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Selling 'Enjoyment' to Subaltern Consumers
With the celebration of the market and marketing as the neoliberalist panacea for solving all ills, something has gone wrong with the philosophy and practice of management. A few examples and a call for action.
Around the world, four billion people live in poverty. And western companies are struggling to turn them into customers.
– The Wall Street Journal (26 October 2009).
The aggressive zeal in this quotation portrays a “fine” possibility that poverty throws up for the corporate sector and the innovations that are required for the purpose. Wonderful numbers and fascinating possibilities attract the managers but they hide the p redicament faced by the poor the w orld over. Managerial literature and practitioners are euphoric about the p ossibilities, but the marketing decisions for the poor are made by the managers who do not have a holistic understanding of the reality of poverty and the consequential e ffects on the poor consumers remain ever u ncalculated.