At last, here comes Saturday - but we still have classes till noon. And I have a conference call (cannot avoid work related issues, can you ?) at 12:30. Today we have two classes, one on Marketing, where we will be discussing the famous "Intel Inside" campaign and another on "China : Unbalanced".
The first session was on China - boy, did it generate a controversy or what ! WHile the data is there for all to see on the growth of China and how it has changed from a "poor nation" with $353 per capita income to a nation which has redefined what "good growth" means. Accessuib to the WTO changed the economy and it really took off in 2001, With reserves in trillions of dollars, the trade surplus grew to $360b by 2010 , which is 8% of GDP. However this gap was quite asymetrical, as it had trade deficit with many Asian countries, but huge surpluses with Europe, Japan and specfically the USA. The discussion was seemlessly moving between economics and politics - and that is where the trouble started, fuelled to some extent by the statement on the Chinese Governments intent ! The lone Chinese representative did a remarkable job of keeping his cool and defended wherever needed. Issues like Chinese investment in countries like Sudan and its defence spending were hot topics. Bart, from our living group tried to get some sense into the discssions by stating that this discussion is getting into dangerous teritory and is on a slippery slope. Discussions on what should have been said and not, pro-US bias and Chinese intent continued to be hot topics for discussion over the weekend and spilled out of the classrooms into bars and living groups.
Compared to the discussion on China, the Intel Inside discusion seemed very mild and polite !Couple of lessons in marketing, which was a good take away for me:
A "Sunkist" branding label on an Orange is more valuable than a similar label on a plum. Why ? Because a plum can be inspected; while Orange can also be inspected, since we eat the inside of the Orange (at least most of us eat the inside I think!) the seal of quality is more important here
Intel Inside campaign, though to an outsider seems like a marketing/advertisement campaign, it was a "channel control" campaign; how ? It reduced entry barriers for newer OEMs, increased the number of OEM's and thereby increased Intel's bargaining power with OEMs
Ingredient branding is rare, but it works very well, if executed properly. Good examples are Rolls Royce and Dupont
Over complicating a brand never pays - and in many case a new Chief Marketing Officer want to show "new" things and are biased to take action, where none may be needed.
Post class, grabbed a quick lunch to be ready for my conference call, which fortunately was a short 30 minute one. Took some rest for a while and went for my long run - did about 12k today and went all the way up to the MIT campus and back. It was in great weather.
Evening program was a little confusing with many options on hand - a Harvard football game right here in campus, a dinner plan and a birthday party invitation. And some of us were to go for dinner at a professor's home. Finally, Gail, Christian, Fernando and myself went to the Harvard football game. This was my first in the US and Harvard was playing HolyCross - did not seem like an equal competition as the score, when we decide to leave at half-time read as 20-0. But the atmosphere is simple electrifying - can imagine if this is so good for a college game, just imagine for an NFL game. Enjoyed the game thoroughly, felt bad that my colleagues did not follow the game, as they were not familiar with American football. Tried to teach them the basic rules ( I know only the basic rules !), but did not seem to make much impact !
Walked across to Harvard square to a pizza place for dinner and had a nice walk back. And in the living group, the China discussion continued over a glass of wine ! Come to think of it, like Christian pointed out, the professor did achieve his goal of making us think about it and discuss outside of class. Some pictures of the game and dinner attached . The last photo is sunrise as seen from my room. More later ...
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