Maria Gavrilenko

MBA Candidate 2018 | MIT Sloan Visiting Fellow

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My process: learning to pitch cross-culturally and Sloan takeaways to pitch anything anywhere

I am not a natural pitch-giver, but the path I’ve chosen has taken me to the MBA program in China, where I tend to be a joiner of nearly every project that involves cross-cultural entrepreneurship activity – from developing my business plan in the team consisting of people of completely polar cultures, to projects where an international company makes a very opportune yet very challenging choice to enter the market of China. Since in every of these teams and projects I happen to be one of those rare individuals who are westerners yet with a 10-year experience of living in this very different Asian culture and knowing its business mentality from inside after years of doing the East-West business, I often have to take a leading role in many aspects. And there it comes to pitching cross-culturally. Which means that you have to sell your idea to an extremely diverse and in many ways antipodal audience.

Here are a few things that I did in this experience, as well as the things that I did not do, which is the new knowledge I am acquiring today.

1.     Communicate value proposition in one brilliant sentence. This is something that I have learned from my Chinese-Hongkongese professor who would persistently interrupt any of our efforts to demonstrate how we will pitch our startup at our entrepreneurial training sessions: Where is your value proposition?? He would mock and interrupt us with this very question every single time when we did another poor effort to explain the same, until he would get upset, until we would feel exhausted, and until we would actually come up with one efficiently articulate statement that could explain it all in one valuable sentence. This is something that works cross-culturally, on any part of globe, no matter what you are selling and who your audience is.

2.     Emotion first, features second. It has been proven by many marketing researchers that emotion and aspiration is something that clings to people’s mind at the first place, and ones it caught them, you shall go on with functional features, projections and other details of your focus.

3.     When you are working internationally and cross-culturally, be a bridge between those opposing cultures, be an ambassador and show the deep understanding of the culture that is foreign to you or to the product that you are bringing in, touch the roots or specifics of this culture that are crucial to your product – this breaks the borders and creates connection and closeness.

These are the three keypoints that I have been relying on and which so far worked in my learning and projects related to learning. The real-world experience is still on the way though, and here are a few techniques that I am picking up in this course and that I will definitely add into my bank of takeaways:

·      Know your personal pitcher type – the showrunner, the artist or the neophyte – and wisely operate the featured tools of your type

·      Involve your audience, make them your active participators and collaborators of the process, make it a dialogue, thus increasing the audience’s interest and improving your chances to sell

·      Value the moment and be aware that the audience will develop their impression of you and your enterprise in a matter of the first few moments, therefore, don’t wait for a culmination moment and impress ASAP. Deliver that simple and effective message that will make the audience get it all in one sentence.

·      Keep in mind behavioral science and typical human biases and heuristics, one of the most important of which is that people tend to memorize bad experiences over good ones within the same encounter, thus one failed element can count over a dozen of successful ones. Another important point in this matter is that that your finale will be as memorable as your effective intro, thus remember to finish strong.

·      Avoid at all costs typical mistakes that are able to kill your pitch, such as failing to defend your ideas once they undergo a challenge or a criticism, delivering a canned, robotical presentation; arrogance, insistence and lack of flexibility and ability to listen to feedback and take value out of it; showing desperation to have your job going on.

·      Find your intrigue ping – your unique piece of information that will serve as a hook point to engage the audience and have them captivated

Pitching and being convincing, however, is much more complicated than it could be thought by me at the beginning, and like any science or high skill it must be learned, developed and honed.

To finish, I’d like to draw an illustration of a pitch that made me both laugh hard and made me want to invest:-)

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Claire Sulmers: a story of successful personal branding through social media

The story of Claire Sulmers is one great example of building a strong successful personal brand through effective management in social media – the powerful tool in today’s marketing world.

From a brief, but very inquisitive glimpse into Claire’s story, I’ve learned that she has grown up with an eager excitement and passion for the fascinating world of fashion. That was combined with the past fact of her placement into an upscale mid school due to her family’s constant focus on education, however, it coincided with financial crisis that her family had to face, which resulted in her being unable to own fashion objects possessed by many of her peers at school.

School bullying over the shortage of fashion assets and embarrassment that followed it made Claire develop her excitement over fashion into a real obsession and roots of decision to make the fashion her weapon were planted already at those times. 

What has followed after that is, in my opinion, a very successful case of personal brand evolvement through social media, which of course I am yet to learn and confirm from her own words, but that is my understanding at the first glance at Claire’s story and her social media profiles. Although it surely might as well be a biased understanding of myself being particularly excited about my studies of social media management, resulting in my eagerness to follow successful social media business and personal branding management stories that I am seeking out every now and then.

 Now to the question of personal branding and social media management.

Why do I think Claire’s case is a personal branding case?

The idea and the business model of The Fashion Bomb is strongly associated and correlated with her name, it is identified with her title of fashion expert, it has grown from her passion and her ability to express her vision, thus she could build up a career of a fashion blogger – herself as a brand. We can feel her personal presence in all the content she is producing, be it articles, interviews, fashion show representation, street fashion series and other content products. She is her authentic self in her brand, which means that she appears to the world in a certain way, acts certain way, writes certain things that reflect who she is and stays consistent in it. And people connect to the brand of The Fashion Bomb identifying it to connecting with her. She speaks through her brand, communicates with her audience from her platform and shows her ability to communicate her vision, shows knowledge and expertise, establishes credibility and power, and by doing so she has built one of the world’s top influential fashion sites. She is present throughout several platforms that present her in the most professional light, and at the same time, she keeps communication with experts in fashion industry, constantly learning from them.

What makes social media a management tool and how did Claire employ it?

Businesses, organizations and leaders of today widely use the opportunities of social media to build brands, raise brand awareness, to sell, to persuade, to provide services, to develop ideas and cultures – all these targets derive from the overall strategy of the business or a persona and are delivered through creating content.

The way I see development of The Fashion Bomb as a purely social media project can be mapped through several key elements of social media management that are interconnected and serve to the overall strategy.

·      You set the targets of your social media campaign (in Claires case – creating an extensive fashion expertise site)

·      You define your audiences (I believe that primary audience in this case were individuals passionate about fashion, but the platform quickly developed secondary and tertiary audiences that have actually become crucial players among the audiences – fashion icons, fashion journalists, fashion experts, representatives of the world’s major fashion shows and magazines)

·      You chose your platform (initially started on personal blog and Instagram which could fully serve her targets; eventually spread to cross-platform growth)

·      You create your brand (The Fashion Bomb Daily, closely connected with and identified by Claire’s personal brand, although at the start pf the career, as far as I know, she did not show the personality behind her blog due to obligations of work in other fashion magazine)

·      You fill your platform with the content (fashion news, trend reports, celebrity style demonstration; all the content is delivered through the persona of multicultural fashion writer; the content is always fresh, knowledgeable, engaging and thus creating a great value to readers)

·      Distribute content (by building the content that is valuable to readers, the managers ensures its shareability and wide distribution – sharing, reposting, endorsing, cross-platform posting, word-of-mouth, etc)

·      Measure the results of your campaign (by the number of likes, sharing, reposting and eventually by expertise endorsement, awareness, brand growth, cross-engagement with other businesses, and revenue generation)

The Fashion Bomb has become a highly successful example of a goal-oriented, audience-centered and expertise-based branding in social media, that has evolved into a brand which is highly respected in fashion industry.

P.S. As to myself, being a person in intense romantic relationship with fashion, I am very eagerly expecting the class with this persona tomorrow!)

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Blessing and evil of being a luxury brand

What struck me most in studying the case of Burberry in Branding course framework and outside of it was the way a brand with deluxe rank can impose enormous risks to the identity of its own self simply by just being what it is with all its quintessence.

Burberry, the brand associated with finest products with over a century-and-a-half history, the brand worn by aristocrats and royalties, the brand characterized throughout time as elite, refined, attributed to traditions of fine quality and identity of fair ladies and honorary gentlemen, at certain point of its lifecycle came to be associated, contrastingly, with bad taste and identity of “chavs” – antisocial British youth subculture characterized by low class, harsh behavior and stereotypically dressed in counterfeit designer clothes. Simply unbelievable.

A few words about how this happened. The signature Burberry checks, due to its broad exposure through the massive usage in vast amount of original Burberry products, became a pattern that could be easily reproduced and counterfeited, and eventually widely adopted by lower class subcultures playing on the exposure of this feature of the deluxe British Brand, as well as some affordable and characteristic products that Burberry started to produce (e.g. a £50 checkered baseball hat). Poor control over production and distribution chains that was typical of Burberry during its brand crisis of 90-s lead to the brand being heavily affected by the phenomenon of proletarian drift – the tendency when objects related to high class inexorably become commonplace due to trends of mass production. Thus, once emblematic checks of Burberry came to be associated with poor taste and vulgar image. Popularized now, the typical checks started to get growing exposure among football hooligans, street hip-hop singers and other groups of questionable reputation. This completely changed the way people saw Burberry. The company started to fail controls over its own image, it completely lost the icon of high-end clothing, which immediately affected the sales and infected brand reputation. Burberry has become a victim of its own success

 What did Burberry do in response? The very first and obvious step was to redesign collections in a way the checks exposure became controlled, tending to appear more in lining and small fine details of the products, as well as stopping the production of notorious baseball cap. However, heavily damaged brand needed an extended strategy of revival in all possible aspects apart from design – its supply chain, its distribution models, design, licensing, advertising campaigns and publicity. This was the period when Rose Marie Bravo took the CEO position and we know the successful revival story that happened from then on and took years to bring the brand back to life.

I can clearly conclude now that being a conventional and a deluxe brand in fashion are two completely different strategies of marketing and understand why designer brands want – and need – to control their brand so accurately. I understand now what they need to go through to control what their image in media and society carries, who wears their brand and what celebrities endorse it (and that explains to me very well why Burberry stopped cooperating with Kate Moss after the supermodel’s cocaine scandal and related explicit photos went viral in press), how their distribution and sales channels have to be mapped, what sort of manufacturing facilities should produce for them, how country-specific strategies should be built in global market. Every single detail of brand building matters and can easily play an evil game against its owner. Being luxury and being conventional, though operating in the same field of fashion and apparel, are two different approaches.

Key takeaways for me in cautious luxury brand management include:

·      Be consistent along the personas involved in the brand, this may include all kinds of stakeholders, like customers, managers, publicity campaigns personas, historically associated characters, and celebrities that endorse the brand – all of these groups are powerful influencers

·      Distinguish the brand’s story and mystique, advocate it, communicate brand’s exclusivity through it

·      Grip a firm control over manufacturing, licensing and distribution chains

·      Be very careful with design elements going viral and spreading into masses

·      Do not consider your brand as a visual icon and do not overvalue the latter, but do protect it

·      Be consistent along the brand’s price points

·      Create your store and store experiences to communicate brand beliefs

·      Embrace and control social media

·      Have a crisis management team always ready for action

·      In overall, implement strict measures of brand safety along all the campaigns

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How Singapore Airlines apply behavioral-science-based operating principles in their service

As it was pointed out by one of the Singapore Airlines’ chief representatives during the Aviation Services Marketing Conference, the difficulty of being a deluxe class player in aviation services industry is that you have to plan your marketing passage two years ahead, while few will risk to make forecasts for investing into such a lengthy period.(1) However, Singapore Airlines chose to invest into what is considered an eternal and intransient value in business - a strong customer-oriented brand.

(1) Source: Aviation Review Portal, issue #96, 2009, www.ato.ru

While it is clearly understood that in building its powerful brand, Singapore Airlines followed series of effective tactics and implementations, that are extremely worth recapitulating, such as 1) concentrating of providing an exceptional customer service and making it a signature element of the company’s culture, 2) constant innovation and perfection of aircrafts, amenities and other service offerings, 3) advanced staff training, 4) extending its brand and service essentials into various airline related services that contributed to general customer experience, 5) astute global entry strategy; I am however most interested to analyze the “soft” ways of winning something that is more than just an appreciation and recognition of travelers from all over the world. Flying with SIA is perceived as a an experience of a delight rather than just a transportation convenience by many travelers from economy to first class, including myself, including many frequent business and leisure travelers among my network of contacts after my 10-year experience of life in South-East Asia.   

Thus, I was very absorbed by the reading material presenting the insights of behavioral science and principles of applying them in consumer-centric businesses. I wanted to give it a tryout and look into how behavioral-science-based principles are applied in the management of Singapore Airlines customer care.

Let’s go.

Principle of finishing strong. Instead of discrete concept of giving each travel experience of a strong finish, I would concentrate on ever-lasting application of the sequence effect in humans’ perception: they tend to prefer experiences that improve overtime, with every next delightful experience giving stronger memories and impressions, overcoming those in the past. Singaporean Airlines apply this effect by constant perfection of their services, they come up with innovations and surprise their customers with each and every new invention. Returning customers will record the improved service offerings with every new experience. Besides that, the company clearly understand that the finish of the flight experience extends far beyond the moment when the traveller exits the aircraft, thus they offer a pleasant experience of prompt luggage collection at the destination, which adds a distinctive finale to the flight experience. While no matter how pleasant the flight experience could have been, a messy and slow luggage handling (which is typical for majority of airlines and airport facilities in my experience of flying at least every three months in the last three years) would be very likely to erase even the most pleasant memories of the flight.

Principle of getting the bad experience out of the way as early as possible. This is applied in the principles of handling problems by the staff of SIA: crew members are trained to solve the problems on-sight, using common sense, without waiting until the complaint reaches the higher management and gets resolved at the higher level; check-in and arrival areas are monitored by trained staff who will offer a help before a customer approaches them with problems and questions; problem-solving solutions are straight-forward and very personal. This demonstrates the clear target of the company to deal with problems promptly, minimizing the effect of the problems on the customers’ overall experience.

Principle of building commitment through giving customers a choice. One of my biggest memories of personal experience flying with SIA is that even flying economy class, I am given a versatile menu with choices of meals that included, for instance, a low-calorie meal, a reach gourmet feast, an Asian feature meal, a European meal, etc, each meal can be customized according to the traveller’s preference. I saw it as a very significant and flattering compliment, comparing it with the experience of normally uncertain and chancy meal experience in an average airline.

Principle of offering people rituals. Many will agree that the distinctive image of the iconic Singapore Girl is a ritual in itself: everything, from the recognizable uniform (which varies in color, each color symbolizing the ranking of board attendants) to bows, smiles, gestures and other meticulously practiced elements offer a ritual of being served in best traditions of Asian hospitality. This has become a signature standard of service, anticipated by every repeated traveller of SIA. 

Another beautiful ritual practiced by the company is complimenting repeated travelers with a greeting cake on their special occasions - recent birthday or current honeymoon travel - traveller forums and blogs are full of the pictures and praising notes of the customers who have been offered such compliments.

“Here’s something that made me smile on a Friday afternoon. My friend Jim flew from Singapore to Seoul Incheon in coach on Singapore Airlines on his birthday, and check out what he received”

Clearly, Singaporean Airlines made a great effort on developing both hard skills of its brand attributes development, as well as soft skills, accurately studying and visualizing every single moment and aspect of costumers’ encounters with the company.

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Concha Y Toro: how to stand out in the wine empire of New World

Historically, winemaking has never been encouraged or appreciated in Chile, with general belief that wines should be bought directly from Chile’s colonist Spain, and with most volumes of grapes going for production of strong grape distillate. Today, Chilean wines became the object of respect around the world, overcoming the image of being a cheap and average quality wine. The real boom began only in 1990-s, under a great support of government attracting foreign investments and stimulating export, which grew almost 20 times in slightly more than a decade.

Today, the country has a well-deserved status of strongly quality-oriented wine manufacturing empire, whose wines are more and more characterized as unique, interesting, tasteful, where Concha Y Toro winery features its respected flagship status.

Occupying the position in Top-10 of the world’s leading wine brands, Concha Y Toro is an excellent example of successful family-run business that managed to break through the periods of economical recess and eventually stood in line with stars of European winemaking.

What I find very significant is that the company successfully became the brand that creates wines for everyone. The lines of products offer well defined sub-brands under segments starting from excellent quality basic wine under $10, and going up to the categories of premium, super premium and ultra premium wines. Thus, the company developed a rich portfolio of wines that meets the needs of diverse consumer profiles, each with their own demands, and ensures presence in different price positions of the market. This is the company’s formula of leading their products to the market - giving an opportunity to each and every consumer try, taste and appreciate their wine. For only  by sampling tasting a consumer can nurture their taste for wine, moving up the ladder from experiencing simple wine, up to the premium and super premium categories. With well categorized segments of the vineyard’s sub-brands and classes of wine, this became possible for consumers of any level of income and at any stage of wine comprehension, without compromising the quality.

Other significant steps taken by the company’s business strategy included leveraging on the origins of each sort of wine, thus commercializing and promoting each of the particular vineyard origins, thus contributing to the status of winemaking empire with defined manufacturing regions across the country.

One thing that I would point out as another way of differentiation of Chile as a wine manufacturer and exporter, is to create its own, completely unique type of wine. While Argentina can boast its unique Malbec. California - its Zinfandel. And even small Uruguay with its Tannat. It would be interesting to see if the number-one winemaker of South America can come up with its own one-of-a-kind relic.

#2017mitsloanbradinga #mitbranding #conchaytoro

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About brand image perception / Corona beer example

Being way too far from a high beer consumer, while working on Corona Beer case, I am however discovering that this is probably the unique beer that I am associating with the only drinkable one for myself – a person who virtually does not drink beer or recalls drinking it in very rare occasions in far younger stages of life. I am discovering that while other beers are associated for me with something heavy, unhealthy, bitter in taste and purely of a male drink nature, Corona however, in my own perception stands in a completely different category. 

A beer that seems lighter than others. 

A beer that is fun to drink. 

A beer consumed specifically from the bottle and essentially with a wedge of lime in the bottleneck – a well formed ritual that is perceived to be the exclusively “right” way to drink this particular beer brand. 

A beer that we could not afford to drink regularly while partying in bars in undergrad years, something of a higher class, something more expensive and looking cooler than ordinary, yet a drink for everyone, unpretentious and democratic. 

An appropriate beer for girls. 

A compliment drink from guys who wanted to attract our attention back those years. 

It is fun to realize all these aspects of perceiving this brand were very subconscious at those times when we drank it, but now, when analyzing the very particular branding case, they end up being crucial features of actual marketing process. A beer for non-beer-drinkers, a beer for females, a seemingly lighter beer, a beer with which you escape from everyday life into a life of parties and vacation, a beer for socializing, fun and showing individuality, a beer that does not leave unpleasant aftertaste, a beer that can’t be disliked, a beer that looks trendy and stylish - all these are official brand attributes, and at the same time our actual feelings about the product. Once a very spontaneous reaction the product – now an obvious brand appearance and brand philosophy for one of the world’s bestselling products. 

This really shows the enormous power of brand and its image. Corona is an excellent illustration that brand is a promise of a distinct experience, value and lifestyle, an appeal, it creates relationship with consumers and forms strong personal and social identity attributed to itself, in form of attitude and distinctive, special character formed around the product. And in many cases it stands stronger than even quality, which is promised and aggressively advertised by many other premium beers (specifically Heineken in the analyzed case).