needs are the same across emerging markets.

The World Washer had been given a single, generalized, emerging-market reference point by designers with limited understanding and direct experience of the customs and modes of dress in South India. They did not ask the right questions of target users—if they talked to them at all. So critical details, like the thickness and dimensions of the clothes that would be washed, went unnoticed.

Cautionary tales like Whirlpool’s have prompted an increasing number of multinationals to “get a clue” and leverage local expertise to develop contextually appropriate products. In a 2006 Deloitte study, 40 percent of the executives of companies competing in emerging markets said their products were designed locally [ 7]. Unilever alone has established a network of more than 68 “ innovation centers” in 20 countries.

January + February 2009

[ 8] Rama Bijakpur, R. in Prasso, S. “Lessons For the Indian Market: Legions of big-name companies have failed in India. Here’s how to avoid joining them.” Entrepreneur. April-May, 2008. <http:// www.entrepreneur. com/tradejournals/arti-cle/ 179233933.html>

The Fallacy of
the Global Platform
As part of an aggressive

Don’t Bring the Deluxe Diapers While navigating the Scylla and Charybdis of design for more than one developing economy, designers also need to remember that segments within markets differ. Rama Bijapurkar, author of Winning in the Indian Market, has said that there are many Indias. “[What] confounds people about India is that everything you say about it, the opposite is also true. There are five-star hotels and abject poverty [ 8].”