Branding Blog

Learnings from my MIT Sloan Class

[juandtc]

Video Resume: Google Please Hire Me

Uploaded on Jul 29, 2011

For more, go to: http://www.googlepleasehire.me

A funny example about personal branding

[juandtc]

Online Backlash

Nowadays, having an online presence on Facebook, Twitter, or Youtube, for your business is very important to reach out your customers, have an interaction with them, build a community. Also, it is valuable to promote your company's values, vision, culture, products and brand. However, we need to be really careful about what, when, and how we post something to maximize the benefits of our business' online presence. Having one, will always involve risks because not everyone is fan of our company, so we need to be cautious to minimize negative effects (backlash).

One example of twitter backlash is what happened to Qantas after a competition inviting Twitter followers to win a pair of first class pijamas by tweeting (hashtag #QantasLuxury) their idea of a luxury experience turned into an opportunity for angry customers to share their gripes*

Here are some examples of what followers replied:

#QantasLuxury is a complimentary cheap hotel room because your cynical airway left you stranded in Adelaide, of all places. Adelaide.

#QantasLuxury is a massive executive bonus while your workers starve and your former customers choke

My idea for #QantasLuxury is not having cabin crew lie to my face about my electronic devices and their safety on a plane.

Couriers to make sure my staff around the world get their lockout notices any hour of the day or night #qantasluxury

More than 3mins notice that the whole service has been grounded #QantasLuxury

A ‘Full service’ airline that gives apples or cookies for flights between 11am and 3pm #NoLunchForYou

A plane that doesnt have an exploding engine! #QantasLuxury

My #QantasLuxury experience would be no matter what time or duration of the flight a proper meal is served a cookie is not a meal its a joke

*http://mumbrella.com.au/qantas-in-new-social-media-fail-with-qantasluxury-hashtag-backlash-66093

[juandtc]

Ingredient Branding

As it is name suggests, ingredient branding consists of creating a brand for an ingredient or component of a product, to project the high quality or performance of the ingredient. "If implemented and pursued intelligently, branding ingredients could be a win-win situation for manufacturers of both ingredients and final products. For the consumer, there could be no doubt that becoming a more powerful and intelligent shopper, i.e. having the power to demand quality ingredients in the products he/she buys, is a good thing. In the economy where consumers are satisfied with their purchases, business is a brisk for manufacturers, who in turn, strive to offer better and better products to continue to satisfy the consumer... and thus, the wheel of a healthy market economy keeps turning." (Kotler, 2010).

Intel marketing campaign: "Intel Inside" is one of the best examples of the use of ingredient branding to achieve corporate success. As part of this strategy, the chip manufacturer 1) taught customers about the not visible product and made them loyal, 2) cooperated with OEMs by using a co-op advertising program, basically giving them advertising dollars, and 3) made key organizational changes to have marketers and engineers working more closely to achieve the goals of the company.

Other examples of ingredient strategy are:

1. NutraSweet for the artificial sweetener Aspartame in the food industry.

Commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLwtdjJC0vo

2. And Gore-Tex for sportswear.

Commercial: https://www.youtube.com/user/goretexnews

[juandtc]

Peruvian Mario Testino: Boosting Leading Fashion Brands

Mario Testino is one of fashion's most sought-after photographers. He was born in 1954 in Lima, Peru. He move to moved to London in 1976 where he began his successful career. His work has been featured across the globe in magazines from Vogue to Vanity Fair. He has also worked very close with the British Royal family.

Over the course of his career, he has contributed to the success of many leading fashion and beauty houses through advertising campaigns, from Burberry, Dolce & Gabbana, Versace, Gucci and Michael Kors to Chanel and Lancôme.

As we read in Burberry's case, the company was losing is brand identity. It had a stodgy reputation. Burberry needed to promote a new brand image (trend-conscious, modern look, for young people), so they decided to launch a new marketing campaign and Testino was a hired to work in the campaign. I think hiring Testino was a good match not only because of his high quality work, but also because of his very good reputation in the fashion industry working with high-end brands. A halo effect can be created in the advertising campaign because consumers can associate positive concepts to the brand from the reputation of Testino.

Kate Moss for Fall/Winter 1999 campaign by Mario Testino

[juandtc]

Talking about House of Brands Strategy?

Reading about House of Brands Strategy reminded me this picture I saw long-time ago. It is a branding map of the world's largest consumer brands. Even thought I have an average knowledge about what brands belong to what companies, it was shocking for me to see how almost all the products I am buying belong to only 10 companies. 

In this competitive industry with commodity-like products the importance of having a  branding strategy. Companies need to differentiate their products from the ones of competitors. For example, P&G, applies a house of brands strategy. The multinational corporation invests heavily in stand-alone brands to reach niche markets in the broad consumer products market and to get the preference and the loyalty of consumers. Other companies such as Nestle prefer to use a Endorsed brand strategy. In this case, the individual brands (product's brands) leverage the reputation and credibility of the organizational brand to increase consumer preference.

[juandtc]

Southwest Airlines ''Love Is Still Our Field'' Commercials - 1972

Reading about Singapore Airlines reminded me about Southwest Airlines. Both companies developed a competitive advantage based on providing high quality service to their customers. This allowed both companies to build strong brands, symbols of excellent service. For me, these are huge similarities I found:

1. Excellent customer service. Both companies were passionate about customers and focused on providing the best service possible. As we see in the Southwest commercial, the message is clear: "Love is still our field". Using "love" as the slogan for the brand highlights concepts of passion, caring, strong relationship, trust. In a similar way, Singapore Airlines used the concept of the "Singapore Girl" to associate all the positive connotations of this cultural figure with the brand.

2. Strong culture. Everyone is immerse and deeply share the culture of the company. In both cases, this culture was built around the mission and was very difficult to replicate by competitors. Cheong, former CEO of Singapore Airlines said, "our culture is, we care about our customers". In order to do that they invested heavily in training for their employees. Similarly, Southwest Airlines have culture around caring for their employees as much as for the customers. Herb Kelleher, former CEO, said, "if you treat your employees like your customers then they will treat your outside customers right.

3. Focused on innovation. These companies understood that to provide high quality service it is very important to be ahead of the competition in terms of having the latest technology and efficient operations. For example, renewing the float quicker than competitors, using the latest model of aircraft available, installing new on-board systems or services, and so on.

[juandtc]

I was looking for something else but I found this very cool commercial from SN Brussels Airlines. If this is not passion for customers, I do not know what is it :) 

[juandtc]

Frontera Concha y Toro

Searching on the internet for commercials of Chilean wines, I found this one of Frontera from 2009, which I really like. It caught my attention for two reasons.

First, it shows a strong connection between the brand and the country. Chile is a central piece of the commercial, being as much center of attention as the wine. The association between Frontera and Chile is so strong that the slogan is: "Chile en una copa" (Chile in a glass). The use of the beautiful landscapes of Chile is a very good tactic because in the wine market the impression about the quality of the product is attached to the perception we have of the place of origin. Selling made in Chile while making the right associations will have a positive impact in consumers.

Second, I believed that the commercial is looking to portray a high quality product. The perfect couple on a modern train, drinking wine while traveling trough beautiful Chilean landscapes. This situation reflects some sophistication which can be associated with high quality.

I think that this commercial is aligned with a bottom-up strategy, which I found a good one as way to overcome the challenges facing by Concha y Toro. The reason is that associate a high quality image to Frontera, the most selling wine in volume, will allow the company to increase margins and improve performance.

[juandtc]

Here is my analysis of the attributes of innovations and their rate of adoption for the 4 products mentioned in the case.

My rank is the following:

1. Satellite Radio

2. Silver Coated Adhesive Bandage

3. iSmell

4. Sliced Peanut Butter

[juandtc]

Corona in the US

I found this video that compiles Corona's old commercials.

This is part of the "Fun, Sun, and Beach" campaign that Group Modelo used to promote Corona in the US. These commercials positioned evoke fun, relax, vacations, peace. Concepts that helped positioning the brand to their target segment: young affluent people with higher education.

[juandtc]

Black & Decker vs Makita Case

It was very interesting to read about how a brand can influence purchase decision. B&D was losing the battle against Makita in the Professional-Tradesmen Tools segment.

Some reasons from the case:

- Bad perception from tradespeople about B&D brand. They considered B&D brand products as being for home use. Thus, they associate the brand with concepts such as "for novices", "weak products", or even, "wife product".

- Color seems to affect since a research shows that more colourful brands had better perfomance. Correlation does not means causations but it would be interesting to test other colors.

Solutions

In my opinion a good solution should involve:

- Colorful design for the Professional-Tradesmen segment. One that makes a clear separation of this products from the ones in other segments, mainly Consumer segment.

- Use of a new brand or a sub-brand with a new advetsiment campaign promoting the brand as the one for tradespeople.

- Build strong relationships with distribution channels by offering more exclusivity, great customer service, variety of inventories, and sales support and promotion. At some point this will cause higher inventory turnover and good margins for the channels.

[juandtc]

Black and Decker Commercial

Interesting Black & Decker commercial

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