Ten years ago, a book called "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid," introduced the idea that world's poorest people are "a vast, rapidly-growing market with untapped buying power," and companies that learn to serve them can both make money and create sustainable, scalable, and empowering enterprises to help people escape poverty in the long-term. Bill Gates called the idea "an intriguing blueprint for how to fight poverty with profitability" - creating products and services needed by the poorest in ways that are financially and physically accessible. This collection explores this promising and yet highly-complex methodology as employed by a number of different initiatives and organizations that are finding different ways to reach underserved communities around the world.

1. Marketing to the base of the pyramid isn't just about offering a better product, it entails offering one that’s more efficient, provides better information, increases productivity, is safer, cleaner, faster or otherwise improved. Identify three or more products or services from the collection and describe how they meet these criteria.
2. Explain how the method of marketing to the base of the pyramid shifts the source of power from seller to buyer and how this change can affect quality and engagement of the service or product. 
3. A new product or innovation that can dramatically improve a person's life and income can be incredibly difficult to market, as generally those at the bottom of the pyramid function within a purely "tried and true" economy.  As a Fast Company article put it, "No subsistence farmer walks to a store or stall saying, 'I wonder what’s new today? I wonder if there’s a new way for me to solve my problems?' Fear of loss is greater than hope of gain."* Advertising like flashy packaging that might draw Western consumers is ineffective in poor communities. Analyze some alternate methods used by organizations and ventures in this collection to raise awareness for, trust in, and distribution of a new product or service. 

*source: Fast Company (https://www.fastcompany.com/1687863/marketing-bottom-pyramid)