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Fair & Lovely is an example of a brand that has "gotten into the heads" of its consumers by having a deep understanding of the cultural values, beliefs, and social identities that drive colorism in South Asia. The brand was developed as a skin lightening in India, a country that reveres fair skin as a symbol of beauty and status. In India, as in many other Eastern societies, fair skin can be consequential to the trajectory of one's life. Because of its perceived importance, fairer skin can be tied to better marriage prospects, better career opportunities, and greater respect in society.

Fair & Lovely was launched as a "solution" to the problems that darker-skinned people faced in India, a way to help them "compete" in society in a way that they previously couldn't due to the immutable biological factors that determine skin color. Through its branding and advertisement, Fair & Lovely not only sold consumers the promise of lighter skin, but it promised its consumers the possibility of a new perspective on life as a fairer-skinned individual.

My family hails from Pakistan, which has very similar views on skin color to its neighbor, India. Some of the South Asian television ads that I have the strongest memory of from my childhood are ads from Fair & Lovely and its competitors. According to these ads, tubes of Fair & Lovely didn't just offer changes in appearance, they offered greater happiness and respect -- whether through confidence, friends, or marriage prospects.

The ad that I found the most egregious was an ad where a working-class girl and her father went to a store to make a purchase but were ignored and mistreated by the staff due to the girl's skin color. She went home with a bottle of Fair & Lovely, and when she returned to the store she was given the utmost respect and attention because of her new, lighter skin color. Another offender was a series of advertisements featuring prominent Bollywood actors Saif Ali Khan and Priyanka Chopra, where Khan breaks off his engagement with Chopra for another woman, leaving Chopra confused and heartbroken. She decides to invest in Fair & Lovely, which lightens her complexion and "transforms" her looks. The next time she sees Khan, he's floored and comes running back to her, looking to rekindle their relationship.

It's easy see to the importance of skin color in South Asia and the way it affects how individuals move through life. Fair & Lovely offered consumers an optimistic, escapist vision of a more equitable life.

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Rogers' Five Factors: A Tool to Assess the Diffusion of Products from Sliced Peanutbutter to Smart Insoles

Based on Rogers' five factors, the ranking of success of product diffusion is as follows: 1) Polytrack, 2) Stave Jigsaw, 3) Collapsible Wheel, and 4) Sliced Peanutbutter.

Polytrack exhibited the most robust instance of relative advantage and compatibility with the existing racetrack infrastructure. It was very low in complexity and easy to introduce to new racetracks. Lastly, the results of the improvements resulting from the product were extremely observable -- there was an instant improvement in rider experience and horse health.

On the other hand, sliced peanut butter had a weak relative advantage compared to the existing solution. While it was low in complexity, compatible with existing values of food preparation, and easy to trial, the product's observable impact was questionable compared to existing alternatives.

When considering Rogers' five factors as they apply to GaitReady, it seems that the product has a high relative advantage due to its use case and compatibility with existing societal health values. It also has an observable benefit to consumers. However, older users may struggle to understand how the product works (complexity), and barriers to trial may be high without incentives from third parties like healthcare providers and elderly care services.

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SIA knows customers better than they know themselves

Singapore Airlines has differentiated itself among the competitive airline industry through their first-in-class customer service. From the airline’s advent in 1972, the company sought to win over customers from their competitors by providing an elevated in-flight experience. Their initial strategy focused on training flight attendants through a rigorous program that perfected employees’ soft skills and ability to cater to customers. The brand become synonymous with the idea of the “Singapore Girl”, an “idealized version of the SIA flight attendant”, the allure of which drew both employees and customers alike to the airline.

By the 1990s, other airlines like BA and Cathay Pacific had adopted SIA’s strategy of drawing in customers through exceptional in-flight experiences, specifically within the long-distance premium class segment. SIA struggled to hold onto its competitive edge, and began to look towards supplemental ways to improve customer experience. The airline launched a frequent flyer programs to reward customers for brand loyalty. They also launched multiple survey tools to gauge customer sentiment, allowing them to iterate based on changing customer expectations. The company eventually used their customer service approach to inform the transformation of all operations, from baggage handling to pilot training to aircraft design.

SIA eventually began to look towards innovation to provide customer insights. They collected a database of information on each customer, which captured preferences from favorite alcoholic beverages to preferred flight attendant interaction levels. This not only improved customer experience, but it provided a level of personalization that introduced brand stickiness. Now, if these premium customers decided to switch airlines for their next trip, they’d have to consider the fact that the competitor airline wouldn’t have pre-existing information on their travel experiences that made their SIA journeys so enjoyable. In the premium travel category, this level of convenience was also likely worth a premium cost to customers.

When prompted to come up with more innovative solutions to reduce customer friction, ChatGPT came up with the ideas below:

Virtual Reality (VR) Pre-Flight Tours: Airlines could offer customers VR pre-flight tours of their planes, lounges, and amenities. This would allow customers to familiarize themselves with the airline's offerings, reducing anxiety and uncertainty, and improving the overall travel experience.

Biometric Scanning: Airlines could use biometric scanning technology (such as facial recognition) to streamline the check-in, boarding, and security processes. This would reduce the need for customers to show their boarding passes and ID multiple times, which can be a source of frustration and delay.

Airport Concierge Services: Airlines could offer airport concierge services, providing customers with a dedicated representative to help them navigate the airport and answer any questions or concerns they may have. This would help customers feel more supported and valued, reducing anxiety and improving the overall travel experience.

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Nudging: An Influential Tool from School Cafeterias to Automated Warehouses

"Nudging" is a concept wherein an organization can use "choice architecture" to influence people's behavior in a predictable way, without limiting freedom of choice or changing economic value. Nudges can be a powerful tool in influencing consumer behavior and can help people follow through with latent intentions. All nudges share four characteristics: 1) they boost self-control or activate a desired behavior, 2) they can be externally- or self-imposed, 3) they call for mindfulness or mindlessness towards the task at hand, and 4) they encourage or discourage a particular behavior. A commonplace example of "nudging" can be found in school cafeterias, where schools nudge students towards healthier options by making unhealthy dining options less prominent.

Upon reflection, I believe I've implemented examples of nudging in my previous role in technology consulting. On a supply chain automation engagement, we were tasked with creating a suite of applications that would digitize manual warehouse processes. Part of the implementation involved shaping warehouse workers' behavior, or "nudging" the workers towards desired behavior, by redefining the way they worked on their tasks through our applications.

Firstly, our client was concerned that warehouse workers frequently missed or skipped steps while working, like scanning pallet IDs, due to a lack of oversight or overconfidence in their understanding of the way pallets were organized in the warehouse. Our applications prompted warehouse workers to scan pallet IDs far more frequently than they would normally think to do so, in order to repeatedly confirm they were accurately completing their tasks. While warehouse workers often had the option within the app to skip this step, they were still "nudged" to adopt more cautious behavior through frequent prompting. Among the twelve types of nudges, this may have been considered an externally imposed mindful nudge that encouraged a desired behavior.

Another instance where we "nudged" warehouse workers was when they alerted supervisors of issues with their tasks. Previously, when warehouse workers ran into a roadblock with a certain task, they may have delayed alerting a supervisor to their issue. In some instances, the workers would drop the task at hand and move on to another task, leaving the initial task incomplete, and alerted their supervisors of the issue at a later time. Our application only allowed warehouse workers to complete a single task at a time, preventing the workers from getting caught up in multiple workstreams, which increased the likelihood of a mistake among the different tasks. The warehouse workers were also stuck on a "waiting for supervisor" screen until a supervisor came by to address the issue, which we found "nudged" the workers to begin to troubleshoot on their own before the supervisor arrived, and made them less likely to rely on their supervisors for help if minor issues arose. This may have been considered an externally imposed mindful nudge that discouraged a desired behavior.

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Are American beer drinkers drawn to laidback fun in the sun or pretentious product quality?

Corona – Drawing Consumers into the Laidback "Fun, Sun, and Beach" Lifestyle

Grupo Modelo started exporting its beer to the U.S. in the late 1970s, and concentrated its early sales in cities on the border of U.S. and Mexico, which also had large populations of university students. Corona's sales were led by "on-premise promotions in restaurants, bars, and discos". At the time, one of the brand's differentiating factors was its long-neck bottle, which paved the way for the "Corona and lime" ritual of squeezing a lime into a Corona bottle. (Case)

Modelo chose to lean into Corona's Mexican roots, and strongly tied the brand to its Mexican identity. Corona remained entirely brewed in Mexico and its export packaging (a white, yellow, and blue label on a clear long-neck bottle) remained consistent with the domestic product. (Case)

Domestically, Grupo Modelo fell into a price war in the early 1990s with its competitor FEMSA, driving down the real price level of beer by 25.3%. (Case) However, in the U.S. Modelo priced its beer at the "same price level as Heineken", as the brand sought to maintain the image of a premium import. (Case)

The brand's advertising campaigns leaned into its Mexican roots and fun, casual, and laidback identity. Television advertisements focused on simple images of consuming Corona beer on tranquil Mexican beaches, which represented a shift from the sophisticated images of foreign beer consumption traditionally relayed by imported beer brands.

Modelo kept a strong grip on its image by reserving the right to approve all advertising content, assuring brand consistency to consumers among different advertising streams.

Heineken – the Quality-Focused Beer Brand, where "Just Being the Best [was] Enough" (and the Vulnerabilities that Came with It)

When Corona gained traction in the U.S. in the 80s, Heineken dismissed its competitor as a "fad brand of the eighties".

In the late 80s, Heineken sought out a new ad campaign to combat Corona and the weakened U.S. dollar. Heineken asked its advertising agency to focus on delivering a compelling message to younger consumers that emphasized product quality. When sales continued to decline, the brand decided to lean into messaging that portrayed competing beers as fads. Despite sales continuing to decline after this shift, Heineken continued to focus its advertising on product quality into the early 90s, wherein it adopted the "Just being the best is enough" slogan.

Sales continued to decline into the 90s until leadership recognized Heineken needed to change the way it presented its brand to its consumers. An executive realized, "[our brand messaging of] when you make great beer, you don't have to make a great fuss, might have been considered somewhat arrogant." (Case) In the late 90s, Heineken's red star failed to be recognized by consumers as a brand identifier. 

Eventually, the brand shifted its advertising away from product quality and its number-one status among imported beers. Instead, it focused on a "new personality" marked by humor and consumer engagement.

Corona vs. Heneiken's Advertising Campaigns – Are American beer drinkers drawn to laidback fun in the sun or pretentious product quality?

While Heineken maintained its status as the number one imported beer brand in the U.S. into the late 90s, it can be argued that Corona maintained a stronger brand presence during its first few decades in the country. Corona leaned into its authentically Mexican heritage and maintained its brand's associations with laidback fun. This aligned well with its entry into border cities with university populations in the U.S., which undoubtedly appreciated its cultural association and unpretentious brand image. Corona's brand became particularly popular in the U.S. because of the country's growing Hispanic population, the country's fastest-growing ethnic group. It also drew from the grassroots drinking traditions that emerged from its introduction into the U.S. and utilized images of the iconic "Corona and lime" in its advertising campaigns.

On the flip side, Heineken failed to create strong resonance with its brand image among American consumers. The brand sought to rest on the laurels of its status among competing imported beer brands and looked toward product quality as a selling point. Instead of selling a lifestyle or drawing on its Dutch roots, its advertisements tore down competitors, which did not appeal to consumers. It also failed to make a strong association between the most iconic part of its branding, the red star, with its beer.