Growing the Pie in Emerging Markets: Marketing Strategies for Increasing the Ratio of Non-Users to Users

Emerging markets are the growth engines of the world but they differ significantly from developed countries.Multinationals tend to flounder in these countries due to the challenges posed by five key emerging marketcharacteristics: market heterogeneity, sociopolitical governance, unbranded competition, chronic shortage ofresources and inadequate infrastructure. Reducing the negative impact of these emerging market characteristicscan increase the ratio of first-time users to nonusers thereby resulting in large scale market expansion. To thisend, we propose eight marketing strategies rooted in the 4 A\u27s framework: Affordability through democratizingand upscaling the offer; Accessibility through managing and reinventing reach; Acceptability through culturaland functional fusion; and Awareness through building brand identity and engaging stakeholders. Achievingthese customer-centric outcomes can help companies overcome the challenges and realize the true potential ofemerging markets