#mitbrandingsectiona

[sunilkmit-blog]

Amazing Amazon : the smart way to grow business by learning from users behavioral data and embracing innovation. 

[chn718]

The Ultimate Pitch - Selling Razors and Outcompeting Gillette

nWhen it comes to pitching a idea, I think that execution, tact and style is definitely key. We can look to the case of Dollar Shave Club as the ultimate example of this, its well crafted and viral YouTube enabled it to get 10K customers in a matter of months due to the understanding of customers pain points and making fun of them. See YouTube Video below: 

The main point that they were able to address with their pitch was why US but not in the traditional way that marketing does, my main takeaways from the video that we can help implement are as follows: 

Speak the Customers Language: The video targets at the “bro” audience and it is very apparent by the overall way of the commercial, humor and everything else surrounding the branding, therefore they were able to resonate with most of the audience who could potentially be economic buyers of the product. 

Identify the Pain Point: Another thing that was done well was identifying a significant pain point that customers had - it was both the fact that prices of razors were extremely high due to a near monopoly on the market and the fact that people had to go to the store to pick them up which was inconvenient. Going in with those hypothesis helped significantly increase “These are problems I’m experiencing” percentage of people who will now be drawn to the product. 

Make it Viral: By making something funny, it enables people to share the video with one another which means that there is a significantly higher rate referral and will help drive the growth of the overall brand among the right customer base. 

[delbrands]

I remember reading Start Something That Matters, a chronicle of TOMS’ founder and Chief Shoe Giver, Blake Mycoskie, when it was published in 2012. TOMS was a pioneer of the “buy one, give one” social impact business model, which has since become trendy among a number of high profile brands, including Warby Parker and Bombas Socks. I consider myself a conscious consumer, and have always aimed to support brands with a social mission, if for no other reason than to put my spending power to work in support a worthy cause.

This past year, TOMS lifted their annual #withoutshoes campaign to do more than merely spread awareness for the brand and its cause, by pledging to donate a pair of shoes for every pair of bare feet posted to Instagram between May 5 and 21 with the campaign’s hashtag. Mycoskie chose to extend the organization’s mission beyond those willing or able to purchase a pair of TOMS’ shoes and provide any supporter the opportunity to "do something good without having to buy."

I support TOMS and feel strongly about their social impact. In full transparency, however, I recently chose to forego a subsequent purchase due to a poor experience with the quality of a recent pair of TOMS, and instead purchased a very similar pair of Vans, without the social movement. 

Photo credit: toms.com

[wallyslemonade-blog]

Brands at Pitch Archetypes

At first, I was a bit unsure of how to frame this article for the purposes of a post for Branding class. Companies are constantly pitching their products to consumers, and so I thought it might be helpful to think about how different brands frame their foundational stories (or perhaps the public perception of those stories) for public consumption around the archetypes of pitchers presented in the HBS article.   

The Showrunner

Elon Musk’s ability to defy logic and reality, to present bold visions for the future and then deliver on them, is a large part of his success and the appeal of the company. You aren’t just buying an electric car, but you are buying into the vision of a brilliant person who is going to change the world. I thought this line particularly telling: “Showrunners also display and ability to improvise, a quality that allows them to adapt if a pitch begins to go awry.” That has Tesla’s disappointing manufacturing yields all over it.

The Artist

To some degree, these brands are represented by the most luxurious brands. The ones that present themselves as the most refined, those brands with products that are crafted with  meticulous attention to detail. Apple fits in this category, in its mythology, Steve Jobs represented to pitchman with an absolute focus on creating the best product. You still see that in the way that Jony Ive’s profile has been raised at the company. You can hear his voice narrating the processes that were developed and designed to refine each millimeter of the Apple Watch.

I think that you also get this pitch from a luxury product company like Patek Phillipe – with a focus on its unique focus on a single product and improving it over time. “Wanting the Perfect Numeral” as you can see in this video demonstrates the ends to which they are willing to go to in order to create the best watch. 

The Neophyte

These companies make a pitch to you based on a folksy “we’re-just-figuring-it-out” kind of sensibility -- we’re riding by the seat of our pants. This happens regardless of whether the foundational story is true or not. You want to buy into that and support them not out of sympathy but because you want to be on the team.  Nantucket Nectars did this with their ongoing pitch to consumers with the simple motto “We’re juice guys.” They aren’t claiming to be perfectionists, but simple guys who begin selling juice as a hobby on Nantucket.

[sunilkmit-blog]

noticed Burberry in an event immediately after Prof. Renée Richardson Gosline’s class

[chn718]

Podcast Challenges - Increasing Viewership and Revenue in a World of Free

For our branding project, we are working with the Radio Open Source Podcast to see how we can increase listenership and potentially revenue. As a backdrop, since 2006, podcast listenership and awareness has more than doubled, but so has the number of podcasts availble according to Pew Research (http://www.journalism.org/2015/04/29/podcasting-fact-sheet/). With the prevalence of technology which makes it ever easier to create podcasts, it’s been getting harder and harder to stand out in the crowd. This brings us to Radio Open Source. Since its relaunch in 2013, they’ve never even topped the top 100 podcasts in the U.S. on iTunes (http://www.itunescharts.net/us/charts/podcasts/2016/04/26), with podcasts such as Game of Thrones and Tony Robins filling each and every void possible.

The best way we want to go about this situation is to develop a survey to help understand people’s preferences and in that way build archetypes of the types of people that Radio Open Source should be targeting. We want to do a 2x2 analysis about the potential competitors and look at what voids they’re not currently filling to see if we can conquer that space. Additionally, since there is such a high retention rate amongst the listeners there happens to be less churn, since most listeners finish the entire podcast, therefore if we can increase awareness of our podcast and make it stand out in the crowd, there will be a high likelihood that we can keep that listener.

From preliminary analysis, it seems that Radio Open Source first needs to tighten up their branding since they seem to be a jack of all trades podcast without any specific focus (arts, ideas, politics) happens to be just too broad. From the data that we gather from the primary surveys, we hope to come to a conclusion as to how to strengthen the core message and brand and then finally come up with recommendations for Radio Open Source moving forward.

From the revenue perspective, finding the necessary sponsorships seems to be difficult as it is hard to pitch to companies when you don’t have a strong and sustainable user base. So many podcasts first try to get likes and interested users up first before trying to enter into the sponsorship category, although when we have our client interview this is definitely something that we’ll bring up.