Marketing to Brazil’s Emerging Middle Class

The purchasing power of lower- and middle-class Brazilians is expanding rapidly, creating new opportunities and markets for global companies. Pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, for instance, has repackaged a denture adhesive and is trying to sell it in slum communities in Rio de Janeiro. But the transition to the new market is not easy. For one thing, no one in these communities knows what a denture adhesive is or why they would need it, even though a quarter of them wear dentures. Marketing and consumer relations are also a problem with a poorly-educated population. A new Brazilian company, A Ponte, seeks to build bridges between the new markets and the global companies by offering local knowledge – a long and slow process nonetheless. Global companies may be able to take advantage of markets all over the world but not without surmounting local barriers. – YaleGlobal