leshchev

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Week 5: Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful

Fair & Lovely is the Uniliver product that was introduced to the market in India. The advertisement of the product was directly focused on the promotion of colorism (see the advertisement below, pay attention to how the model’s emotions change with her color skin).

I would say Uniliver definitely has failed to address the moral dilemma of the case.  The company has missed the fact that that advertisement would be seen as racist. Moreover, the company had another scandal with a TV advertisement for Ponds White Beauty in which the actor expressed a preference for the fair-skinned model (see below).

The focus of the advertisement was to create a demand for this product, but the company completely ignored that at the same time the company was creating an invisible ceiling in customers' minds. I think that brand positioning was completely inappropriate – the company should try to focus on inclusion but not on the splitting the society into people who has the right skin color and people who have a ‘fair’ chance to ‘fix their complexion’ and become ‘lovely’.

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Week 4: Four Products vs Five Factors

I have decided to evaluate all products on a scale of 1 to 5. I was trying to understand what factors are the hardest to achieve. See the results of my research below.

As you can see the scale itself does not provide an answer on what product will be successful or what will not. The research is directly focused on Roger's Five Factors. By the way, I personally think that Stave Puzzle is the most likely to be successful, and Individually wrapped peanut butter slices are highly unlikely to diffuse quickly.

Finally, I wanted to focus on what factors are the most in our cases. See the results in the table below.

I would recommend companies to work more on Trialability and Compatibility (at least with suggested products). At the same time, as the theory says - successful innovations should have all five: high relative advantage, compatibility, trialability, observability, and low complexity.

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Week 3: Singapore Airlines

When say differentiate based on the customer experience - Singapore Airlines is one of the best examples that you could have in your mind.

The regular surveys of their passengers let them identify the weak points of their customer experience. This customer feedback also helped the, to create a picture of the regular passenger, they went far beyond the gender-age-salary identity.

Moreover, they were particularly consistent with their brand. Singapore Airlines is not only about transportation, it is actually mostly not about transportation – it is about the travel experience.

If your travel with Singapore Airlines, it shows your status. Why? Because they maintain the customer experience as a competitive strategy.

Let me share my experience with Singapore Airlines: when you seat in their cabin, you feel that you are really welcome. The employees know that you want something even before you ask for it. They always go an extra mile, so you always know that your experience will be exceptional.

Even though ‘Branding is not a popularity contest’, Singapore Airlines has been ranked as the world's best airline by Skytrax four times and topped Travel & Leisure's best airline rankings for more than 20 years. And they never forget to mention that. Because the most important is not to create the best product on the market but to communicate this to your customers.

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Week 2: Step-by-step Guide to Smart Business Experiments

After reading the article I have remembered the experiment that was made in my home country. So, I would like to share some details and outcomes.

The task of the project was an attempt to assess how the audience's attitude to well-known brands changes when their key product changes.

Spaghetti "Lufthansa" and "Mercedes"

86% of respondents took positively the idea of the appearance of spaghetti "Lufthansa" and "Mercedes" and only a small part, 14% of respondents would refuse to buy such pasta. Of those who reacted favorably to the new spaghetti, Mercedes was chosen with a minimal margin: 49% for Lufthansa and 51% for Mercedes.

The outcome is interesting, because the pasta chances of Mercedes and Lufthansa are equal, even though the brands are very different. The premium quality of Mercedes could not play a key role here, the taste sensations from Lufthansa turned out to be no worse. Perhaps it was a great sign that being affordable allowed the airline brand to gain half of the audience.

The research also goes deeper into local brands - this experiment illustrates that brands have some flexibility with experimenting. The next step should be focused on how to make the right choice to see the positive results that is precisely described in today’s article.

Source: BrandLab

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Week 1: Corona Beer

In the middle of the 90s Corona became the No 2 imported beer in the US, the company was thinking about moving forward. The No 1 imported beer in the US was Heineken.

The Barton Beers/Gambrinus Co should start a nationwide campaign to promote Corona Extra brand. The question is how to achieve sustainable results. The TV advertisement right now is 53% and outdoor is around 7%. At the same time, it is hard to tell whether this approach is successful since the young educated generation consumes 68% of imported beer. The Hispanic population is another targeted group. There are several questions that should be answered: Do they watch TV (if yes, what channels)? Are there more efficient ways to talk with the audience (such as sponsored events, merchandise give-away)?

There are some regional success stories like Southern California, New Jersey, Virginia, and Wisconsin, but this success should force the company to continue expansion. One of the suggestions is to start opening local offices to promote its brands as Heineken does and communicate directly with local restaurants and bars.