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[milishah6]

Y’all haters corny

In the last class, we talked about what to do when your brand gets hijacked and how brands should respond to that. Shortly after Beyonce’s superbowl performance of “Formation”, a song that touches on police brutality and the #BlackLivesMatter movement, some police unions called for a protest of Beyonce and created “Boycott Beyonce” paraphernalia.

I wondered how she would respond. If in her typical Beyonce fashion, she wouldn’t say anything and post an Instagram post that may or may not be related to the boycott. Or if she wouldn’t respond at all, and just let it slide, since only 2 anti-Beyonce people showed up to the protest and more of the Beyhive came out to defend her. 

But as Queen B is the master of surprise (evidenced by her last two albums), she definitely surprised me with her response to the haters by selling “Boycott Beyonce” t-shirts at her own concert. Even though this is not what I expected from her, it’s brilliant! By selling shirts with a message that the haters hoped would tarnish her brand, she is able to take control of the message again. She is trolling them, and diluting the negative association by selling the shirts herself. If someone sees a Boycott Beyonce shirt, they won’t know if that person supports Beyonce or actually wants to boycott Beyonce. Plus, whenever someone wears the shirt, it will inevitably ignite conversation and keep her story relevant. 

Once again, she was served lemons, but she made lemonade. Best revenge is your paper.

[milishah6]

Y’all haters corny

In the last class, we talked about what to do when your brand gets hijacked and how brands should respond to that. Shortly after Beyonce’s superbowl performance of “Formation”, a song that touches on police brutality and the #BlackLivesMatter movement, some police unions called for a protest of Beyonce and created “Boycott Beyonce” paraphernalia.

I wondered how she would respond. If in her typical Beyonce fashion, she wouldn’t say anything and post an Instagram post that may or may not be related to the boycott. Or if she wouldn’t respond at all, and just let it slide, since only 2 anti-Beyonce people showed up to the protest and more of the Beyhive came out to defend her. 

But as Queen B is the master of surprise (evidenced by her last two albums), she definitely surprised me with her response to the haters by selling “Boycott Beyonce” t-shirts at her own concert. Even though this is not what I expected from her, it’s brilliant! By selling shirts with a message that the haters hoped would tarnish her brand, she is able to take control of the message again. She is trolling them, and diluting the negative association by selling the shirts herself. If someone sees a Boycott Beyonce shirt, they won’t know if that person supports Beyonce or actually wants to boycott Beyonce. Plus, whenever someone wears the shirt, it will inevitably ignite conversation and keep her story relevant. 

Once again, she was served lemons, but she made lemonade. Best revenge is your paper.

[milishah6]

Ashes to ashes, dust to bad brands

This weekend, Queen Empress Beyonce released Lemonade, a stunning visual album/movie with rich and captivating imagery that catalogues a woman’s (specifically a southern black woman’s) journey through infidelity, social injustice, and personal transformation. Side note, I have been listening to it on repeat for the past 72 hours.

There has been much commentary about what Lemonade means and many think pieces about the feminist/political statements, #blackgirlmagic, fashion, music, and art that it espouses (you know you that b*tch when you cause all this conversation). So for this post, I want to focus on something different. I want to talk about Beyonce as a brand. Regardless of what you think of her music, you have to agree that she has built an extremely strong brand. There are many reasons for this, but I specifically want to talk about the human element and how she has built a community.

In the article “Ignore the Human Element of Marketing at Your Own Peril,” Bob Garfield of Ad Age identified three parts to the human element: network effects, core values, and genuine purpose.

1) Network Effects: Beyonce has mastered network effects. If that hasn’t been proven by the whole Rachel Roy vs. Rachael Ray thing (*cough* #beckywiththegoodhair *cough*), I don’t know what will. The Beyhive is there for Beyonce. When she feels cheated, we feel cheated and we will go after whoever treated her unfairly and make them pay. Admittedly, this kind of behavior is a bit overboard, but the point is that the Beyhive is extremely loyal to Beyonce. It’s what makes it possible for her to sell out world tours before she even releases her album. People are willing to fork up money even though they don’t know exactly what they are buying, just because it’s Beyonce.

2) Core Values that Are 100% Real: When you think of Beyonce, you know exactly what she stands for. From Destiny’s Child (Bills, Bills, Bills, Survivor, Say My Name, etc) to Single Ladies to Lemonade, female empowerment has always been a core value that she has portrayed to the public. She also represents quality, innovation, surprise, hard work, and a general #flawless persona. These core values have allowed Beyonce to afford our trust. It’s why when Beyonce releases an album on a Saturday night, people cancel their plans to watch. It’s why a generation that refuses to pay for music will actually buy her album. Not only that, but her fans will police the internet for her to make sure there are no illegal versions available. 

3) Genuine Purpose: Beyonce has really come into her own since she released her surprise album in 2014. Up until then, she was a mega-famous pop star, but could be considered on the same level as many of the other pop stars of our day. In 2014, she literally changed the game with her digital drop, and showed the world she does have a genuine purpose and more to offer than “just another pop star.”  With Lemonade, she narrows in on the struggles of women, specifically the struggles of black women, and even more specifically the struggles of black southern women. She is unapologetic about who this album is for and her purpose is to bring conversations to the forefront that have been behind the scenes. This is evident by her performance of Formation at the Super Bowl, the visuals for Formation and Freedom, featuring the mothers who lost their sons due to police brutality in her video, choosing to have Serena Williams and other black female celebrities alongside her in the movie, and the list goes on and on. Her purpose could not be more genuine or authentic because she is choosing to share her own journey to inspire all of us. 

Ashes to ashes, dust to bad brands. Now, excuse me while I listen to Lemonade for the 10128938983435th time. 

[milishah6]

Staying young and relevant, but true to your brand

Kate Moss was like a breath of fresh air for Burberry, until she became yesterday’s news. Then they found Cara Delevingne, who brought even more of an edge to the brand as she became a public persona. This year, they are going to replace her with Lily James to be the face of their My Burberry line. 

Is this sustainable? Finding a new “it” girl every couple of years to represent the face of your company. If Burberry is trying to be truly “accessible luxury,” do celebs like Kate Moss, Cara Delevingne, and Lily James represent that?

I don’t think so. Maybe they can think about pivoting to influencers ( through instagram or snapchat) that are more accessible than high profile celebrity models, but also represent the luxury lifestyle of their brand. 

[milishah6]

Transcending Industries

I’ve always wondered how Virgin transcends so many industries. How is it possible that Virgin operates in the space industry and the music industry? 

It is one of the most unique cases of a company using its brand in so many different contexts. Usually when companies create a master brand with subbrands, they focus on natural fits or complementary products to what they are already producing. However, Virgin has been able to successful deliver across industries. 

Richard Branson explains this by saying that Virgin is not about selling a product or a service, but rather he sells a Virgin experience (regardless of  the business sector he is operating in). The customer is getting a promise of a fun, high-quality, and unique experience at an upper to middle end price point. Being able to deliver on this promise is what has made Virgin so successful.  

[milishah6]

Who’s drinking this stuff anyway?

In the case of Concha Y Toro, I would argue for a top down strategy. One of the main reasons, I would propose this is due to the changing population for wine consumption. According to US News, millennials drank 42 percent of all wine in the U.S. last year, more than any other generation. Additionally, compared to the previous generations, they do not need an excuse or fancy occasion to drink wine. They are also adopting wine at a younger age, while previous generations did not tend to get into wine until their 30s.

They are casual wine drinkers and novice wine drinkers. This means that they are probably looking for wine at a cheaper price point  and they don’t know much about it. Also, they are looking for something else from their wines. Instead of wine being a status symbol, millennials want to see the story behind the wine. This is a great way for Concha Y Toro to leverage its history and the prestige of its premium segment to move downstream and appeal to the millennial consumer.

Source: Huffington Post

[milishah6]

Sliced PB

In my opinion sliced PB will not achieve market adoption. If we apply Roger’s five forces to the adoption of sliced PB we can see that it ranks low among many of the forces.

1) Relative Advantage: Relative advantage is low because there is little benefit that it delivers and most likely has added cost. People will still have to use a knife to apply their jelly which means that the sliced PB innovation does not eliminate the need to dishes. It also increases the amount of waste produced since each slice is individually wrapped. Also at a time when the trend is going towards producing PB with less ingredients, this product will have unknown ingredients.

2) Compatibility: Compatibility is low because there will be resistance since the concept of sliced PB is foreign to people. People may be wary to try it just like they were wary to try twist off metal caps for wines. They may feel that they cannot adjust the amount of PB they want to put on their sandwich since the slices contain a fixed amount. 

3) Complexity: Complexity is actually an area where the PB wins. It is pretty easy to understand how the sliced PB might be used.

4) Trialability: Again, trialability is an area where this wins. It is relatively low cost and easy to distribute sliced PB for trial. 

5) Observability: Although this innovation is relatively observable, there is a negative association with sliced cheese. Many associate it as “not real cheese,” and especially when the millennial generation is attracted to all things artisinal, sliced PB might have a negative association.

For the reasons outlined above, I feel that sliced PB will have low adoption.

[milishah6]

Heineken’s big misunderstanding

Initially, Heineken severely misunderstood what it meant to sell beer in the US. There are three things that it lacked:

1) Lacked Brand Identity: They rested on the fact their quality was superior to other import beers, but did not understand that beer is a lifestyle brand. Corona, on the other hand, understood that “selling beer is about marketing” and marketed an image of fun on the beach, something consistent with their Mexican roots and something that would appeal to the young audience that was looking to relax with a beer. 

2) Lacked Understanding of it’s Consumers: Heineken also did not have  solid grasp of the US market and who it’s consumers were. They may have had a demographic understanding through market research, but psychographically, they did not understand the motivations and the mindset of the US consumer. This is why they may have come off as arrogant in their initial marketing campaigns. Once Heineken started using their customers to do their marketing and started having a two- way dialogue through campaigns like “Heineken Nights” things turned around.

3) Lacked Continuity: Heineken also didn’t have consistency between messaging, logo, creative, campaigns, etc. There was little to no personality resonating between the different aspects of the brand. Consumers didn’t know what to associate with it. 

[milishah6]

Brands are like people

In reading about the power of a brand, I found this article in Fast Company that says “brands are like people, people are like brands” very relevant. 

In the last paragraph, it mentions confident people. Although it doesn’t explicitly say this, it alludes to the fact that confident people have greater chances of success, and if we believe that brands are like people, then “confident brands” are more likely to have greater success too.

This made me wonder what makes a “confident brand”? In the article, it mentions brand clarity, but is that enough? How do you develop copy that sounds confident? What makes certain imagery and logos confident? Is it just specific marketing strategies that will make a brand confident or is it much larger than that? 

These are questions that I am starting the course with. I hope to circle back on these in 6 weeks with some answers.