• Brandweek, Tuesday, September 12, 2006 12:15 PM

Marketers are tapping into the large pool of low- to middle-income consumers who tend to be more brand loyal than most. Casual Male is planning a big-and-tall brand aimed at the lower-income market later this year, for example. Last year, Procter & Gamble launched two products--Bounty Basic and Charmin Basic--aimed at the same price-sensitive group. Bounty Basic is now the seventh-best-selling paper-towel brand. The fastest-growing product in the financial-services sector is prepaid debit cards, most of which are being bought and used by people who don't have a bank account. Industry watchers say the current trend of creating products for lower-income consumers began in the 1990s, with the launch of the prepaid cell phones. The prepaid debit cards--co-branded by such marketers as Nascar, Virgin Mobile, and Domino's Pizza--are aimed at people who "may be living paycheck to paycheck and don't have the incentive to use banks," according to Nilson Report publisher David Robertson.

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