Transformative Marketing Services to Fight Poverty at the Bottom of the Pyramid

This chapter explores the role of transformative marketing services as a new framework to address poverty. In contrast to traditional economic conceptualisations of poverty, more recent approaches have acknowledged that different dimensions may play a role, thereby highlighting it as a complex phenomenon. Poor individuals are consumers with consumption needs and aspirations but limited opportunities to satisfy them. Companies are partly responsible for this unfulfillment, as they have ignored poor individuals for a long time under the assumption that they are not profitable or worthy. In addition to product adaptation and provision in vulnerable areas, transformative marketing services focus on creating uplifting opportunities that contribute to well-being and are an effective solution for achieving the first of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (i.e. no poverty).