The power of “the trust”!

That was the class I would never forget. To say that presentations were cool, awesome or brilliant would be too trivial. The biggest treasure is that all teams were concern about humanity of their brands not about monetization. We know that skepticism will be meeting all our brand promises when we will get out of GSB. But we have very powerful respond emphasized by Kartik, Jose and Yu-Han. Our respond is “the trust”. And there is nothing else to argue here, right?

PS I was curious to find this story about Ben Goldhirsh and his Good Magazine.
http://www.bnet.com/2422-13721_23-168499.html

not happy with MU but not divorced

The day before 10 year anniversary of Jennifer’s wedding we had a discussion about happiness – that was my stickiest takeaway by the way. That is very important that person who teach you positive sides of doing business (there not many of them if you speak about real business) feels like the happiest human on the earth. Otherwise she/he would not be persuasive J

Everybody understands happiness but not many can predict happy moments of customer for branding purposes. I think the concept of the lifting of this problem one level higher and instead of trying to run behind the customer’s mood it is much more sustainable and visionary to brand around your customer’s process to help customer to catch up with little happy moments everyday is just brilliant. So another takeaway by systematic and be chaotic in the same time to be sure that your brand associates with a happy life unless you are “Prince of Darkness”.

Last takeaway was about divorce. I was unhappy with Manchester United performance in the Champions League final today, but I was happy to learn that one of my favorite brands “Manchester United” talked to me and I talked to him. According to professor’s hint I and MU are not going to divorce nearest future.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1187275/Red-Bull-Cola-banned-Germany–traces-cocaine-it.html

Red Bull Cola could be banned in Germany – after traces of cocaine are found in it.  Germany is considering a nationwide ban on the high-energy drink Red Bull Cola after traces of cocaine were found in it. Authorities in the states of Hesse and North-Rhine Westphalia have ordered retailers to stop selling the beverage – which is available in the UK. The consumer ministries in the two states confirmed they had ordered retailers to pull the drink off their shelves after a food safety institute in North-Rhine Westphalia found the drug in samples. Red Bull Cola Coke problem: An investigation in Germany has found traces of de-cocainized extract of coco leaf in Red Bull Cola ‘The institute examined Red Bull Cola in an elaborate chemical process and found traces of cocaine,’ said Bernhard Kuehnle, head of the food safety department at the federal ministry for consumer protection. Authorities said the cocaine levels do not pose a health threat but are not permitted in foodstuffs. The investigation found the drink to contain a de-cocainized extract of coca leaf in the drink. More… * How one woman lost 7 stone on the Red Bull only diet – but also suffered a heart attack That means the drink cannot be classified as a foodstuff but as a narcotic and needs a special licence, authorities said. Giant German retail group Rewe had already issued orders to remove the fizzy drink from its shops. Wilhelm Deitermann, spokesman for the North-Rhine Westphalia consumer ministry said he expected most – if not all – other German states to follow suit and ban the drink. Red Bull Cola has protested the action. ‘De-cocainized extract of coca leaf is used worldwide in foods as a natural flavouring,’ said a spokesman. The company added that Red Bull Cola as well as other food that contains coca leaf extract is considered safe in the EU as well as in the US. The more popular Red Bull, dubbed the ‘clubbers’ drink,’ is often mixed with vodka. It contains caffeine, vitamins, and sugar which, the company claims, kick-starts the body’s metabolism and keeps people alert.

Social good have to be good.

Can profit maximization and social good be produced with one company? The answer is yes, it can be achieved. But isn’t it easier to make strong PR that company do so and act totally opposite way in reality? Unfortunately the answer is yes as well.
Today’s guest speaker helped me to realize that 1.4 billion people of Earth live with $ 1.25 daily income. I have learned about this number sometime ago but I have never thought that corporations manipulate our minds with their claims to make those poor people’s lives better. Watching the world with realistic lenses we should admit that most of corporate social responsibility stories are just fairy tales for naive people. And I was thinking today: should we leave it like that? Why don’t we create anti-rating of multinational corporations who produce most useless social goods ? With modern social technologies breakthrough it would be not so difficult to investigate real supply chains. I believe the stronger stigma for corporation to produce fake social good and gain more profits because of that than not to produce social good at all. We need true stories about social good. We need inspirational stories about sincere social good. A pure material bailout without spiritual support is the destiny of cold-hearted top managers. “Down to earth” people need support with hope, passion, soul, and advice. I am rephrasing one of largest consumer electronic producer’s slogans: “Life. Let’s make corporations better”.

CRAFTING BRAND

Branding is the tip of the iceberg. The process of branding is something on the surface and strongly connected to a number of implicit factors. The most supportive platform for branding is a product. You have less valuable product – more problems to brand it.
Past. Having the privilege of being born in Soviet Union and growing in the world of no name brands I know exactly how difficult it was to brand very low quality consumer electronic or footwear products. I was told the story that one agriculture equipment producer in mid 70s with the brand same as the name of the city where it was produced included short memo in the instruction: “Dear comrade, very sorry about it – we produced it in the way we were paid”. It could be not very true, anti-Soviet story but the idea of bad product very unlikely to be associated with a name of your city is very important takeaway I have got from early days.
Present. There are more factors to support brand crafting: events, sponsors, partners, customers, donors, employees. I want to highlight the “employees” factor which is becoming more and more sensitive for brand promise and reputation. Greatest example is Google employees who are essential part of Google’s brand equity. Talented managers of Google help to recognize trust to the brand and to make consumers curious about next big thing from Google.
Future. Arguable but very interesting insight from the last class: strong brand owns the color. I agree that Coca-Cola owns red zone, Livestrong – yellow and with other examples. But  and how long consumer would beJmy concern how sustainable is this property  happy with a stagnated pattern of his favorite brand. Durex having predominately blue as color of the brand could be green forever (not evergreen) for particular customer.

The Chasm rules…

Who controls formation of technological trends: visionaries or pragmatists? I was thinking many times why there are so many pragmatists in this world and why these guys (pragmatists) don’t believe in long term vision or long term pragmatism if you will. Thanks to our last class guest speaker Mr. Geoff Moore who helped us to understand technological cycles behavior and what role the branding plays in a process of a new product invention and development. The chasm phenomenon is very simple and sticky concept. Technology/product needs to be tested by sufficient number of people before tornado will take it over the chasm to mass consumption. Eureka! Visionaries and pragmatists are not in contradiction anymore: they are basically on the same page but they use different lenses. So the chasm is a sort of filter which collates a new products flow to prevent markets from non viable, underdeveloped technology. Geoff unveiled a number of insights about the chasm challenge: – There was a great example of twitter whose brand has visibility but not viability yet to be adopted by pragmatists. – I liked the idea of branding the problem so the proper solution is going to be ready to be taken by tornado immediately. – The whole value chain has to believe and take a risk that a new product will succeed. – The pragmatist with a pain waits for a niche branding to become an early adaptor. – Cascade effect for consumer market and how crucial to target 38 major metropolitan area in US in the same time. – Blogs could be good for branding and could be bad. – Visionaries will not wait tornado for a long time – it is easier for them to persuade another new product. – Brand is more about reputation than just about the promise (especially in B2B markets). – And the most valuable insight: the wider chasm in specific industry – the higher probability of disruptive technology to be born. In IT – the chasm is really narrow nowadays. Yes! No more conspiracy theories behind technological trends. The Chasm rules.