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[nickmillermit]

With great branding comes great responsibility

In January, I spent my winter break traveling around Asia for a whole month––visiting Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and South Korea.  As someone who grew up in a lower-middle class suburb of Philadelphia, I never travelled much as a kid and did not get a lot of exposure to many different cultures around the world.  Up until this trip, I'd never been to Asia and had never seen a developing country.

Walking around the streets of Tokyo, I found myself completely enamored with small details that my friends didn’t seem affected by at all.  From hot soup vending machines to bamboo trees, the sidewalks were sprawling with peculiar fascinations that caught my attention and slowed my gait to an annoying pace.

One thing in particular, though, really caught my eye in a way that made me stop and think.  Below is the picture of what I saw.

Lebron James in a Louis Vuitton ad on the streets of Shibuya, Tokyo.  Now, I am a basketball fan (go Sixers!), sure, so maybe it struck me so deeply because it was a familiar face in an unfamiliar place.  But this ad would be quite blasé if you saw it in New York or LA, so why was it so startling?

Well, what you don’t see in this picture is the fact that the vast, vast majority of advertisements I saw during my month-long trip showed people with fair skin.  Whether of Asian or Caucasian descent, it felt to me like I hadn’t seen anyone with black or brown skin in weeks––whether on the street or in print.

This gets me back to this week’s discussion on Fair & Lovely, a Unilever brand that is a market leader in fairness creams that––despite controversies and growing awareness about the harmful societal impacts of such products––continues to hold a significant market share in the South Asian skincare industry.  (Interestingly enough, Dove is another Unilever brand known for its "Real Beauty" campaign, which one could argue is a sharp contrast to the messaging from Fair & Lovely….)

Especially in sensitive areas like health and beauty, consumers often see brands as extensions of their own identity.  Brands that align with a consumer’s identity in terms of values, aesthetics, or community can forge stronger emotional bonds.  This is why a brand that promotes fairness as a universal beauty standard may alienate those who feel misrepresented or stigmatized by such standards.

As future business leaders, many Sloanies will have the unique opportunity to align our company’s operations with ethical practices and positive social impact.  This begins with creating fair, sustainable, principled, high-quality products and services, but it also includes developing responsible marketing strategies that avoid perpetuating harmful stereotypes or unrealistic standards.  Instead, we must focus on inclusive and empowering messaging that respects diversity and promotes self-acceptance.

In this conversation, I also can’t help but to think about our final project: the rebranding of the Washington Commanders, formerly known as the Washington Redskins.  I think that this example offers a key example of how societal pressures and the demand for cultural sensitivity can drive significant changes in brand management.  This transformation was largely influenced by long-standing criticisms over the original name, which was seen as a racial slur against Native Americans.  The decision to adopt a new name and identity reflects a broader movement towards inclusivity and respect for cultural diversity, aligning the brand with contemporary social values.

Much like the case with Dove’s promotion of diversity and self-acceptance, the rebranding process involved engaging various stakeholders, including fans, community leaders, and cultural experts, to ensure the new brand was well-received and free from past controversies.  This stakeholder engagement is crucial for maintaining brand loyalty and trust, illustrating a commitment to ethical considerations and cultural sensitivity.

[nickmillermit]

A Future Clear As Mud

Back when I worked in investment research, an old boss of mine used to say something along the lines of, “hindsight is 20/20; forecasting is impossible.” I have to imagine that many marketers, product managers, and anyone who's in the business of launching new products and predicting demand would tend to agree with him. Heck, just look at the countless artists, writers, and scientists who've tried to predict the future...I don't think we're anywhere close to meeting the timeline for the Jetsons's futuristic society.

Focusing on consumer behavior for a moment, in this week’s readings, we were introduced to the Bass model which is a framework that attempts to predict how new products are adopted in a market. It categorizes adopters into “innovators” and “imitators,” each playing a role in the diffusion process. The upshot is that product adoption happens along a curve, and if we can understand the shape of this curve, we can know (to some degree) the amount of demand for any given product.

This idea is pretty intriguing, but I must say that my experience this past summer working at Sony Music taught me that even the most sophisticated models often struggle to capture the chaotic nature of human preferences and externalities.

According to Gourville's "Four Products: Predicting Diffusion," the task of predicting demand for new-to-the-world products is fraught with challenges, as these products often have no benchmark or an inappropriate one in the market.

While working at a major record label, I found that the teams tasked with predicting the popularity of new songs rely heavily on big data models. These models are supposed to forecast which songs will top the charts so that the marketing folks know what to promote––but they are far from foolproof. For instance, our model predicted that Harry Styles's "Sign of the Times" would outperform "As It Was." In reality, the latter not only surpassed "Sign of the Times" but also broke records, amassing over 3 billion Spotify streams and becoming the longest-running number-one single on the UK charts.

This exploration of prediction models and product diffusion can be applied to our team’s branding lab project: the rebranding of the Washington Commanders, formerly known as the Washington Redskins. The challenge here is not just about changing a logo or a name, but about deeply understanding and predicting how such a significant shift (has and) will be received by fans, the public, and the media.

Rebranding a sports team, even more so than other brands, involves a delicate balance of respecting traditions and embracing new narratives that resonate with a broad audience. This is a world of fanatically passionate people with indelible childhood memories, geographic ties, and generational devotion -- straying too far from tradition can break their trust, but gaining their attention with something new and fun can create the most loyal of consumers.

Just as in the music industry, where predictions often miss the mark due to unforeseen consumer behavior, the success of renaming a team involves unpredictable public sentiment and cultural shifts. The case studies from these readings gave examples where products that were thought to resonate well based on past data failed to capture the market as expected. Similarly, our approach to rebranding the Commanders must be flexible and responsive, incorporating feedback loops that allow us to adjust our strategy based on real-time public reception.

So while models can provide valuable frameworks for understanding market dynamics, they must be employed with caution. Real-world experiences continually remind us that the human element—unpredictable and nuanced—plays a critical role in shaping trends.

[nickmillermit]

Seeing--or is it tasting?--is believing

Before coming to grad school, I used to lead whisky tastings back in Philadelphia.  Sometimes for friends and sometimes for strangers, I got pretty good at being able to guide people through a proper tasting experience––from choosing the right glass and showcasing the impact of ice to talking about the molecular science of ethanol and exploring the various terroirs of Scotland.

Much like wine snobs, whisky lovers can be, frankly, insufferable at times.  If I had a dime for every time I heard someone say they only drink single malts and won’t touch a blended whisky, only to oogle over an overpriced bottle of Johnnie Blue (which is, you guessed it, a blend)….

Well, this strange phenomenon can likely be attributed to something called cognitive association, or brand equity.  The reality is that massive distillers or distributors like Edrington (Macallan), Diageo (Johnnie Walker), or Beam Suntory (Jim Beam/Makers/Yamazaki) dump millions of dollars each year into building and maintaining their brands so that when you see a $100+ bottle of Booker’s bourbon sitting alone on the top shelf of your local liquor store, you’re already preconditioned to believe that it’s liquid gold.  And don’t even get me started on the lore of Pappy Van Winkle.

But after attempting far too many blind tastings over the past decade, I can tell you that at least I’ve been personally fooled far too many times to keep believing that superficial factors like brand recognition, bottle design, and price are all directly correlated to product quality.

Now look, I’m not saying that I don’t have my favorites––those matte black bottles, eye-popping ABVs, and sustainable farming stories from Octomore make me grab one of their bottles off the shelf every time I see them.  But actually, that’s kind of my point.

I wasn’t shocked at all to read about Wansink, Payne, and North’s research on North Dakotan wine, which more or less tells us that wine labels can bias expectations and tastiness ratings of both the wine in the bottle and the complementary food items that it is being served with.

My hypothesis is that most people just don’t have enough time to really care about everything.  You have to pick and choose your battles.  Imagine going through an entire day having an opinion on EVERYTHING you’re using, from the scent of the soap you wash your hands with to the brand of the toothbrush and toothpaste you use to the logo on the faucet and so on. Funny enough, you might be thinking right now that you DO have an opinion on every single one of those products, but have you really done enough research to know why you choose the products you do?  Did you know that Colgate, for example, makes over 20 different varieties of toothpaste, each with unique ingredients, active formulas, and flavors.  I can't imagine you've tried them all. Now, multiply that across the many brands and thousands of products you use each day, and the number of choices grows exponentially beyond comprehension.

My point is, it would be utterly exhausting to research everything deeply enough to truly form your own unique opinion, and that is why we NEED brands to tell us which is best.  We actively rely on many sources to make these day-to-day decisions easier, whether that is the opinions of our friends and families, online reviews, or even product placement and advertising experts.  But just because you’ve been led down one path and told that it was the best choice, doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily true.

In conclusion, I’m not saying that you should try to impress your next dinner guests with your finest bottle of North Dakotan wine, but hey, maybe if you’re feeling cheeky and running low on Napa Cabs, you can try putting out an unmarked decanter with something cheaper to see if anyone is the wiser….

[nickmillermit]

What can home theaters teach us about CX?

Can I share a secret with you? I'm a bit of an audiophile -- which is the snobby way of saying that I really like high-end (see: expensive) audio gear. Whether I'm strolling to class listening to lossless files on my Sennheiser cans, at home A/B testing my Fender CS 1963 Strat through Amplified Nation and Dr. Z cabinets, or just sitting on my couch watching a movie on my home theater...there's nothing I enjoy more than listening.

But you know what I don't like? Like, really, really don't like? The process of buying, setting up, and maintaining all of this very gear that I love so much. In fact, I get anxiety just thinking about trying to mix and match speaker impedance levels, amplifier power ratings, and frequency response curves. Even worse is when the damn package finally shows up at my door and I find myself in a labyrinth of instruction manuals, cable snakes, and an array of switches and vaguely named controls that look like the cockpit of 747.

As Adam Richardson says in his HBR article on customer journeys, this experience should be "plug and play" but in reality is more "plug and pray." So why does the experience for such amazing products often suck?

The concept of mapping out a customer's journey from "cradle to grave" is something that many businesses are either A) not doing, or B) not good at doing. As the global economy has turned decidedly digital, many e-commerce providers have seemingly focused on creating top-tier products at the expense of creating top-tier experiences. Whether it’s because of cost compression, commoditization, more efficient buying processes, or all or none of these factors, the end consumer is ultimately the one who is impacted by this trend of worsening product journeys.

Richardson's take on the use of customer journey maps to improve the overall experience therefore hits home for me. The essence of it all is simple: understanding the step-by-step saga customers endure, often represented visually, from the initial allure of a product through the acquisition and implementation/setup, all the way to the eventual daily use and beyond. The hope is that, by thinking like the customer, companies can make smarter decisions that mitigate points of pain and improve the journey.

And so, retailers and manufacturers, take note: the opportunity to differentiate is vast and largely untapped. It's not about building the best thing; it's about building the best experience surrounding the thing. To do so, companies need to embed the customer's voice and experience into every product and process they create. This isn't just about solving problems -- it's about anticipating them, and designing products and experiences that preempt confusion and frustration. Succeed or fail, all that’s at stake is your entire brand.

As someone who lives and breathes for the pure joy of high-fi sound, I dream of a day when the process of buying and installing at-home systems is as smooth as Stevie Wonder. Let's just hope the industry is listening, too....

[nickmillermit]

What can home theaters teach us about CX?

Can I share a secret with you? Well, I'm a bit of an audiophile -- which is the snobby way of saying that I really like high-end (see: expensive) audio gear. Whether I'm strolling to class listening on my Sennheiser cans, at home A/B testing my Fender CS 1963 Strat through a pair of Amplified Nation and Dr. Z cabinets, or just sitting on my couch watching Netflix at my home theater...I like to listen, a lot, and I like to listen LOUDLY.

But you know what I don't like? Like, really, really don't like? The process of buying this very gear that I love so much. In fact, I get anxiety just thinking about trying to mix and match speaker impedance levels, amplifier power ratings, and frequency response curves. Even worse is when the damn package finally shows up at my door and I find myself in a labyrinth of instruction manuals, cable snakes, and an array of switches or vaguely named controls that look like the cockpit of 747.

As Adam Richardson says in his HBR article on customer journeys, this experience should be "plug and play" but in reality is more "plug and pray." But why does the experience for such amazing products often suck?

The concept of mapping out a customer's journey from "cradle to grave" is something that many businesses are either A) not doing, or B) not good at doing. As the global economy has turned decidedly digital, many e-commerce providers have seemingly focused on selling top-tier products at the expense of creating world-class experiences. Whether it be due to cost compression, commoditization, increased competition, more efficient buying processes, or none or all of these things, the customer is the one suffering from a worsening experience.

Richardson's take on the use of customer journey maps to improve the end-to-end experience therefore hits home for me. The essence of it all is simple: understanding the step-by-step saga customers endure, often represented visually, from the initial allure of product research through the maze of its acquisition and implementation/setup, to the eventual daily use and beyond. This journey, ideally, should be a seamless adventure with proper customer support at key junctures.

Retailers and manufacturers, let me be loud and clear: you need to embed the customer's voice and experience into every product and process. This isn't just about solving problems -- it's about anticipating them, and designing experiences that preempt confusion and frustration. Next time you start creating a new product, take the time to interview customers, understand their journeys, and learn what it's like to research, purchase, use, and maintain or repair your items. All that's at stake is your entire brand.

As someone who lives and breathes for the joys of experiencing high-fi sound, I dream of a day when the end-to-end process of setting up my sound systems is as smooth as Stevie Wonder. Let's just hope the industry is listening....