Hi, I'm from Kenya and I laughed when I saw this post. You mean there's some other kind of marketing?
In a developing country economy like ours where market information is relatively scarce, people routinely enjoy returns on investment of five hundred percent because nobody knows what alternatives are available and, because costs can be passed on to consumers, nobody really tries to bring down prices or demand better services. Being poor as we are, there is a high level of price elasticity but this only applies if you have access to competing products - something which, thanks to a crumbling road infrastructure is not always possible. So a small number of suppliers connect with heads of government organisations and agencies and are able to do things which sometimes, can only be described as criminal. But, a ray of hope has come with liberalisation of the economy over the last ten years. Small businesses are penetrating rural areas and increasing advertising in a way that I believe is bringing more choice to consumers than they have ever had before. Unfortunately this goes hand in hand with the destruction of local industries and loss of jobs - sometimes because the local ndustries aren't good enough and sometimes because competing imported products enjoy unfair advantages - like being smuggled in tax free. Joe Gichuki Senior Manager Business Development Services Deloitte & Touche Nairobi -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:mspencer@;tallships.ca] Sent: 01 November, 2002 8:14 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Digression qry (Was: Last words (Was: Moral hazard (Was: Or poorer))) > Unemployment, Keynes showed, was due to a deficiency in the demand for > goods and services. This is an aside from Keynes. I've noticed a phenomenon for which I don't have a name but which seems to be so widespread that there must be a name for it. Any of the economist or biz wizards know what this is called? You have (or are developing) a product. One or more of the following applies: The competition's product is as good or better. The competition's product is as popular or more so. No one who might use your product wants it. The per-unit transaction costs of marketing your product is high. You could make a lot more money if people would buy inferior versions of your product. So you don't try to sell it to users. You focus all your marketing effort on institutions that can coerce large numbers of end users to use it. Software is the most outstanding example. You promote $BIGNUM copies to a corporation, government or school board who will then coerce employees or students to use it. Most commercial training software I've seen is so braindead that no competent learner would use it but if the lisensing agency for $OCCUPATION can be sold on it, the agency will then coerce trainees to use it. The developers are motivated to go heavy on the bells, whistles and eye candy that will tickle some functionary with a desk job wo makes the decision to buy/use the software. Not limited to software, however. A similar situation exists with the building code. Vendors lobby, strategize and weasel to get their products required. The result is approved, officially and putatively safe but embarassingly flimsy or third rate stuff in every dwelling. So what's the name for this marketing strategy? - Mike --- Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/
