Integration of Geddesian Town Planning Theory into Marketing: An Interdisciplinary Approach for Bottom of Pyramid Market: An Abstract

Abstract

Until recently, the Bottom of Pyramid market was largely ignored by the multinationals, due to huge challenges it possesses to overcome; but now an increasing number of multinationals are trying to tap this huge and lucrative market. Most of the attempts of multinationals are resulting into partial success or no success at all. On the other side, many academicians have criticized this approach on the grounds of vulnerability of its consumers, market size and sustainable profits for MNC’s. Thus, there is an urgent need to build a robust theoretical framework that will help in not only overcoming the criticism laid by the various academicians but also will help in understanding the dynamics of this huge lucrative yet challenging market. This study aims to address this lacuna, by developing a theoretical framework with completely new perspective, which is, borrowed from a different discipline of literature – Town Planning. The Geddesian Theory of town planning has its roots deeply anchored in three different disciplines of Biology, Sociology and Social Sciences. The Biological perspective is based on Darwin’s theory of triumvirate of Organism, Function and Environment. The Sociological perspective is based on Le Play’s understanding of social structure of society and the Social Science perspective is based upon Geography, Economics and Anthropology, the three contemporary components of Social Science. Geddesian Town planning theory is one of the oldest and widely known theory of town planning. The uniqueness of Geddes theory is that it keeps the people or what Geddes popularly call them as Folk at the centre stage. Both, Geddes Town planning theory and Bottom of Pyramid literature are common in terms of their focus on vulnerability of people, focus on being people centric. Moreover, both the theory and practice are considerate about employment opportunity and the economic aspect of people. The three main tenants of Geddesian Theory – Folk, Work and Place are reflected as Consumer, Propensity to consume, and Place in this new framework. The purpose of this research is twofold, firstly to draw parity between Geddesian Town planning theory and Bottom of the Pyramid market and secondly to develop a new framework, which will help in understanding this market from a fresh perspective.