Marketing 0

REFLECTION QUESTIONS
What generations does your organization serve today? Have
you fully understood their preferences and behaviors?
Is your organization well positioned for the future? In other
words, are you preparing your organization to serve the
digital natives—Generation Z and Generation Alpha?

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CHAPTER 3
Prosperity Polarization: Creating
Inclusivity and Sustainability for
Society
The Platform is a dystopian thriller movie set in a tall prison tower
with hundreds of floors. Two inmates are randomly paired on each
floor. They are fed daily through a moving platform that serves
various kinds of gourmet food, descending from top to bottom floor.
Inmates on the upper levels can eat as much as they like and leave
the rest to the lower levels. Due to the greed and selfishness of those
on the top floors, most prisoners are scraping for leftovers. Past a
certain level, no more food is left, starving people beneath.
There is a chance to solve the problem. Since prisoners are rotated to
different floors every month, they experience both moments of
indulgence and hunger. And they know there is enough food for
everyone if they ration their meals. But because everyone is striving
for survival at some point, nobody has empathy toward others. The
story reflects the classic “Prisoner's Dilemma,” in which individuals
acting in their self-interest often do not produce the best possible
outcome.
The movie has received critical acclaim because it carries a message
that resonates. It symbolizes imbalances in society and the social
ignorance that causes them. People at the top prosper while those at
the bottom suffer. And most do not seem interested in closing the
gap. The metaphor also reflects the sustainability challenge that we
are facing, where current generations exploit the environment
without thinking about what they will leave for future generations.
Indeed one of humanity's toughest challenges is the widening gap
between the rich and the poor, making society extremely polarized in
every facet of life. Discussions on gender equality, clean energy, and
smart cities only seem prominent among the elites. Meanwhile, at
the other end of the spectrum, people struggle to get out of poverty

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and have access to food, healthcare, and basic sanitation. Because of
this, social change often fails to cross the chasm from the wealthy
early adopters to the less prosperous masses.
Some argue that technology will level the playing field and make a
better life accessible to all. But coming from years of research, most
technology solutions are still expensive. Without proper
intervention, technology innovation will be biased toward the rich,
who have better access. Those with higher education and high-value
jobs, for instance, would be able to prosper using automation while
those at the other end would lose their jobs.
Today, the use of technology for humanity is still too concentrated at
the top. Companies will understandably follow the money and
introduce technology to segments that have business potential. Thus,
artificial intelligence algorithms focus too much on mapping the
behaviors of a select few and assume they are similar to the mass
majority. Advanced technology tends to be irrelevant for most
people. That needs to change. Improving the accessibility and
relevancy of technology is imperative for Marketing 5.0 to work.