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The New Faces of French Political Pitchers
The success of a pitch depends on the pitcher’s ability to conform with the audience internal biases. Audience tends to over-value delivery vs content and is looking for specific personality traits in pitchers. By displaying consistency with these expected behavioral and physical traits, pitchers can build an “ideal personality” and manipulate their audience to achieve their goals. Showrunners, artists and neophytes are three personalities that showbiz and business audiences look for when assessing an proposal. In return, these three personalities know how to fulfil the need of their audience by asking for their contribution.
Are French citizens appealed by the same kind of personalities too? Here is a short overview of how 3 French versions of showrunners, artists and neophytes are shaping modern French politics.
The Showrunner – Emmanuel Macron, President of France

President Macron is young (40year-old), talented and charming. Strategic, he knows how to build a good plan and bring his constituency along. He may not deliver the plan himself, but he convinced the French people that his team will. Elected on the promise that he will restore the economic Glory of France using the slogan, “Go Republic” he called all French workers to join the effort. Result: millions of ambitious young professionals fighting pessimism joined his ranks and helped propelled his campaign to unforeseen heights.
The Artist – Cedric Villani, Congressman heading the Commission on the transformation of Scientific institutions

Cedric Villani is a Mathematician, professor at the prestigious Ecole Normale Superieure and recipient of the Fields Medal, the equivalent of a Nobel Prize in Mahtematics. What immediately strikes the audience about Cedric Villanni is his curated appaearence: his long hair, loose bow tie “a la cavaliere”, 3-piece suit and spider broch evoke an excentric philosopher out of a 16th century book. His esoteric speec and his introverted posture all speak to the fact that he is a brilliant scientist that his audience aspire to become, which support his mission to rally French research community behind his big “Artificial Intelligence” dream and to focus spendings in that field. His ask resonates in his audience which want to contribute to the effort of making France a better place for science.
The Neophite - Mounir Mahjoubi, Minister in charge of the Digital Economy
Mounir Mahjoubi is the opposite of the traditional political elite. A young technie, he created multiple internet startups and has almost no experience in politics. His ask to his audience: join the mouvement of participative democracy to make great ideas emerge from the crowd. His assets: he is a neophite in politics, incredibly optimistic about France’s future and deeply engaged in the cause he defends. That appeal to the young, educated France who finally get a chance to have her voice heard. Results: he enjoys a high popularity among citizen according to recent polls.
The three personalities are reshaping French political landscape, primarily by displaying appealing traits to the French, educated citizens, but most importantly by giving them a chance to contribute to their missions.
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Promoting sustainability by getting into people’s mind
Changing customers’ behavior is probably one of the hardest challenges brands face. It is indeed a big ask for their customers – whether they ask them to switch their beloved products for newer versions (think about the introduction of an updated version of Windows); or encourage them to consume more sustainably (and potentially at a higher price point, think about Ben & Jerry’s).
With every ask to the customers shall come with rewards. A purchasing decision is always the result of a trade-off between price, quality, convenience, image, sustainability, etc. for consumers. Sweetening companies’ asks by offering more on one of these trade-off points can actually help companies change customer’s behaviors that are rooted in habits, culture, religion and socio-economic backgrounds.
I use Keith Weed’s Five Levers of Change framework to highlight actions that companies can take to increase customer’s engagement for sustainable products. They rely providing appropriate nudges at all touchpoints with customers.
1. Make it understood: it is essential that people understand what differentiates a sustainable product from a standard one. However, in the food product category, it is often difficult to explain in a few lines on a packaging or on an ad what it means for a particular product to be sustainable. Tying sustainability to a concept that most people can relate with, such as health, is a more compelling way to nudge customer’s behaviors. That is why plant-based milk Ripple chose to advertise primarily the health benefits of consuming non dairy, pea-based milk (less sugar, more calcium, more Omega 3) on its packaging, as opposed to marketing sustainability (although it is at the core of the foundation of the company). The health message is easier for the company to convey on a bottle and easier for consumers to understand. In addition, it resonates better with consumers’ concerns.
2. Make it desirable: Ben & Jerry’s mission is to create a sustainable corporate concept of linked prosperity for all parties involved (consumers, suppliers, investors, employees). However, most of its ads do not mention that mission explicitly. Instead, they emphasize what really matter to consumers: how good, and unique the ice cream is. Indeed, in its touchpoints with customers brands shall entirely focus on what customers wants, as opposed to what they want as brands. By creating a line of products that include popular treats such as cookies and Oreo, Ben & Jerry’s has given consumers what they crave for.

3. Make it easy: People are inherently reluctant to change. The power of habits is real; indeed, changing our way of doing is stressing and mentally taxing. That is why Impossible Foods offers consumers plant-based patties that can be cooked and taste just like traditional burgers; as opposed to tofu-shaped, tofu-tasted plant-based meat. Other vegetable Patties companies such as Beyond Meat use the names “meat”, “sausages”, etc. in their different product lines to emphasize the proximity of use and taste with meat-based products. The burden of changing is therefore not put on consumers, which facilitates the adoption of the product.

4. Make it rewarding: The success of Nest’s Thermostats rely not only in their slick design but also in the app that track the energy savings achieved by homeowners. The energy consumption of the home is communicated to homeowners on a daily basis and encouragement are provided if an reduction is observed. Also, the collected data are also benchmarked to that of other Nest’s users, which create a feeling of emulation between users and encourage them to improve their behaviors. In an energy sector that is largely commoditized, it offers a “social “reward that complement the reduction in electricity bill.

5. Make it a habit: Once people start adopting these sustainable products, how to make sure that they will keep using them? The same strategy applies for all brands, sustainable or not: they need to be accessible at all times, extremely present in people’s mind through recurrent advertisement and sustained social media presence. Impossible Foods insists to have a stick with a “Impossible Foods” flag planted on its burgers prepared by its restaurant customers. Nest provided add-ups products which can also reduce energy consumption, such as shade-adaptation electrical curtails, that are pushed to customers through its app, in order to build the habit “smart, sustainable living”. Another tactic used by Ben & Jerry’s is to have quick product cycles, with new, unique and desirable tastes introduced regularly to encourage curious customers to keep buying the product.

As a conclusion, sustainable brands have managed to change consumer’s behaviors by analyzing and playing on the factors that affect consumer purchasing decision. By offering clear, desirable, easy to use, rewarding and habit building products, they can shape consumer’s willingness to consume “sustainability”, without putting any burden on them.
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Going mainstream: implications for the Tesla brand
I am fascinated by what I call “premium, good, sustainable brands”. A “premium, good, sustainable brand” is a brand that:
- leverages technology and design to provide a superior experience to consumers at a premium price
- effectively decreases the environmental toll of production or usage without putting any additional burden on consumer
- and creates a strong sense of identity.
Tesla exemplify this concept. It started off by introducing premium cars (Roadster, Model X and Model S) to appeal to wealthy, Silicon Valley techies. These cars provide the best performances of all electrical cars on the market in terms of acceleration, range and ergonomic, so much that they have been compared to luxury, combustion engine brands such as Porsche and premium BMW. Last, the Tesla cars are sustainable because they run on (supposedly decarbonized) electricity and release no harmful emissions of NOx, SOx, etc. to the atmosphere.
However, Elon Musk’s dream is not to confine the Tesla experience to the “lucky fews”. His ambition is to decrease the environmental impact of personal transportation, implying that electrical cars need to go mainstream to create significant good for the planet. As the Model 3, a discounted electrical car starting at a $35,000 price point vs $85,000 for the Model S, ramps up, I wonder how Tesla will “protect” his brand and identity when going mainstream.
I first tried to understand the intricacies of Tesla’s brand equity, before devising ways to manage the brands within Tesla.
1. Tesla has an incredible brand equity that relies on high technology, corporate courage and an appetite for breaking the rules
Tesla is a “specialty” that aspires to become iconic: Today, Tesla enjoys exceptional brand awareness. It recently made into Interbrand's Best Global Brands List and enjoys a $50B market valuation that attests of the trust investors have put in Tesla’s brand (and, as we will see later, in Elon Musk’s brand). However, the brand will soon be challenged by the competition as major OEMs have announced their plans to release electrical car models in the next 2-3 years. In addition, the recurring delays in the Model 3 ramp-up are eroding the credibility of the brand. Therefore, the risk that Tesla faces in the future is not so much to drown in the mass market: it is, instead, to merely disappear.
However, Tesla can rely on its core strengths to thrive in its path to conquer the world. A key to Tesla’s success is to take advantage of the mythology it has built. Tesla is indeed the automotive champion who catches new trends (electrical mobility, autonomous driving) while other OEMs lags behind. Tesla is the brave company that proves that technology can solve challenges as big as Climate Change while other OEMs downplay their responsibility. Moreover, Tesla is the rebel company that does not hesitate to break conventional corporate rules. Finally, it embodies the success of techies who are both clever and sophisticated.
Tesla can ensure the longevity of its brand by:
a. Being an everlasting technology frontrunner: this is at the core of the company’s ethos, and will guarantee that the external future meaning of the brand is safe
b. Appealing to talented new employees, as much as customers do, perpetuate Tesla’s mythology: with 2,500 hires for 500,000 applicants, I am confident that the internal future brand meaning will be positive.
Nevertheless, its brand equity is at risk of not meeting internal and external stakeholders’ expectations:
a. Although most employees are mission driven and believe in the purpose of the company, difficult working conditions at Tesla have a hefty toll on employee retention. In addition, investors’ trust in the company fluctuates with Elon Musk’s erratic Twitter posts, news of car crashes and notices of delay in the ramp up of Model 3. What will happen to Tesla brand if its employees and investors lose faith in the company?
b. It is not clear how early adopters will react to the association of Tesla with the mainstream market. They might feel less special and lose engagement with the brand.
How can Tesla protect its brand while venturing into the mainstream market?
The main asset of Tesla is Elon Musk. What Tesla drove from the past and project to the future, is the world imagined by its founder. Elon is holding Tesla’s consumer base – or rather, fan base - together. He attracts loyalists who, true, appreciate his products, but most importantly, love him. And because they believe in him more than in Tesla, they might keep on buying Tesla’s most premium cars to identify further to their idol (as a matter of fact, Elon drives a Model S, not a Model 3). But will this be true to all customers (including famous CEOs and artists who are inspirational on their own and might prefer a more elitist brand)? And what if Elon Musk disappears? What will be left of Tesla’s brand?
A look into Elon Musk’s Branded House
Tesla is just a sub-brand of the Elon Musk master brand. Other sub-brands include SpaceX, Hyperloop and the Boring Company. The Elon Musk master brand is disruptive, tackles transportation problems that seem unsolvable (electric mobility, space travel, underground travel), relies on high technologies and elaborated design, and, yes, has a touch of craziness. “Being premium” does not play in the Elon Musk’s brand. Therefore, not being “premium” shall not exclude Model 3 from the Elon Musk’s branded house.
Indeed, Elon Musk’s master brand bring the following perks to Tesla’s cars:
- Associations that enhance the value proposition: People want to be like Elon Musk, who is considered an inspirational, cool, genius”.
- Credibility: Elon’s successes in PayPal and Space X add up credibility to Tesla. The credibility built on the Model S, X and Roadster will give credibility to Model S.
- Visibility: Elon is a social media star with more than 6M followers on Twitter. Tesla’s brand persona is very visible, and Elon acts as marketing engine.
- Communication efficiency: Elon is an expert at drawing attention, and regularly becomes viral, for the benefit of its brands (cf. the Tesla Roadster seen floating on the back of a Space X Falcon rocket).
Not “being premium” shall not exclude Model 3 from the Tesla “branded room” either. Indeed, conditions are not gathered to justify creating a sub-brand for Model 3 within Tesla:
There is no internal need to create a new brand: Tesla’s current financial performance is insufficient to justify a major re-branding investment. Instead, Tesla will benefit from leveraging its existing showroom and service center networks.
Model 3 will benefit from owning the association with Tesla: All Tesla model fulfil the same function. Adding brands may increase consumers’ confusion (cf GM’s 33 brands which lack real differentiation).
There is no need to represent a new, different offering: Model 3 share the same identity than other Tesla Models. It is just more spartiate and cheaper.
There is limited risk of confusion between Models and cannibilization: Tesla emphasizes that Model 3 is not the advanced version of model S. Tesla makes it clear that it is a less desirable option. Indeed, Model S present superior acceleration, longer range, more features (rear facing seats, panorama roof, 2 displays, etc.), faster delivery time and free access to superchargers. Supposedly, that’s enough differentiation to avoid deterring early adopters.
There is a need to retain/capture a customer/brand bond: Tesla wants to build on the brand recognition it has built so far, leveraging its network of fully-own showrooms and charging stations in a context of limited resources and high operating pressure.
There is limited risk of channel conflicts: Other OEMs have proven that models of different standings can coexist in the same brand and use the same channels. For instance, Audi A3 is sold on the same channels than A8 without putting the brand in jeopardy because it fulfills the same promise of discrete luxury and quality even if it differs on performance and price, and therefore appeal to different segment of customers.
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Over the years, Singapore Airlines has established itself as a premium airline company that delivers an outstanding service. It has grown a basis of increasingly demanding premium customers who tend to be loyal to the firm – up to a certain point. In 2001, it was challenged by the introduction of reclining seats by British Airways in the business traveler segment and started to lose passengers. I believe that, even in the face of crisis (in that case 9/11), SIA must deliver on its promise of comfort and quality to customers and upgrade its own seating to match – or exceed – BA’s level of service. Business travelers were the most affected by the 9/11 crisis; they need to feel reassured to travel again despite the risks and having them feel comfortable is the best way to do it. Indeed, comfort when sleeping is probably the No. 1concern of business travelers who feel the need to be refreshed when they reached their destination, since they have days of hard work ahead of them. SIA must be consistent with its premium image and fulfil its promise to its loyal customers.
Of course, spending $100M in seats seem like an expensive strategy to maintain the loyalty of business travelers. And who knows where the race to better service will end? However, behavioral science has shown that pleasing customers does not necessarily entail high investment or operating costs for companies. Instead, it is a matter of targeting one’s effort, measuring the impact, and acting on the feedback received on a iterative basis. For instance, adopting a customer centric approach entails staying close to passengers at all times. SIA established the ratio of complaints on positive comments mailed to the HQ per 10,000 employees as a KPI to measure customer satisfaction. Employees’ performance is indexed on customers’ satisfaction, even at the highest levels of management. Surveys to gauge customers’ satisfaction for on ground and on air services are rolled out on a quarterly basis. Finally, on board crews are requested to submit a summary of customers’ complaints or questions at then end of each flight.
The latter data are not particularly expensive to collect; yet they provide valuable data for SIA’as management to account for customers’ satisfaction in a context where customers’ loyalty is difficult to build. SIA could further increase customer centric value by sending “spies” that would go through the same user journey than passengers, from check-in to luggage claim. That would allow SIA to observe crew and passengers’ behaviors and identify areas of improvements that are typically “not spoken” (e.g. difficulties that passengers may have had that were not reported to the flight attendants). Similarly, a design thinking approach of studying the full customer journey as opposed to isolated steps.
SIA stands out for the thoroughness and high frequency of the “service trainings” it provides to its crews. Finally, its Singapore Girls, young, beautiful and well-spoken flight attendants provide an hedonic and ego flattering flight experience to passengers. If the crew looks so perfect, then, the passengers may be really important, aren’t they?
This is only one way SIA can manipulate customer’s perception to deliver a perceived high quality of service while limiting operating expense. Other tactics can produce similar results, notably:
1. End well: in the airline industry, it is common practice to have the crew lined up to wish farewell to offboarding passengers. An easy to implement way to serve customers well until the very end is to assist them extensively through stress inducing transfers by indicating directions and calling colleagues in other parts of the airport for flight information. I was impressed by Air France when I had a flight attendant chase me through baggage claim in Point-a-Pitre because I forgot my carry on baggage in the plane. Not only did I feel grateful, I also felt important since I had been remembered.
2. Get the bad things out of the way first - transparency on flight delays and cancellation is of upmost importance to decrease passengers’ level of anxiety and tendency to rationalize, sometimes wrongly, the causes of the problem. Taking off is pleasant for no one, and airlines can make it easier by distributing headphones early on upon passenger boarding to distract passengers from the discomfort of the moving plane.
3. Segment the Pleasure, Combine the Pain – making sure than passengers only queue at the beginning for check-in, and never again during transfers (through agreements with airports and partner airlines) is a good way to combine the pain. In medium duration flight, offering several snacks might be better perceived by customers than offering a unique, bigger meal.
4. Build Commitment Through Choice: allowing passengers to choose through different meal options greatly increases their experience. SIA offers passengers to choose between Asian and Western style food, aknowledging their personal tastes and therefore increasing their wellness.
5. Give People Rituals and Stick to Them: the Singapore Girl is part of the SIA ritual that is so rooted in its customers’ minds that it is almost impossible to alter it. As an Air France’s customer, I am used to be offerred champagne for aperitive, and wine, bread and cheese with my meal even if I seat in the economy class. I feel that removing that from me would be a sacrilege. However, if rituals cannot be changed, other can be introduced, leaving airlines with the flexibility to modify passenger experience.
To conclude, creating a better customer experience can be achieved by manipulating customers’ perceptions without necessarily having to spend more on operating experiences and investment.
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Over the years, Singapore Airlines has established itself as a premium airline company that delivers an outstanding service. It has grown a basis of increasingly demanding premium customers who tend to be loyal to the firm – up to a certain point. In 2001, it was challenged by the introduction of reclining seats by British Airways in the business traveler segment and started to lose passengers. I believe that, even in the face of crisis (in that case 9/11), SIA must deliver on its promise of comfort and quality to customers and upgrade its own seating to match – or exceed – BA’s level of service. Business travelers were the most affected by the 9/11 crisis; they need to feel reassured to travel again despite the risks and having them feel comfortable is the best way to do it. Indeed, comfort when sleeping is probably the No. 1concern of business travelers who feel the need to be refreshed when they reached their destination, since they have days of hard work ahead of them. SIA must be consistent with its premium image and fulfil its promise to its loyal customers.
Of course, spending $100M in seats seem like an expensive strategy to maintain the loyalty of business travelers. And who knows where the race to better service will end? However, behavioral science has shown that pleasing customers does not necessarily entail high investment or operating costs for companies. Instead, it is a matter of targeting one’s effort, measuring the impact, and acting on the feedback received on a iterative basis. For instance, adopting a customer centric approach entails staying close to passengers at all times. SIA established the ratio of complaints on positive comments mailed to the HQ per 10,000 employees as a KPI to measure customer satisfaction. Employees’ performance is indexed on customers’ satisfaction, even at the highest levels of management. Surveys to gauge customers’ satisfaction for on ground and on air services are rolled out on a quarterly basis. Finally, on board crews are requested to submit a summary of customers’ complaints or questions at then end of each flight.
The latter data are not particularly expensive to collect; yet they provide valuable data for SIA’as management to account for customers’ satisfaction in a context where customers’ loyalty is difficult to build. SIA could further increase customer centric value by sending “spies” that would go through the same user journey than passengers, from check-in to luggage claim. That would allow SIA to observe crew and passengers’ behaviors and identify areas of improvements that are typically “not spoken” (e.g. difficulties that passengers may have had that were not reported to the flight attendants). Similarly, a design thinking approach of studying the full customer journey as opposed to isolated steps.
SIA stands out for the thoroughness and high frequency of the “service trainings” it provides to its crews. Finally, its Singapore Girls, young, beautiful and well-spoken flight attendants provide an hedonic and ego flattering flight experience to passengers. If the crew looks so perfect, then, the passengers may be really important, aren’t they?
This is only one way SIA can manipulate customer’s perception to deliver a perceived high quality of service while limiting operating expense. Other tactics can produce similar results, notably:
1. End well: in the airline industry, it is common practice to have the crew lined up to wish farewell to offboarding passengers. An easy to implement way to serve customers well until the very end is to assist them extensively through stress inducing transfers by indicating directions and calling colleagues in other parts of the airport for flight information. I was impressed by Air France when I had a flight attendant chase me through baggage claim in Point-a-Pitre because I forgot my carry on baggage in the plane. Not only did I feel grateful, I also felt important since I had been remembered.
2. Get the bad things out of the way first - transparency on flight delays and cancellation is of upmost importance to decrease passengers’ level of anxiety and tendency to rationalize, sometimes wrongly, the causes of the problem. Taking off is pleasant for no one, and airlines can make it easier by distributing headphones early on upon passenger boarding to distract passengers from the discomfort of the moving plane.
3. Segment the Pleasure, Combine the Pain – making sure than passengers only queue at the beginning for check-in, and never again during transfers (through agreements with airports and partner airlines) is a good way to combine the pain. In medium duration flight, offering several snacks might be better perceived by customers than offering a unique, bigger meal.
4. Build Commitment Through Choice: allowing passengers to choose through different meal options greatly increases their experience. SIA offers passengers to choose between Asian and Western style food, aknowledging their personal tastes and therefore increasing their wellness.
5. Give People Rituals and Stick to Them: the Singapore Girl is part of the SIA ritual that is so rooted in its customers’ minds that it is almost impossible to alter it. As an Air France’s customer, I am used to be offerred champagne for aperitive, and wine, bread and cheese with my meal even if I seat in the economy class. I feel that removing that from me would be a sacrilege. However, if rituals cannot be changed, other can be introduced, leaving airlines with the flexibility to modify passenger experience.
To conclude, creating a better customer experience can be achieved by manipulating customers’ perceptions without necessarily having to spend more on operating experiences and investment.
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Does this wine “price” good?
One day that I was visiting a vineyard from the “Entre-Deux-Mers” AOC in Bourgogne, the owner explained how his margins had significantly improved when he rebranded his wine for the international market. A year before, he increased the price of his bottles from around €20 to €40, and sales doubled in China. I found it fascinating how price can influence the perception of the product. It was unclear in this case whether the wine became more popular because it was more expensive and thus reflected better on the social status of the buyers; or because it was perceived of better quality.
Interestingly, a meta-analysis by Edward Oczkowski and Christos Doucouliagos published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics in 2015 found that approximately 90% of the 180 models of wine price and quality available in the literature identified that there was a positive relation between prices and quality. That’s great to know! However, that also means that in 10% of the cases, no clear correlation was found between wine price and quality. Therefore, some wines are over-priced compared to quality, others may be underpriced. Maybe that Entre-Deux-Mers I mentioned above was underpriced compared to products of similar quality in China which induced consumers to wrongly think that it was of lesser quality – or maybe the owner just realized that he could charge a higher price than the implied quality of the wine because consumers’ driver for purchase was status and not quality.
Knowing the price not only affects the way we perceive the quality a wine, but also affects how it tastes! According to a study by Baba Shiv, Hilke Plassmann and Antonio Rangel, from Stanford GSB and the California Institute of Technology, the part of the brain that experiences pleasure is more active when the drinker thinks he or she is enjoying an expensive vintage that when the drinker thinks he/she is drinking a cheap wine. Therefore, knowing the price distorts our perception of reality! That leaves marketers with the formidable power of influencing consumer’s decision process and experience by acting on properties that are external to the product.
I observed how wine’s price influence how consumers perceive quality and taste front end on a New Year’s Eve I celebrated with German friends in Shanghai at a trendy French restaurant, Mr & Mrs Bund. As the only French at the table, I was tasked to select wine to accompany the main dish. As I scrolled down the list of wines, I noticed a Chateau Larose Trintaudon 2007, a Haut-Medoc that I used to drink on a regular basis in France. I ordered the $130 bottle and was pleased to hear my friends’ enthusiastic comments about how good the wine was. For sure, it was good…but I wondered how they would have reacted if they have known that this bottle was sold for €12 in French supermarkets…
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Beer, lime and beach: Corona, the trend-setter
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Beer, lime and beach: Corona, the trend-setter
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