This book is unique in several ways. First, it focuses on marketing to low-income consumers, but not those in extreme poverty. Consumers earning income around the poverty line are a sizable group in nearly every country. Often, major marketing textbooks tend to assume that consumers are at least middle class, and as a consequence, most of them do not even include the low-income audience. Second, this book contextualizes the low-income consumer within the marketing discipline. It considers the low-income consumers who engage voluntarily in market exchanges. These consumers differ significantly from those in extreme poverty who, as a group, are not sufficiently attractive to most corporate businesses. In turn, those who live in extreme poverty demand substantial attention from major social endeavors. However, the low-income consumers can be better served if businesses give them proper analytical attention. Third, this book embraces the profit motivation, assuming that marketing without profit goals cannot sponsor arguments for poverty subjects over any other claims. It also supports the idea that marketing cannot address poverty by demanding businesses sacrifice profit to benefit a new stakeholder. Fourth, no other book explores the topic of poverty from a marketing perspective like this. It borrows concepts from other disciplines and molds them to marketing thought. By doing this, it develops a unique vocabulary for poverty, which is essential for marketing to be comprehensive. This approach avoids sending students to other schools where poverty knowledge lacks the appropriate business perspective. It also helps readers understand the poverty concepts within the marketing discipline.

Product, price, promotion and place: these are the four key areas in which marketing influences consumers. This innovative book takes the stance that poor consumers are distinctly disadvantaged in each of these areas. Documenting the imbalance of the exchange process by describing the business practice of those who market to poor consumers, issues related to basic necessities such as food, housing and transportation are addressed, as well as the consumption of `sin' products by poor consumers. The problems faced by those who target low-income consumers are also examined, including the conflict between sound marketing practices and marginally ethical or unethical applications of those practices. The final section of the book