#mitsloanbranding

[gbconte-blog]

Maintaining the Branding Edge in the Airline Industry

Airline is one of the industry in which it is hardest to obtain a true competitive advantage. A high fixed cost structure, increasingly price sensitive customers and mounting pressure from low-cost carriers make it extremely hard to obtain very healthy margins.

This week’s case on Singapore Airlines highlighted how skillful they where in the 70′s and 80′s to be the first to build a strong brand around top-class customer service. They identified that more than half of the profit were coming from Business and First Class passengers, and therefore built a brand that could attract these more demanding type of customers.

The problem in the long term results in maintaining this “first mover” advantage.  What refined world travelers are looking for is “to be pampered” - says the case - they look at flying as they look at any luxury good. The experience has to be unparalleled. 

But the reality is that starting in the early 2000′s other newer carriers (such as Qatar and Emirates) became more attractive, more global, and projected an image of being the new generation of airlines. The video showed the excitement of newly recruited Qatar flight assistants, thrilled to be joining a strong brand that reflects quality and luxury. After all, airline companies benefit / lose from the image of their home country.

And which are the country that currently embody the idea of excess, luxury goods and services if not the oil-rich middle eastern ones? 

[nidhimit-blog]

The human element works because we all like shortcuts

It’s no secret that success of a modern day brand is defined by how consumers engage with it- digitally, in-store, but even more importantly- heuristically. And it is in enabling these mental shortcuts, the heuristic thinking, that the human element of the brand becomes even more crucial. Whether it’s a celebrity endorser, or a personal connection with an employee or founder of the company, or perhaps a one-on-one interaction, for most brands that stand out (positively or negatively!), there’s presence of a human element.

The story of Weight Watchers is a particularly relevant one. For the longest time, Weight Watchers was synonymous with meetings similar to those of the AA, in unnamed locations where you would not want to be seen. In 2015, Oprah decided to buy a 10% stake in the company and endorse the brand with her grand presence. Now, Oprah remains one of the biggest brand influencers in America (in the 4th spot, behind only Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton, Bill Gates, and Taylor Swift), but Oprah has also openly discussed her history with weight loss in the past making her the ideal “human element”. When I think of weight loss, I want to know it’s doable, Oprah has struggled through it like many of Weight Watcher’s customers and if Weight Watchers can help her, it can help the rest of them too. And that’s the shortcut. 

Last week we got to meet Claire Sulmers, an influential style blogger and what stood out to me that despite the exhaustion and scrutiny that comes with documenting one’s lifestyle online as the face of a lifestyle brand, that totally seemed to be the secret sauce behind Claire’s success. This holds true when VCs evaluate start-ups and their teams and even when we decide who to vote for. In all these cases, and more, while it may not seem so, it’s about the shortest cut our minds can take to figure out a brand.

[rgawande-sloan-branding-blog]

“20,000 Telemedicine Centers in the next 10 years”

When thinking about American Well’s market opportunity, I couldn’t help but think of the work that Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai, India has been doing for years in telemedicine. I believe American Well’s greatest opportunity to create impact - not just profit - lies abroad, in countries where there truly are millions of citizens without access to modern medical care. The Indian Government pledged to set up 20,000 telemedicine centers across the country, and American Well is ‘well-positioned’ to take advantage of this opportunity. 

Aravind Eye Hospital pursued a strategy of low-cost, high volume innovation, with their revolutionary cataract surgery, traveling eye camps, and now telemedicine (which began in the early 2010s). Through these methods, they developed a way to penetrate remote and un-served markets. While this may have seemed like an ‘easy’ way to convert customers, in my previous work at Acumen (an investor in Aravind Eye Hopstial), we learned that the Company still had to do a lot to convince patients of their quality, service level, and trustworthiness. They adhere to strict protocols and procedures to avoid injury or malpractice, and insist that every center is kept up to the highest international standards. These practices create trust -- and have built their brand into a global icon for low-cost medical care. 

American Well should consider the power of their technology outside of the US, where regulation, byzantine insurance policies, and an unreceptive public would make their roll-out much harder. 

[carlosblogbr-blog]

Branding to one’s customers customers

Interesting discussion when looking at the branding challenges of Back and Decker at the beginning of the nineties. Though they were one of the best known brands globally next to the likes of Coca Cola and Walt-Disney, and were practically the inventors of the power tool market in the US, Black & Decker was faced with a tough challenge in one of the fastest growing power tool market segments. Called the tradesman segment it comprised of individual contractors that win a living as electricians, plumbers, carpenters, framers, roofers, and general remodelers working in residential construction. In this tradesman market, a market for professional tools, Black and Decker enjoyed a mere 9% share whereas Makita, a relatively much smaller player in the us market, held 50% market share. The interesting reason turned out to be that, individual contractors were hired by homeowners, who, by definition, knew relatively little about home improvement. Therefore they relied on very subtle “signals” to identify whether a contractor knew what they were doing or not. In this sense, given the impressiveness of power tools, if compared to home-use tools, these stuck out in homeowner’s perception and the look of the contractor’s power tools ended up becoming very important. The issue then turned out to be that B&D was already very well known by homeowners but it was strongly associated with daily products that did not give the impression of any differentiation. Therefore, if contractors showed up with B&D-branded tools, the home owners got the association that the contractors were not differentiated from themselves and therefore probably not worth hiring. When reading up to this point I had the immediate reaction that homeowners were making System 1 associations to infer the quality of the contractor, based on the appearance of the power tool that they used. My reasoning then concluded that B&D would have to have built a completely new brand, something free of any associations, decisively changing the look of the product, including its predominant color. At a later moment, once the new brand (and color) were very well known, and recognized, they could potentially even add back the “by Black and Decker” logo to strengthen the B&B brand itself. To go about choosing the new brand name, look and color, I would start by surveying the market of homeowners, as their opinion is what matters the most to the contractors which are the B&Ds customers.

[thehouseofwilliam-blog]

The pervasiveness of stereotypes and the bamboo ceiling

I’ve often wondered why there aren’t more examples of Asian Americans in positions of leadership in the corporate world.  The fact that Asians comprise just 1.5% of officer positions in Fortune 500 companies doesn’t reconcile with my own experiences; in both my undergraduate and MBA classes Asians were well overrepresented relative to the US population.

Asians have long been viewed as an example of the “model minority.”  On average, Asian Americans tend to outperform educational attainment, test scores, and make up a disproportionate share of higher education.  However, all else equal a white man or woman is 154% more likely to hold an executive role.

This largely stems from pervasive stereotypes about Asians.  A 2001 study showed that Asians were often viewed as very competent, but low on social and leadership skills.   Unfortunately, Asian stereotypes often comes into conflict with society’s perceive notions of leadership:  while leaders are often seen to be masculine, dictatorial, and confrontational, the prevailing Asian stereotypes are of docility and subservience.  This partially explains the funneling effect of Asians in corporate America - there is strong representation at entry level corporate jobs but as you go up the corporate ladder representation gets lower and lower.

It’s important to keep this in mind, especially when thinking proactively for issues of inclusivity and diversity.  The success of Asian Americans in higher education and lower management have created a perception that proactive inclusion programs targeting Asians are unnecessary.  However, Asian representation at the top of the corporate ladder is serious and it’s worth investigating what inherent biases are at play that have created this paradigm.

[sumitaggarwal-blog]

Why Google created Alphabet – A branding perspective

In their blog post “G is for Google”, Larry Page and Sergey Brin explained why they just created a new company.

They said” Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one." As part of that, we also said that you could expect us to make "smaller bets in areas that might seem very speculative or even strange when compared to our current businesses." From the start, we've always strived to do more and to do important and meaningful things with the resources we have.

Looking at this from the perspective of Brand Relationship. Google, employed the "branded house" strategy with Google Glass, Google Play, maps, books etc., and was getting into a "house of brands" strategy with Nest, Fiber, etc. However, as the company began moving into driverless cars, health care, and other fields, they were growing more distant from their brand promise and corporate mission. This needed a change in brand architecture for proper management.

Creating a new company Alphabet helped was aimed at doing the following:

·       Make the structure and business more transparent.

·       Enable google to hone its brand focus

·       Help every division focus on their brands

·       Eliminates confusion in consumers and investors’ minds

The downside is, it requires each brand to have its own marketing budget, market position, and customer segment. Not only do you have to take into consideration the customer and vision, you'll have to consider your marketing budget and the capacity of your marketing team. 

A reference list of brands which Alphabet own is given below:

·       A - Alphabet / Android / AdSense / Analytics / Ara / AdMob / Alerts

·       B - Blogger / Boston Dynamics / Books

·       C - Calico / Cardboard / Capital

·       D - Drive / DeepMind / Design / DoubleClick

·       E - Earth / Express

·       F - Fiber / Fi / Flights / FeedBurner / Firebase / Finance

·       G - Google / Gmail / Glass / Groups

·       H - Hangouts

·       I - Images / Ingress / Inbox / Invite Media

·       J - Jump

·       K - Keep

·       L - Life Sciences / Local / Loon

·       M - Maps / My Business / Makani

·       N - Nest / News / Nexus / Now

·       O - Offers

·       P - Plus / Play / Photos / Picasa / Pixate / Patents

·       Q - (Nexus) Q

·       R - Refine / reCaptcha

·       S - Search / Shopping / SageTV /Stackdriver / Skybox / Skia / Scholar

·       T - Translate / Tango

·       U - N/A

·       V - Voice / Ventures / VirusTotal / Video

·       W - Wallet / Wing

·       X - X Labs

·       Y - YouTube

·       Z - Project Z / Zagat

Source: https://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/2015/08/alphabet-architecture-success.html#.Wt4ch4jwY2w

http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-and-sergey-brin-explain-why-they-created-alphabet-2015-8

[maroofthesmurf]

Better  World Books

Conscious Substitutes: A dream or reality?

The case of Better World Books certainly gives us hope for conscientious business. The online bookstore with a soul, has, definitely shown that you can make money and have a social mission. It created economic, social and environmental value for all its stakeholders. Their inspiration came from thousands of books being sent to landfills, book drives that made them realize that college students were happy to donate their books to a good cause and potential synergy between business and social mission: converting donated books into financial resources to be used to do good.

Their innovative approach consisted of 4 components: establish relationships with non-profit partnerships who sponsored book collection drives; coordinating ongoing book collection drives on college campuses; resell collected books via 15 online channels; part of the money from each book sale was given to the specified non-profit partner. Unsold books were shipped to overseas programs focusing on literacy or recycled. Their for-profit structure and market based approach helped them operate without any philanthropy donations.

Social purpose branding became successful towards the end of the 20th century following the highly successful American Express Statue of Liberty promotion, where Amex donated a percentage of their customer’s credit card to the restoration of the Statue of Liberty. Soon after, many corporations paired up with non-profits to sync their brands to existing social causes. Companies were spending $1.11b on cause-related marketing by 2005, leveraging the partnerships with non-profits. A survey done in UK found 1.9million ‘conscious consumers’ who used their consumption to enact social and environmental change, which was set to increase to 4million by 2009.

I think one of the key components of their growth and branding strategy was understanding their customers. Their Consumer Research Results gave them insights where they could leverage their points of differentiation in areas such as Price, Free Shipping, Convenience, Customer Service and Quality, amongst others factors. Understanding the dynamics in each of these gave them a certain edge amongst their competitors which helped them differentiate and get established as a leader in their space.

In the words of Helgesen, co-founder of Better World Books, “Success boils down to intentions. When you confront every business problem with the social mission in mind, your solutions reflect those intentions.” I couldn’t agree more.

 References:

“Better World Books” – Michael Norton, Fiona Wilson, Jill Avery and Thomas Steenburgh. Harvard Business School.

[horileal-blog]

Do’s and don’ts of pitching

How to pitch new ideas is a difficult task. Certainly in corporate environments it involves a lot of discussion between “pitchers” and “catchers”, a lot of persuasion, a lot of adaptation, a lot of spending and resource allocation, and a lot of time. Similar in many ways is the pitching of a new idea to the general public. Even for existing products, sometimes it is necessary to bring new ideas to boost their presence or to change the message they want to convey to the existing and new audiences they want to appeal to. In my opinion the best thing they can do is to be personal and to tell you very clearly that they want to help you reach your goals and dreams thanks to this product that maybe you want to consider more thanks to this new twist and image you wish to add to an existing product.

Examples of this are the Coca Cola ad for Argentina for the World Cup, where the basic message is that Coca Cola helps you in good and bad moments just like the Argentina national soccer team has good and bad moments:

Another example is this Turkish Airlines case. Have you not considered Turkish Airlines before? Consider it because we care about what you care. We want to help you carry out your dreams:

These two previous examples show how well achieved personal connections can have a great boost to a pitch of an existing product to new and existing audiences.

Similarly, for new products, maybe a great thing to do is to tell you how this new product will be a great complement to you daily life. Be explicit about what problem this new product comes to solve, which gap to fill, etc. This is what the Coin ad tells you:

This is a product that solves a very concrete problem and even has some additional features that you may like.

What not to do? I guess to pitch an idea you should never tell consumers that they are stupid. Very simple, but many companies, perhaps inadvertently, convey this message in some of their new product launches. Such is the case, in my opinion, of the first Amazon Echo commercial:

This seems like a very interesting product. However the trivialization shown in this commercial in many instances and the partial message it conveys regarding how dumb you can be without this product is simply a very bad approach. Some of this was fixed with the Echo Dot ad because they highlight more the functionality of the product rather than the absurdness of its trivial uses and how dumb people are without it.

[gbconte-blog]

Corona is “Fun, Sun, Beach” and Consistency!

I have had some fun looking at old TV commercials made by Grupo Modelo for its Corona Extra brand all around the world. I was impressed by how the Fun, Sun, Beach theme has remained consistent throughout time and most interestingly across countries. 

Take a look:

This is one is from Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRdbvGgPPiw

This other one is from Mexico: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjmoug5e79U

And this one is from Italy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az8k8luukbs

Interesting, no?

[rgawande-sloan-branding-blog]

Can a legendary trench coat and a women’s perfume co-exist in the Burberry line? 

If we follow the frameworks we’ve studied so far, the answer is most likely yes. Burberry’s brand has transformed from one of form and function in its early days, to a lifestyle signal today. Because it is now associated with a persona, a class status, and ‘affordable luxury’, it can be transferred to other goods that rely on strong branding, and less on function. 

In Burberry’s early days, their signature product was the trench coat with their well-known checked pattern lining. They sold this on a brand of durability, style, and function. They used to advertise their sponsorships of trips to Antarctica and Everest, focusing on the functionality of the coats. There was a lifestyle component to it, as Royalty and upper class aristocrats were associated with the brand, but because they focused only on trench coats it was not as transferrable. 

After the company’s period of rapid expansion (and taking back its licensing business), to build brand equity they focused on maintaining their past through Esteem and Knowledge (keeping the trench coat as their symbol), but creating Energy and Relevance by expanding to the ‘affordable luxury’ market. Unlike regular retail markets, luxury is almost entirely about brand. By building a modern luxury brand, Burberry was able to extend its market by taking a Branded House strategy. Because of the signature check design, they were able to transfer the image of their brand into new products and lines, beyond trench coats. 

When considering expanding to perfume, I believe that this same power to transfer their brand’s identity will serve them well. Perfume is similarly more about brand than actual function (it’s hard to tell exactly what smells consumers will prefer, so you sell them on a lifestyle). That’s why most perfume ads focus on the models and scenery, not necessarily on the functional aspect of smelling nice. I believe Burberry’s brand is strong enough to extend into this market. 

[ambikasi]

Consumers: fear or flattery?

Our startup venture, Armoire, is entering a space with three established competitors.  They are all targeting different customer segments, and it is our job to clearly message to consumers why our service is particularly optimized for them.

As we discussed early in class, there are different ways to appeal to customers. One is to show them an aspirational view of themselves, what they what to be, and one is to show them what they do not want to be.

In fashion (our space), aspirational is a natural choice.  However, in talking with Prof Gosline and thinking about our available options, I am exploring the possibility of appealing to a different emotion: depicting the downside of not engaging in our service.

This approach would mean that we appeal to their fear of not dressing appropriately. I think that this would be an interesting and differentiated tactic. 

A more conservative approach would be to simply depict an rosy view of customers who had engaged in our service.

Fear or flattery?

[thehouseofwilliam-blog]

How America Woke Up Fabulous

Changing social attitudes is hard. I mean, it’s 2018 and we’re still seeing Nazi’s walking down the street. 

And although there’s still much room for progress on a variety of social issues, I think it’s important to call out when they occur so that we can learn.  These successes can provide helpful insights for social movements, governments, and companies who seek to promote more positive attitudes and behaviors.

Case in point: acceptance of same-sex marriage in America improved much more rapidly than most would have predicted. 

Compared to other social movements such as abortion, women’s suffrage, and interracial marriage, same sex-marriage saw a much faster increase in social acceptance.  Since 2004, support for gay marriage has increased at a rate of about 2.4% each year.

Now, that is not to say that we as a society have reached where we need to nor am I discounting the years of struggle and hard work for advocates who helped make that possible.  But I do think it’s remarkable that compared to so many other social issues, same-sex marriage saw much faster acceptance.  How did this happen?

One thing that is important is that with support for gay marriage, the increased adoption is driven more by people changing their minds, whereas for things like women’s suffrage the main driver was literally old stubborn people dying and being replaced my more progressive-minded people that pushed the movement forward.

There are two drivers: 

(1) Depictions of same-sex couples are increasingly common in media.  TV Shows and actors like Will and Grace, Ellen, and Rosie O’Donnell paved the way for broader acceptance.

(2) People are increasingly likely to have an LGBT family member or neighbor.  For instance, it’s very possible that conservative parents could end up having a gay son or daughter.  So with the spectre of homosexuality much more proximate, it’s natural that attitudes might adjust.

These two things speak to the power of social proof in pushing attitude change of thorny cultural issues. 

So what lessons can we learn from this?

Advertisers & governments pay attention: it’s important to use social proof effectively.  Make your role models aspirational and personal.  Prime people to think of their close friends and family members who may be struggling with your particular social issue and they are much more likely to change their minds.

[mitsloanbrandingsectiona]

Lionfish: “Eat them, to beat them” or “Experience the rare exotic delicacy”

In rebranding Lionfish one of our primary objectives is to get the branding message right. I think figuring out the right branding message –what will get the consumers hooked- is imperative to lift the lionfish brand. Corona lets you experience summertime, beach time, Axe gets you laid and Coors is cold. A simple branding message goes a great deal in getting people hooked to your brand.

In case of lionfish the question is should the branding message be around environmental sustainability e.g. “Eat them, to beat them” or should it be centered around its almost divine taste e.g. “experience the rare exotic delicacy”.  The former incudes crafting a social media campaign that propagates it as the most sustainable seafood choice, whereas the latter includes getting the Top chefs to cook and endorse the product with exotic recipes.

While we gather more data from consumer surveys and research on what should be the preferred branding message, we can also learn a great deal from other fish rebranding campaigns.

It’s all in the name Quite a few of the unpopular fish species have been rebranded by changing their names. Some notable cases* include:

Lionfish an infamous fish right now. Renaming it in conjunction with our branding message can be really powerful. ‘French Angelfish’, ‘Moorish Idol’, ‘Devilfish’ – the right name can give the required heuristic effects from our consumers.

Learning from the Asian Carp

The Asian Carp is also an invasive species that was affecting inland America and was rebranded in a very interesting way. The fish from central US is now being sold in Asia very successfully.  Their branding strategy revolved around two things - a branding message that created an allure of tasting something WILD. They used great imagery to relate the fish to being vibrant, wild and fresh – a euphemism for dangerous and violent behavior. (The fish is in fact known to slap people in boats because they get startled easily.) They were able to successfully promote that one message “Asian Carp is wild and fresh” successfully and attract a large audience who eat mostly farmed versions of it. The second interesting aspect of rebranding the Asian Carp was to increase the pricing and make it a premium pricing product. Premium pricing might be a risky strategy to use for invasive species but it’s a really effective way to attract attention.  

As we think about rebranding Lionfish these lessons give us a good reference point to develop our branding strategy and finalize the branding message we want to convey to our audience.

[soundeff-blog]

Avoiding pitfalls of pitch

Reading the article of “How to Pitch a Brilliant Idea”, it was interesting to find some successful types of creative pitchers in the Hollywood movie world. However, the most appealing portion of the article to me was not the successful types but some of the dangerous pigeonholes that are guaranteed to kill a pitch. It was quite clear to me that these were some things I should always consider when speaking to people on all occasions.

Reading through the different characters reminded me of past experiences that I felt bad about. The “pushover” of being easily manipulated by others, the robot being too formulaic, the used-car salesman being an argumentative character, the charity case pleading for his/her needs. The list was clear on how each case could ruin the listeners by its characteristics. However, it seemed that it would be hard to balance the pitch and stay in the safe zone. As a person who are not strong at in the moment improvisation, I think it would be beneficial to plan accordingly and think hard to draw the right path of an effective pitches beforehand.

[vegetableheadshots-blog]

My personal brand

In Professor Gosline’s last class, she asked us to think of 5 words that define us. She then taught us that there is only a 0.4 correlation between the 5 adjectives that you would use to describe yourself, and the 5 words that another person would use to describe you.  That’s not very high at all.  I felt somewhat deflated by this, because I have, several times throughout my career and throughout my Sloan experience, asked others to pick 3-5 words that describe me.  I often heard these 5 words:

1. Passionate

2. Honest

3. Driven

4. Thoughtful

5. Authentic

These also happened to be the 5 words I would use to describe myself. The 0.4 correlation led me to doubt myself: are people just saying what they think I want to hear?  Am I only remembering the words they said that fit my own perception of myself, and conveniently forgetting all other adjectives that don’t confirm my bias?  Am I asking only people who I know have a positive impression of me?  

The one adjective in the list that gives me some hope is “Authentic.”  That tells me that whoever I am, whatever the other 4 adjectives might actually be, at least I am projecting my true self at all times.  Authenticity to me, is evidence of self-awareness.  Thus, even if my other 4 adjectives were “Insensitive” “Cold” “Boring” and “Unmotivated,” as long as that 5th adjective was “Authentic,” chances are I am aware of how I am behaving, and would hopefully work to change it.  

Throughout the many years that I have received 360 feedback, either formal or informal, I have never heard the words “Dishonest” “Inauthentic” or “Disingenuous” used to describe me.  I take great pride in that, and will always work to keep it that way, even in the most political climates.

[fcojmejia-blog]

Lessons in personal and corporate branding

Personal branding has gained visibility in the last years with the emergence of social media. Our parents’ generation did not have to think about how their “brand” would be portrayed by others, especially if they decided to follow a life away from politics, sports, or entertainment. Nowadays, anyone can become a renowned face from one day to another, whether on purpose or not. Within seconds, anyone can find out a large information about your life from your presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin, etc., -or absence from them. Thus, personal branding is something we -ordinary netizens in a globalized world- should give a little bit more of thought.

Taking control of one’s narrative is relevant whether a person is interested in social media or not. Leaving it for others to tell your story could let anyone, from an unfriendly colleague to an influential personality like John Stewart to tell the story they want about you. Not having control of how your story is told is unfortunately no longer an option, and will cause less grievances the sooner we realize it.

Once we acknowledge the need to exert power to how personal brands are perceived over social media, it make sense to ensure that there is consistency with the image one tries to project. Having a public Facebook profile showing pictures of a weekend debauchery is not consistent with a LinkedIn profile for someone presenting himself as an “experienced Financial Analyst”. Or maybe it does, but it probably was not the user’s original intent.

As with all brands, building a personal brands takes time, but can be destroyed in an instant. Selectively choosing what content to post and with whom to share could be a first step in protecting a personal brand. However, we should remember that all content eventually could become public, even if it was shared with a group of close friends, or if it was exclusively meant to be private.

Finally, the most important lessons for both company and personal branding is to remain genuine. Nobody likes phonies. Whether it is someone posting excessively retouched Instagram photos or a brand failing to acknowledge paying celebrities for endorsement on Twitter, being honest and transparent are prerequisites for being taking seriously by peers, colleagues, potential employers and anyone in general in the global community.