The client is one of the largest business groups in the UAE with interest in multiple industries. The client’s challenge was to develop a network expansion strategy for the next 5 years for all its businesses including automobile, industrial equipment, construction equipment and others. The strategy was expected to accommodate and develop with changing business dynamics of the UAE.

One of the most complicated strategic work used multiple research techniques, technology solutions and an innovative reporting format to answer the business question. Research used geo-mapping platform to understand the demographics of the residents and superimposed the data from primary and secondary research to come-up with forward looking strategy.

Design: 4,500+ interviews across the country: 100+ Expert IDIs from business & government sector; 1,500+ Geo-locations mapped & extensive Secondary Research

Basis the deliverables, the client devised suitable network expansion strategies for its product offerings across its business sectors of operation in the country.

Client Testimonial: “This is a wonderful piece of work, a giant leap forward for the organization – Managing Director, Client”

*Business consulting team’s experience operating under a different brand, 4SiGHT Business Consulting

The client, a prominent free zone authority in the UAE was interested to understand the competition offerings on continuous basis so that they can develop and alter their offers each quarter.

Business Research unit conducted a competition benchmarking among all the major free zones in the UAE and tracked the offerings on a quarterly basis for 3 years in the UAE offering client a clear advantage to tailor their offerings to outpace the competition.

Design: Extensive Secondary Research, occasional expert IDIs

Based on the market study findings, the client developed and tweaked their offerings to become one of the most competitive free zones in the local UAE market over the years.

*Business consulting team’s experience operating under a different brand, 4SiGHT Business Consulting

Client, a large conglomerate in the GCC region wanted to estimate the market size, competition landscape, and market growth opportunities for earthmoving & construction equipment.

An extensive study was conducted involving interviews with all key stakeholders in the industry including the Construction Equipment Suppliers, Equipment Rental companies, Construction & contracting companies to estimate the market size and to understand the competition strengths as well as market’s need gaps.

Design: Combination of extensive Secondary Research, IDIs (In-depth Interviews) with various stakeholders, and study on Import-export statistics

The study provided a clear picture of the key growth sub-segment, key differentiators required, need drivers and size of the market.

*Business consulting team’s experience operating under a different brand, 4SiGHT Business Consulting

A large multinational paints company, a top brand in the market that offers various decorative and industrial paints did a series of research with us to assess the market potential for wood paints category in the GCC region before entering into this new product segment.

The research approach required that market facts are obtained from the suppliers, projections are made from the real usage and brand preferences understood from the key influencers. Hence, Business Consulting team conducted an in-depth market research with key stakeholders among the users along with competition of wood paints. In addition, before the actual fieldwork several wood joineries were visited to get proper understanding of the Wood paint usage and factors impacting choice of product, brand and suppler.

Design: Pre research market visits, IDIs with competition and key influencers on user side, a quantitative survey among large number of joineries & extensive Secondary Research was conducted to understand the complicated GCC market

The client has entered the market with wood paints offer in the GCC region. Based on the findings and recommendation provided product range, brand and pricing strategy was altered to meet market demands.

*Business consulting team’s experience operating under a different brand, 4SiGHT Business Consulting

Client distributes and markets a range of high-quality lubricants in the GCC region for decades. Client wanted to gain in depth understanding of the lubricants market size by segments, and to identify opportunities for the business growth, and the needs of the customers to set direction for the business in the coming years.

A market size estimation study for the client was undertaken to assess the current market size, the perception of the client’s brand and other brands among users and to benchmark the lubricant prices with the key competition brands in the UAE.

Design: Large number of expert IDIs among buyers as well as competition players; Large sample quantitative survey among channel & deep Secondary Research

The program was clearly able to identify the market potential for Lubricants, white spaces for propelling the growth, inputs for pricing strategy and mapping of key competition players (SWOT).

The study was repeated twice after a couple of years to further refine the strategy with influx of new competition and changes in market space.

*Business consulting team’s experience operating under a different brand, 4SiGHT Business Consulting

An authentic brand has principles, moral values and helps us be true to ourselves. I was first made aware of the growing relevance of Brand Authenticity years ago, by a close dear friend and eminent Digital Marketing professor at NYU, Ms. Sharma. Then, the world had come out of recession and  being discretionary and parsimonious with your purchases was widely accepted, possibly even seen as fashionable. Green and fair trade consumerism slowed and offerings in that space struggled as consumers bypassed expensive cause associated products and traded down to cheaper alternatives. Priuses gathered dust in showrooms, consumers spurned pricey displays of their cause credentials, also known as ‘badging’, and turned to subtle ways to support like reduce, reuse, and recycle. In my view, the downturn had such a profound impact, that it shaped the mindset of an entire cohort of consumers.

So nothing seemed further from the truth then with authenticity on the decline, however the recent events that unfolded over the last one month, namely the GameStop stock surge story,  made me rethink about that conversation. To cut a long story Short (pun intended),  hedge funds got trapped in a ‘Short’ squeezed which meant they had to purchase the stock they borrowed and sold to a buyer in order to return it to the lender, at a much higher price to cover their positions, further driving the price of the stock up and dragging with them others who had bet  Short’. Was this too ‘Short’ an explanation? Perhaps so.

What surprised me about this is incident is power of social media at play. Individual investors on social news platform Reddit grabbed opportunities normally reserved for the big hedge fund players, leveraging trading platforms like Robinhood.  This was a rally by small retail investors to spoil the game for the notorious large institutional players who are used to crashing the party for serious retail buyers. They were driven by a cause to beat the hedge funds at their own game. However Robinhood played spoilt sport and stopped trading on GameStop shares, much to the chagrin of its patrons.

What followed was the unexpected backlash Robinhood faced, with customers feeling betrayed over these trading limits and increased feeling that it was pandering to the whims of the institutional investors. They witnessed a flight of customers to other brokers and increased number of complaints about account closure. Whether there was truth in it or just a case of poor brand management only time will reveal.

This is the part that really interests me as a marketer and brought me back to the idea of “Brand Authenticity”. This is a value about brands that people hold dear to form strong endearing relationships. By being authentic, brands resonate with people’s desires to stay true to themselves. Brands help reinforce that feeling when their customers make them a part of their lives through brand adoption.

Robinhood who rose on the promise of an honest trader for the people had turned out to be the Sherriff of Nottingham and people have already started to disown the brand for its perceived alignment with the institutional investors and not staying true to its promise.

Contrast this with a brand like Dove. By authentically championing women’s empowerment and wanting to change the conversation around beauty has over the years possibly stayed true to its mission and continues to grow.

Parler, the microblogging and social networking platform doubled its users from 1.5M to 2.8M in a short space of 15 days in July 2020 for being true to freedom of speech. It is now inactive and was taken down by Big Tech as they believed it to be a platform for Right Wing supporters. Once it comes back online, they are likely to witness a surge in users as people rally around this brand for staying true to itself. Case in point, the Parlor app (spelt with an ‘O’) is already enjoying a surge of new memberships as people search for the social media platform Parler.

Tesla, the darling of the stock market in 2020, had unprecedented growth in stock price driven by the huge contribution of carbon credits it earned on its automotive sales to Automotive manufacturers who needed to offset their sales of  polluting vehicles against these credits. Whether its equity will erode over time among customers who believe in sustainability will depend on its continuance to do and awareness of this sale. It will also depend on whether its customer base are true believers in sustainability or are those who want to be seen among their  peers as a sustainability believer.

The world of today is a complex web of inter relationships and dependencies that impact a brands ability to stay true. From the investors, to suppliers, to governments in markets we operate in, all have divergent needs and staying true in today’s world and meeting those needs is becoming difficult, but it can also make or break a brand.

The demand for Brand Authenticity may have started with the Millennials. The surge in access to information, increased competition and offerings and their distrust of advertising have all contributed  to their increase demand for brands to be relevant to their values. However, as Gen Z enter the market in a big way, this expectation is expected to be more pronounced and the demand for a brand to not only be authentic but also inclusive whereby they support diversity. Brand Inclusivity will add another layer of complexity to Brand Authenticity for brand managers of the future.

To Gen Z, the congruence of the brand’s personality with theirs will not suffice because the brands suppliers, the corporate entity, their retailers, and the governments they work with all need to be aligned. This will drive ethical sourcing and organisational structures that embrace diversity at all levels apart from the brand proposition. It will also determine the retailers they contract to bring those products to market.

It’s a new world order, a bi-polar world with accentuated emphasis on authenticity and inclusivity , which is at the forefront of the consumer’s minds and brands are increasingly getting caught out. Take the case of the Mulan controversy, with the derision of Disney for putting profit over principle, or the My Pillow CEO Tweets, that resulted in prominent retailers refusing to stock his company products. Apple recent attempts to  weaken a bill aimed at preventing forced labor may create dissonance between the brand  and official stance on human rights, as it attempts to maintain it key market and supply chain.

Research has found that ads that are considered progressive are 25% more effective than other others in driving adoption. P&G’s The Talk, an ad made to promote their ‘Black is Beautiful’ initiative is a great example. However there  are many layers to diversity, and it goes beyond gender or skin color. It’s also about age, geography, socio-economic diversity, prejudices, commonly held stereo typical views, social issues, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation and very soon, about your political affiliations. In India, brands like Shalimar Paints, Kellogg’s, delved into  issues like deep-seated prejudices, corruption, and LGBT rights through their ads, instantly connecting with audiences. The beauty space is the most exciting and fast evolving to challenge the stereotypical notions of beauty where diverse faces are being presented in a naturalistic way to represent the world, we live in.

The GameStop surge made me realize in a connected world, where dissemination of information happens at an explosive pace, brands can no longer manage the fallout from such events. The Black Lives Matter a movement in another country had a ripple effect on Unilever’s Fair & Lovely in India, an iconic brand, who is due for a name change in support of its inclusive claim.

As GenZ becomes a larger force to reckon with and the heightening of social issues and causes, the lack of  Brand Authenticity and Inclusivity will lead to failure and instant fall from grace and brands need to be careful about that.

A world leading ice cream brand launched a store in one of the largest malls in UAE. Despite having a premium location, the store was having difficulties generating traffic and sales compared to other stores within the same proximity. The client wanted to test a few hypothesis to understand the reason why the footfalls & sales were not as expected.

We have applied a holistic research involving both qualitative and quantitative approaches, to evaluate – the visibility of the store; consumers’ level of awareness; customers’ needs & expectations and triggers & barriers.

The qualitative approach included intercept IDIs with walk-in customers to assess the location awareness and reasons for visiting the store. Simultaneously a static camera was installed outside the store to observe traffic, footfalls and movement pattern.

The quantitative phase was conducted post the qualitative phase – store/shopper observation and intercept (exit) interviews to understand customers profiles, purchase frequency, perceptions, triggers and barriers.

The research helped the client to explore key insights and opportunities for their store to increase engagement chances, drive higher visibility and improve their design.

A world leading ice cream brand launched a store in one of the largest malls in UAE. Despite having a premium location, the store was having difficulties generating traffic and sales compared to other stores within the same proximity. The client wanted to test a few hypothesis to understand the reason why the footfalls & sales were not as expected.

We have applied a holistic research involving both qualitative and quantitative approaches, to evaluate – the visibility of the store; consumers’ level of awareness; customers’ needs & expectations and triggers & barriers.

The qualitative approach included intercept IDIs with walk-in customers to assess the location awareness and reasons for visiting the store. Simultaneously a static camera was installed outside the store to observe traffic, footfalls and movement pattern.

The quantitative phase was conducted post the qualitative phase – store/shopper observation and intercept (exit) interviews to understand customers profiles, purchase frequency, perceptions, triggers and barriers.

The research helped the client to explore key insights and opportunities for their store to increase engagement chances, drive higher visibility and improve their design.

The client has a relatively strong brand in the UAE but relatively low market share. Through their communication they aim to establish a brand positioning that demonstrates a clear point of view, makes the brand meaningful and relevant to their target audience. In this regard, the client was planning to launch a powerful campaign that sparks conversation in order to help drive brand awareness and saliency. Two distinct communication routes were tested amongst target customers – one which was a challenging while the other was a safer route.

A Qualitative approach was adopted to evaluate the various communication routes. Focus group discussions and in-depth interviews were conducted based on customer profile. Overall, a step wise interview approach was adopted where one idea and its route was exposed at a time. The idea was unbranded in order to assess reaction to the idea itself and avoid bias. Once each customer completed the individual assessment of the idea, they were called into the group room to discuss each idea in detail. Projective techniques were used to help bring alive the emotional associations with each territory.

The research helped the client to gauge customer comprehension, resonance and reaction to the different Campaign Routes. The research was able to help guide the client with key pointers & watch outs in case they chose the challenging route vs. the safer route. It was also able to bring alive the readiness of the market to accept such a challenging route.