sabbranding

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Is it Lovely to be Fair?

Regardless of people's opinion of the Fair and Lovely Products, one thing is for sure, HUL's branding of the products had a far and wide reach. Growing up in the US in a South Asian household, I knew about Fair and Lovely products for as long as I can remember. The local Indian stores always carried the various creams, and my mom even bought it a few times for us to use. I recall the packaging always showing additional benefits like sun protection and vitamins which made the creams appealing.

I don't think at that time any of us that used the creams thought twice about the negative perceptions it was perpetuating. Now, upon further reflection, what I'm most impressed by is how the brand was able to penetrate across South Asia and into the U.S. There are very few brands that have such a strong brand that they are well known in multiple countries, and HUL was able to achieve this with Fair and Lovely.

The real question is, should a brand be responsible for the negative perceptions its products cause. Evidently, Fair and Lovely is one of HUL's top selling products, which indicates a strong consumer demand for the product. So, if consumers are driving the demand, does it mean HUL should pull the line? There are many other products and brands that have arguably as bad or worse impacts on society, but the brands don't change their narrative or pull the products. If HUL changes their branding, they also could be at risk for loosing customers or struggling to explain why they made the change. While I support a rebranding that highlights other aspects of the products, if I were making the business decision, I wouldn't know how best to navigate a rebrand without hurting the company's bottom line.

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Rogers' Five Factors and Nugttah

Our branding lab project is on Nugttah which is a platform that combines door dash, yelp, open tables, and toast tab into one. This is based in Saudi Arabia and has already a million customers. The rapid adoption of this platform makes it prime for a five factors analysis to understand how it caught on so quickly.

Relative Advantage - Nugttah was the first of its kind in the Saudi Market and worked better than all the alternatives since it was able to combine so many features into one

Compatibility - the platform seemingly integrated easily into existing customer and business owner experiences and helped solve for capabilities that were not possible previously

Complexity - the complexity of the offerings is perhaps the one area for improvement from the business owner perspective and this is the crux of our branding lab project. For consumers the experience is as easy as door dash where they can easily order food, but for business owners the platform represents many things and each owner views Nugttah as bringing a different value. Consolidating the brand perception from the business owner perspective will likely help more restaurants and cafes come onto the platform.

Trialability - since the company was founded by a Sloanie (Sumayah), analytics in the approach to scaling is at the core of the company. They have been able to test various offerings and iterate on how customers feel about the offerings in real time. Even our branding lab project will have experimentation that is possible because of this approach.

Observability - there is a network effect with Nugttah that has also contributed to its quick growth. When one business owner sees success from using the platform, they likely have spread the word and others join as a result. Further, customers have a much easier and streamlined ordering, delivery, and loyalty program experience which is a very tangible outcome of the platform.

All-in-all, Nugttah has really been able to capture value and have broad diffusion because it has nailed the various aspects of the Rogers' 5 factors.

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World's 5-star airline

In reading the Singapore Airlines case, I can't help but think how all the top luxury airlines now compete on the same thing that distinguished Singapore Airlines back in 2001: Customer Service.

The title of my post is in fact taken from the tag line used by my personal favorite airline, Qatar Airways. The entire airlines industry has evolved so much in the past 2 decades since the Singapore Airlines case that now in order to be a top airline, you must have customer service at the core.

At the time of the case, Singapore Airlines was, I suppose, revolutionary in that they made flying about the hospitality. From the etiquette and hospitality training of the flight attendants, to the persona creation of the Singapore Girl as this illusive well traveled lady, and even giving choices to passengers in Economy, all of this was what provided their customers additional value. And that added value helped them maintain a loyal customer base and have good volumes of passengers to enable ticket prices that were still competitive with more subpar service airlines.

Now, we see how the airlines industry has intense competition over who provides the best service with Qatar and Emirates both leading the way (in my opinion) and Singapore Airlines in the top five. As more airlines focus on offering premium customer service, there has been a tangible shift away from multiple ticket class offerings which the case also questions. For instance, Qatar only offer a business and economy class. Similarly, from a cost cutting perspective, it would make more sense for Singapore Airlines to eliminate one class (likely first) and maintain a business and economy model. I would recommend they install the lay flat seats in business in order to have an even playing field with competitors like BA at the time that already offered lay flat business class.

Looking to the future of airlines, these luxury airlines all offer excellent products with great service so it seems the competition is once again dwindling down to more a price competition. For instance, even though I love Qatar Airways, especially their QSuite business class, I'm not loyal to the brand if Emirates, Singapore Airlines, or even Etihad had the same route in business class for a cheaper price. So the question is, who is the world's 5-star airline with the best pricing?

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Experimenting Smarter

During my senior year of undergrad, I interned at Wayfair in their data analytics team. I distinctly remember the team culture was all about using data to improve marketing, but they didn't quite tell us how. I was in the email analytics team where we had tons and tons of data on clicks and email engagement, but it was never clear to me what we were doing with all that data. From time to time someone from the marketing team would ask us to run a query on the data to tell them how many people interacted with the discounted items or with a holiday themed email. It was a very backwards looking analytics approach.

Reading the Step-by-step guide to smart business experiments made me realize we had so many opportunities to run natural experiments but we didn't fully take them. Having a framework like the seven steps outlined in the reading could have led to proactive understanding of consumer behavior and overall likely higher profits. Soon after I left Wayfair, they began going through major layoffs that have continued to this day. I venture to guess it's because they aren't experimenting effectively but rather are just touching the surface with their analytics approach. Although, now I know they have new teams with dedicated economists and statisticians to analyze data and come up with pricing strategies. I hope that since these are more scientific people they are approaching analytics with the scientific method and hopefully the number of layoffs and mediocre performance by the company will improve.

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The Battle of the Brands: Corona vs. Heineken

I'm not a beer drinker, but the strongest memories I have associated with beer are tied to Heineken. I worked in the Netherlands in the summer of 2016 and I remember Heineken was everywhere! Of course Heineken is a Dutch beer, and one would think they didn't necessarily have to advertise so hard in their native land. But, what I didn't realize then was they were doing everything possible to ensure their brand was strong and their customer base even stronger.

Perhaps to most over display of their brand was the Heineken museum experience. It was a massive building that had the brewery but also multiple rooms and spaces that were decked out like a club with music, lounges, and immersive sensory experiences. I remember asking my friends what the purpose of this setup was since it was, after all, a museum. One friend said it's to show us an aspiration of what life could be with Heineken.

Years later, I understand this tactic. By showing us a mock up of a club and a music venue and giving us Heineken, it's showing us the aspirational group that we should strive to be in, it's really branding at it's finest.

On the other hand, Corona is known as a fun beach beer where you put a lime in and relax. I don't think Corona should move away from this image as they already have a loyal customer base that likely has strong associations with Corona and a good time in the sun. Instead of changing this focus, perhaps a tactic that would ensure Corona's dominance is setting up immersive experiences like the Heineken museum across the U.S. They could have faux beaches in the middle of cities and show the U.S. beer consuming population how to relax with a Corona. Leaning into their brand moto and doubling down on it is the approach I would take.