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