Marketing and Inspiring !

After reading the article The dragon fly effect I was amazed at what creative marketing could do and read about determination and will power. The story of Alex Scott and her lemonade stand truly touched me. It just proves that with the right mix of determination (goal), attention, engagement and taking action can make any product excel. Reading these amazing stories, I could relate this to my work with Madura Microfinance (MMF) in India.

MMF works with poor women in rural parts of South India. These women are so poor that making a profit of a mere 20$ / month (Rs.800/-) is a big deal for them. The focus of MMF was women, because the company believed that only women can change a society. They lend loans of ranging from 20 to 100$ to women. Women, who have a particular skill or an idea for a business are only given loans. These women are then put into groups called self-help groups , to help them repay their monthly installments. So the challenge was to work on a marketing campaign to spread awareness of their loan products and organisation. We worked with print and television media catering to the villages. Spreading awareness by pointing to the success stories of women entrepreneurs. Taking the media to these villages and exposing them to life in the villages and the determination of these women to succeed created a huge impact on the media !

One women who was uneducated but able to start and run a successful business of rearing cows. Her husband did not work and soon seeing her succeed at what she did started to help her soon. She was happy that with the money she earned her children were able to go to school and be better educated ! I can say this organization enforced all four wings of the dragonfly effect.

Design thinking is one concept, which I hearing lately in many discussions, group presentations and in articles. This article also had a brief mention of design thinking. In one of my other classes we had a detailed study on P&G's effort to restructure the organisation based on design thinking and its principles. Design thinking focuses on the needs of the customer to design a product rather than creating a product and then targeting it to a specific audience. So, I was wondering would design thinking help in the formation of a product for a social enterprise ? What would be its advantages/ disadvantages?