Profiting from disparity: marketing to the poor across the United States and South Asia

2016-07-01Market saturation and growth in inequality has created a crisis in consumer capitalism that has presented particular challenges to the personal care industry. In this dissertation, I look at how multinational corporations like Colgate‐Palmolive, P&G, and Unilever seek to address these challenges by turning to three low‐income markets: poor people in the United States; middle‐class consumers in the global south; and very poor people in developing countries also referred to as the ‘bottom‐of‐the‐pyramid.’ Analysis of documents from market research and management consulting firms and field work in US Dollar Stores and retail sites in Kathmandu, Nepal indicate that in low‐income markets, multinational firms and retailers extend modern market systems and consumer practices among marginalized consumers by adapting to and standardizing local retail practices, personal habits, and social norms. In the process, American ideologies of upward mobility and personal responsibility that have disparaged the poor are becoming globalized in the name of expanding consumer choice. Thus, under neoliberal consumer capitalism, ‘choice’ becomes a disciplinary mechanism that justifies and ameliorates the anxieties of growing economic disparity and uncertainty