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NexThought Monday – Counterintuitive Ideas are the Right Answer for Sustainable Enterprises
We often assume low-income communities will purchase a product or service simply because we think they would need it for more comfortable, better lives – just as we would. However, we rarely give enough importance to the social codes, the priorities, the calculations and mental process behind the actual decision-making.
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- Uncategorized
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Viewpoint: Stop Marketing, Start Elevating
The next five years will throw a lot of cold water on marketers, waking them up to a burning challenge. At the heart of it is a global tech-fuelled surge of power from brands to people, and today it is sweeping through a younger, assertive hooked-up India.
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- Technology
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A Delicate Balance for Ruby Cup: Improving public health, keeping girls in school through menstrual hygiene management
The Ruby Cup represents a low-cost, sustainable solution to the problem of menstrual hygiene management in the developing world. But the company that makes the cups found profitability only after shifting focus and changing its target market from the BoP to high-end customers and a buy-one/give-one business model.
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- Education, Health Care
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Twitter Confirms Acquisition of India’s Missed Call Marketing Platform ZipDial
Last week TechCrunch reported Twitter was in final talks to acquire ZipDial for between $30 million and $40 million, and today the company announced the deal has closed. ZipDial allows people to call a special phone number for a business, hang up before they incur a charge, and then receive a phone call or SMS with information about the business. This “missed call” marketing platform allows people to access content for free, which is especially useful in the developing world where many can’t afford data plans.
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- Technology
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Marketing the ‘Real Cool Honey’ Sachets: Launch lessons from Asali Poa in Kenya
Find a product-market fit and then execute flawlessly. Both are tough and have high risks that you need to overcome with the launch process. Here are a few big lessons from Honey Care Africa’s little sachet of honey, which we call Asali Poa (translated as "real cool honey"). We launched the product commercially in 2014 in Nairobi and currently reach 3,000 points of purchase.
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- Technology
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Incubating Expertise: Fostering partnerships within the community – part 4 in a series of BoP fundamentals
There are many potential pitfalls for businesses in emerging markets but, to some extent, these issues can be mitigated by partnering and collaborating with local organizations and experts.
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- Education
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NexThought Monday – Warby Parker Blurring Lines Between ‘Social’ and ‘Business’: Glasses firm takes BOGO model to new heights
The "buy one, give one" model allows companies to tap into the formerly unrequited millennial desire to do good from a distance – and with style. Dozens of companies have adopted the strategy. Among them, the author says, Warby Parker does it best.
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- Environment
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The ‘Scrappy Rockstar’ of Global Health?: Maternova using Amazon-type platform to help save lives of mothers, infants in developing world
Maternova, a women-owned, women-run, for-profit social enterprise, has been described as "an Amazon-type platform, but for global health technologies." Allyson Cote, a co-founder, describes how her company is helping save the lives of mothers and infants in developing countries around the world.
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- Health Care, Social Enterprise