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Are aspiration and self-acceptance mutually exclusive or can they coincide? I believe that the crux of the challenge for Dark is Beautiful is finding a way to make self-acceptance aspirational. Thinking about the customers’ social identities, Nandita Das (in the case) says the preference for fair skin comes not just from colonial holdovers but "from a place of low self-esteem." Low self-esteem is what Fair & Lovely has been targeting and why it's been so successful. This is where WOW / Dark is Beautiful need to focus most: enhance self-esteem of women of all skin colors. They can do this with inclusive and aspirational branding - find actors, leaders, etc. with a diversity of skin colors and highlight and celebrate them.

The other possible avenues – attacking Fair & Lovely, petitioning against Emami – would be less effective. Educating users about the potentially dangerous ingredients won't go very far; it's like asking people to stop drinking diet soda. Emami has Khan, one of the most famous and recognizable Bollywood actors. Even if that ad is taken down, Emami only accounts for 8.4% of the market. Unilever N.V would still dominate with Fair & Lovely, and WOW would have wasted precious time and resources.

Dark is Beautiful needs to create a world in which women know their worth, celebrate the beauty of all skin colors, and walk right past Fair & Lovely in drug stores – maybe to another product that moisturizes, celebrates radiance and overall health (is there such a product already that Dark is Beautiful can endorse?). The celebrity tie-ins are smart, though they need to be careful about including darker skin colors. They may partner with Kangana Ranaut, who has spoken out on various issues that are controversial in India, but she is actually quite fair and may end up hurting their case. I envision an ad more like Dove's "Real Beauty" mentioned in the case, something with real Indian women (relatable) of many skin tones, maybe in positions of leadership (aspirational), exuding confidence.

Dove's Real Beauty campaign. Need a version of this for the Indian market - probably not in underwear.

In an attempt to apply the Rogers framework, I made the following assessment table of the four products. (n.b. there were two "Four Products" cases posted to Study.Net; the products shown here come from the 2008 version of the case).

For each product and factor, I gave a score in the 0-2 range, from bad to good. Though a little counterintuitive, low complexity corresponds to a score of 2, because high complexity would impede diffusion. According to my results, Stave jigsaw puzzles and peanut butter slices are most likely to reach the market rapidly. The puzzles are highly compatible with avid puzzle doers and have a clear concept. Similarly, the peanut butter slices should be very easy to understand and use, could be experimented with at a low cost once available in stores, and fit existing food frameworks. The other two – the collapsible bike wheel and racetrack – rank lower due to their expense (low trialability) and complexity.

I checked later and saw that I got it wrong: Stave and Polytrack succeeded while PB slices and the collapsible wheel failed. I find it interesting that the successful products had the most niche markets, whereas the latter two had arguably mass market appeal. But total addressable market isn't even on the list of factors.

Honestly, I would totally try these.

For Concha y Toro, the "top-down" strategy sounds appealing. There is the opportunity to expand through acquisitions, increase margins, and most of all, vertically integrate distribution. However, production costs are not cheaper for basic wines; higher margins would depend on more volume; and the growth prospects are significantly worse for basic wines than for premium wines.

For these reasons, I would recommend the "bottom-up" strategy instead. With the product of wine in particular, it is what you tell your customers it is: the perception of quality can be just as important as the quality itself (at least, for most customers; I'm excluding the Sloan Wine Club top competitors here). From 2001 to 2005, Concha y Toro increased sales of premium wines at the expense of basic wines, and it seems like that trend will continue, with the premium segment expected to grow overall. The growth prospects are worse for the basic segment, and Concha y Toro shouldn't risk a race to the bottom of prices right now, especially with their increasing long-term debt and increase expense the past few years.

Price isn't the only way customers infer wine quality. People prefer wines with better-designed labels. According to Gallo, millennials will select wines based on the label alone, looking for personality and originality in the design. As mentioned in the case, winemakers spend relatively little on advertising, so the label is one of the only ways to interact with the user – and right at the point of choice.

Remember this? Probably a label to avoid.

Thinking about products and services relevant today, my mind immediately goes to OpenAI and ChatGPT. We may be swept up in the excitement and frenzy around the technology, but there are also brands here: OpenAI is a brand, and they chose to name their customer-facing service "ChatGPT," which is arguably much more than a chatbot as the name implies.

There is plenty of interest and debate surrounding how we should actually be thinking about these huge generative AI models. I wonder if ChatGPT needs to be rebranded to something more encompassing, though I appreciate that the chat aspect makes it seem friendly. I figured I might as well ask ChatGPT itself:

What a dissatisfying answer! "I don’t have…a brand identity to rebrand." If I have one impression from this class so far, it's that users always have some relationship to products and services. As the creator of a product or service, if you deny that you have a brand, you're missing out on an opportunity to manage the cognitive map associations in the minds of your users.

Hindsight's always 20/20. Having observed the DeWalt brand over the past decade and change, of course Black & Decker's third proposal seems best: hide the B&D brand from the Professional-Tradesmen products, paint them yellow, and call them "DeWalt." It's clear from the case that there is nothing wrong with the tools themselves. The problem is only in the negative association with the name "Black & Decker," and removing that association helps.

It's unclear how exactly B&D developed a bad brand reputation for the tradesmen segment - personally, I associate it with toaster ovens, though that doesn't seem to be the problem here. Makita is outselling B&D purely due to this Professional-Tradesmen segment, which I wouldn't expect to be similar to Professional-Industry; the former would be focused on durability and individual preference/customization, while the latter might be more focused on products that are easy to purchase in bulk (cost-conscious) with a more general appeal to many possible employee users. Those companies make the choice for their users and likely have high switching costs. Professional-Tradesmen users are investing in themselves, where their chosen tool is part of their brand, and they are financially responsible for any broken tool that needs repair/replacement. The bright, obvious Makita teal is an easy way to signal professionalism, a differentiation technique unlike the dull-colored B&D tools. That lack of distinction alone, between grey professional tools and black consumer home tools, is likely a key driver of lost sales.

Relevant: this meme came out when Facebook rebranded as Meta, though that was a less success rebrand. Also, B&D didn't rebrand the whole company.