The Follies of Standardized Terminology
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail - Abraham Maslow
Standardisation can be good, and it can be bad.
Ashoka is targeting the top of the BoP with their Housing for All project, but they can still say they are targeting the base of the pyramid - those who can't afford current housing solution, but who are not the poorest of the poor. But Aneel Karnani talks about the destitute poor and how the BoP is misconstrued. It's apples and oranges.
There is much use for there being one definition for what we used to call the poor segment. But it seems like people get confused by the 'bottom' in 'bottom of the pyramid'. In fact, it's a rabbit hole and the rabbit hole goes deep.
It is now common-sense business thinking that the markets are not unison. We don't take the whole World and consider that our market. You will never get VC funding with an idea like that. We zoom in on the continent, which can be divided into countries, which divide into regions, into areas. The people in different micromarkets have different buying behaviour, different wants and aspirations. And catering to those wants and needs is different. Selling snow mobiles in Helsinki is different than selling them in the north of Finland where Santa Claus lives. For one, it is entertainment, for the other, about survival. We know that. Think of the BoP in the same way - divided into tiny segments all over. Some marketing strategies are replicable across areas, income segments and sexes, but many are not.
