Prasun's Branding Blog

#mitbranding #mitsloanbranding

[prasunbhowmik]

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!! 10 posts!

[prasunbhowmik]

Personal Leadership

For me, these three people, their actions and words, sum up pretty much everything there is to leadership.

As far as i think, Leadership is not just about believing and saying, but also about doing. And that can only happen when you are leading by example. People don't like 'leaders' who just preach, from government officials to your the nosy old aunt, who always seems to have a solution to your problems.

We like Bill Gates, who donated almost all his money before asking others to do so. We admire José Mujica, the Uruguan president who gives away the money he makes to the needy. We look up to Steve Jobs who in his search for perfection was fired from him own company but never changed his ways. There are countless examples at home, at work, at school, sport-stars, politicians etc. who project and act in accordance with what they preach. 

Thus, for me, leadership is doing and not just talking.

[prasunbhowmik]

Social Media #bashtag

Quick! You’re in a room with no key, a chair, two paper clips, and a lightbulb. How do you defraud investors? #AskJPM

Want more? 

Or how about the #myNYPD fiasco:

you get the drift..

So, i found a lot interesting stuff online trying to understand why these things happened.

There was a lot of analysis. Some were vague:

Find best practices of similar campaigns that were successful and analyze WHY it was successful. Implement those tactics.

Some were useful

Going forward, the NYPD should own up to the fact that there are 'mixed' impressions of the brand and start the 'that was then, this is now' conversation. Acknowledge head on there are some problems and then lead (and document in social) the way forward. #newNYPD

But the best piece of advice on marketing on Twitter was this:

My blog post about why some brands should never use hashtags. #askjpm #MyNYPD #McDStories http://t.co/dE5QyoEmWd

— Wally Pinkard (@wallywhat) April 29, 2014

Some of the key insights from this piece, as written by Wally are:

The Difference Between Twitter & Facebook

Twitter is a great platform for brands and organizations to get their message out and engage their audience; however, Twitter does not offer any control over the conversation. Anyone can @mention your organization, and there is no such thing as ownership of a hashtag – there is no off switch. You can disengage in the conversation, but the conversation that you started can continue without your presence. Facebook grants page owners the ability to control the conversation through deleting or editing comments or in dire circumstances turning off commenting altogether. While deleting negative comments is certainly seen as bad form, it can still be used as a last resort when a social campaign blows up in your face.

Why Brands Use Twitter

Although Twitter has around 20% of the users that Facebook has, it seems to be the channel that gets the most love from brandson TV. Brands want to be a part of Twitter because it feels more cutting edge than Facebook and hashtags are a cool looking thing to have at the end of a commercial, at least much more so than a URL for a Facebook page. Facebook is constantly ratcheting down the reach that brands have with their audience in an attempt to monetize that transaction while on twitter general changes much less often.

Bashtags: The Lesson

If you are an organization that invites controversy in some way you should probably not promote yourself through hashtags on Twitter. It is fine to use Twitter to engage but to try and create a conversation is playing with fire. There is a reason that companies like Wal-Mart is not using Hashtags to highlight its happy workers and Bank of America trying people to talk about how great of bank they are. Although some companies will never learn; just #askjpm  who thought it was a good idea to have a Twitter chat with a senior executive.

[prasunbhowmik]

Intel Inside

http://www.thebeautyinsidefilm.com/

No discussion about Intel's branding can be started without this project undertaken by Toshiba and Intel, to educate customers about Intel processors. 

According to Forbes, Intel is the 8th most valuable brand in the world. Let us understand how it became so and what does the future have in store for it.

Let us look at some of their ads, Link1 and Link2. They have very clearly understood that people don't understand processors' technical details. They know this:

1. It takes very smart people to build those small magical things

2. If it is more expensive, it is better

3. As the numbers get bigger, the processors are faster, better etc.

4. They need to make people want to buy their chips, so they got their name out. Network effects due to the reasons mentioned above ensure automatic growth

It helped that AMD never had a product or the clout to do well, but Intel by itself managed to ahead of the game, advertised and forged strong partnerships.

So whats next?

Tablets and Phones - Intel should go into this market before it is too late. But people arent sure if it would hurt Intel as most of the products are early in their lifecycle and thus suffer form performance issues. Yes, Tablets are still new and in many cases suffer from performance, a lack of apps etc but it is growing really fast. Mobiles are becoming better and faster every year. Yes, they are still plagued by coverage issues, battery backup but users will be able to understand that those are due to deficiencies in the product and the technology, and not the chip inside. As it happened here:

and so many times to you:

Intel has to embrace the future as it is doing now, or it will be the next Nokia.

[prasunbhowmik]

Burberry and Rebranding

You know you are doing something right when you see these:

Now, lets look at Burberry over the years:

If we look at the way Burberry has transitioned from being  "suitable for every war zone" in the '10s to Humphrey Bogarts wardrobe in the 40s to Audrey Hepburn in the 60s to Princess Diana in the 80s to Kate Moss,Liv Tyler, Emma Watson, Gwyneth Paltrow today, we can see how they have been the a luxury brand over the years. However, as the case tells us, they went through a rough phase (check pic below) in the 90s and decided to reinvent and revitalize the brand.

Burberry's association map kind of tells us what the problem might have been. Checks/trench-coats/classic are not the words that attract the new generation and thus Burberry had to re-invent itself.

I found the following Analysis of Burberry’s Brand Equity Pyramid here: http://brandburberry.wordpress.com/assignment-2-part-i-exploratory-research/

This is obviously dated and tells us in a moment that no one could identify themselves to the brand anymore, especially the young.

In such cases, you need to find the perfect brand ambassador, a la Mrs Obama for J. Crew.

or this:

[prasunbhowmik]

Brand Proliferation, Misses and Hits

When McDonald's launched the potato 'burger' in India, the purists were scandalized. Well known international brands are now selling products that are not just made in, but for India. While growing up in the 90s, I would have parted with a limb to experience the global 'brands' as they used to, and we did. Going to a McDonald's was an expensive affair for middle class family of 3. But thankfully, the times are a changing. Now, we appreciate things we need. 

Ask any Kellogg's executive that. They were a massive failure in the Indian market. The reasons were endless but the major ones were: very few products, not suited to Indian tastes, exorbitant prices and a lack of educating the customer. However, they soon realized their mistake and introduced local flavors, and ready to cook stuff. A news articles says "India is the only market where Kellogg’s has ventured into the ready-to-cook category to tap the growing oats segment".

Others were quick to realize that and launched the what the customer wanted.

There are some that are iconic such as Amul whose ads have been a social commentator for decades and are more talked about than the product itself. 

While there are some who have a very strong sub-brands which make the product stronger. A case in point is this famous auto firm.

The products dont have to fancy but have to resonate with the buyer. As we can see from this ad, sometimes brands are so deeply etched in our culture and psyche, we may love the brand even we dont use the product.

[prasunbhowmik]

Singapore Airlines

Service has always been the topmost priority for most international airlines who have wanted to differentiate themselves from the rest. Be it Air India which strives to provide the best service, yet fails to the fantastic Thai and Singapore airlines, cost is usually not a concern for the high margin business class segment. It is the only way to retain customers and ensure high occupancy as there are many alliances and airlines flying to literally every route in the world.

SIA's branding has been very strong regarding what they are promoting. The singapore girl, glamorous,elegant, charming, graceful and dignified are some of the key words that we associate with the SIA service staff. Personally I feel that for their level of their service, their costs are quite low and this is the only reason they have been doing so well.

However, this is the future: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeiZ48BAr8A

Creepy? yes but i want it

[prasunbhowmik]

Wines

We have all heard of the TATA Nano, the sub $2000 car made in India for emerging markets. And we have all heard about it's spectacular failure. So, if we look at the reasons why it failed, one the quotes that stand out are: 

"It turns out that those climbing into India's middle class want cheap cars, but they don't want cars that seem cheap—and are willing to pay more than Tata reckoned for a vehicle that has a more upmarket image." 

Incidentally, the TATAs also own JLR, the premium British automobile company which produces cars which can set you back by $500,000. They have like Toyota never tried to associate themselves with the brand as it might hurt their luxury line of cars. 

The common man's car Nano.

The not-so-common man's dream, a Jag.

So up-branding, if there is a term like that, hasnt been achieved very commonly by companies in the recent years.Yes, there have been odd exceptions to this rule. Gillette did that with their fancy razors, and one might argue that Volvo has also somewhat successfully done that. But i attribute that to this Van Damme ad.

But top down branding has always worked in case of luxury products or status products. Like branded clothes, cars, pens, the list is endless. Wine is one of those things which people dont really understand and attach value to how expensive or fancy it is. I would any day buy a cheap wine to drink alone but if i am buying it at dinner or as a gift, i would go for the one i cannot pronounce and the one that looks/is expensive. Numerous studies have proved my point. 

Also from the case, we can see that the majority of the growth is going to happen in the sub-premium to premium segments, not the $3 segment. Thus it makes sense to spend a lot of money to create and market an expensive wine that no one will buy and then create a second more accessible range which they should earn their money from a la Armani.

After all, have you ever seen someone using this?

[prasunbhowmik]

Product Failures

All of us wondered about this in business school. We always read cases where products have done, unexpectedly and otherwise. Most of the time, we don't even get to know about failures.

I found this link which lists some of the biggest failures and this HBR article which talks about Why Most Product Launches Fail

From what we have learnt at school and from my experience as an entrepreneur, some of the main reasons why companies fail are:

A cool idea <> a great product <> a product people will buy

It doesn't have to solve a problem, satisfy a need, a la pet rock but it has to be different to capture the buyer's attention. Else it will fail

Lack of customer education

Lack of word of mouth/network effects or positive externalities

Product failures

Inability to grow fast and invest in marketing and branding upfront

Sometimes its just bad timing and tough luck but there are examples of products that have beaten tough times as well. Examples here

In the case we read, my two cents about the 4 products are:

1. Peanut butter slices- It wont work. Hardly solves a problem people have. Makes peanut butter, something children love to eat with their fingers/spoons, artificial. 

2. Silver Bandaid - Is an industrial grade product and not the likes of paper cuts. Too expensive and thus for a limited audience. Can be sold OTC but wont capture the market unless it is pushed by physicians esp pediatricians. 

3. Satellite Radio - Good idea but expensive capex/opex for a radio service. Thus a limited market share as most people in the US use their cars for transport. Huge additional cost has to be inbuilt into the vehicle price. They need to reduce price and try to figure out other sources of revenue. 

4. Scent device - Great idea but not perfect execution. Also will need significant adoption by the networks etc before people start using it. Thus the classic chicken and egg problem. Also, do people really want to smell anything while watching a horror movie? Limited to certain kinds of programming. 

[prasunbhowmik]

Corona

As products, there seems to be nothing wrong with either beer. The only issues are the health scares. Nothing better than this voice-over on this coke ad which fooled a lot us: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHhCP5ad-zM

Corona has always had the luxury imported good tag associated with it, even when i discovered it in India. Corona with lime, from a place I'd rather be. The keywords I would associate with it are laid back, relaxed, quiet, holiday. Its what you drink when you are out with your parents.

On the other hand, Heineken had a 'lets do this now', James Bond-ish message associated with their ads. Its what one would drink on a night out in Vegas. 

[prasunbhowmik]

B&D

To try and understand why B&D was losing out to the competition in the Tradesmen segment, B&D should do a more detailed study of the users and understand why they were losing out. It is clear that product quality is not a factor for this. The price is also not a factor since their products are cheaper than the highest selling product. The third possible reason is the availability and having the right distribution channel. B&D had realized that and had taken the right steps in that direction.

Thus in light of this information, it seems that the problem lies with perception of the brand. There is huge awareness for the brand and its product but just not in this segment. It seems that the color of the product is something that they need to focus on for now. The tradesmen might like brighter colors and do not identify with the black and grey colors of the home-use tools. The bright color is not only easier to pick out in a store with thousands of items but also easier to find while at work. This is also shown in Figure D where we can see that most professional tools but the competition has brighter colors. 

Given the information and options that B&D has, it seems that the best way to go about it is by launching a flashier line of products which are not aimed at the home user but for people who use it everyday. This would also help them come up with new product line which would be branded as the more professional product.