Keynote address at the Marketing Edge Summit in Nigeria A perspective on how to find a blue ocean for your business in a VUCA world. Illustrated with case studies

2. Blue Ocean
Strategy
in a VUCA
world
26th Aug 2021. Lagos | Nigeria
Vikas.Mehta@ogilvy.africa

3. Blue Ocean Strategy
a 17-year-old
concept
Relevant today?
• Designed to be an iterative concept
• Improvements through re-engineering/
optimization
• This is an era of disruption
Costs
Buyer Value
Value
Innovation

4. Netflix did not create streaming,
it created an outstanding viewer experience.
Streaming platforms
already existed
Appointment viewing,
weekly episode-premieres
On-demand content,
available but expensive
Complicated pricing plans
On demand viewing
Uninterrupted viewing in
HD/ 4K
Ever-growing content
library
Multiple devices (and
users)
All of this for <$10
Category Netflix Disruption
+ =
Costs
Simplified, Democratized
Buyer Value
Binge-viewing legitimized
Unparalleled user experience
Source: Slavina Pancheva, The blue ocean strategy casebook

5. The Ordinary
Challenged an industry that over-promised & under-delivered
Confusing
(sometimes deceitful)
communication
Chemical formulations
Exorbitant pricing for
specialist products
Specialist products
Clinical formulations
(Highly) Premium
packaging
No celebrity
endorsements
Affordable pricing
Category The Ordinary Disruption
+ =
Costs
Democratized
Buyer Value
From aspiration to integrity

6. Source: Slavina Pancheva, The blue ocean
strategy casebook

7. There’s no set Before-After of consumer evolution
It’s a constant infinite loop.

8. We live in a
COVID-ACCELERATED
FUTURE

9. Africa saw a
41% increase in
app installs
Nigeria saw the
highest uplift
@43%.​
Source: The African mobile apps landscape, Appsflyer. Google.

10. A NEW
CONSUMER HAS
EMERGED
AND (S)HE IS
CONSTANTLY
EVOLVING
1. (S)he cares about Health
2. (S)he cares about Local
3. (S)he cares about Purpose
4. (S)he cares about Experiences
@home
5. (S)he is Shopping more than buying
6. (S)he cares about value

11. Nike Training Club​
• Closed gyms and little outdoor activity lead to a drop in
sportswear sales
• Nike Training Club - over 185 workouts, bodyweight
sessions, yoga, and gym workouts​
• Encourage users to work-out, while self-isolating, from the
comfort of their home
• Communication support – “Play inside, play for the
world” ​
• Supported by D2C sales channels and e-commerce
• Drove usage to drive sales. Even acquired new
customers
• Disruption – Nike acted like a fitness company instead of
a sportswear company
Source: Orbitum labs

12. IMPACT
• >1 MM downloads (150% increase in H1, 2020)
• 200% increase e-commerce app
• Triple digit growth in MAUs
• Digital sales growth of 82%
• More women than men completed runs on the app for
app for the first time in company history
Consumer Shifts
1. (S)he cares about Health
2. (S)he cares about Local
3. (S)he cares about Purpose
4. (S)he cares about Experiences
@home
5. (S)he is Shopping more than buying
6. (S)he cares about value
Source: Marketingdive.com

13. AirBnB
• A blue ocean story till 2019
• One of the hardest-hit industries of 2020
• Hilton and Marriott lost ~50% sales in Jan-Sep 2020
• AirBnB lost 32% YoY and posted a loss of US$700MM
• 1,800 job cuts in May, 2020.
• Rising number of cancellations and slowing number of bookings
bookings in the second quarter of 2020
• Management view – there’s a "global shift in consumer
preferences toward one-of-a-kind stays and experiences."
Source: Fortune.com
Euronews

14. AirBnB
• As restrictions eased people wanted to get out of their homes
homes but didn’t want to stay in hotels.
• New business model - “WORKATION”
• Record number of new hosts signed up in 2020
• Private residences considered safer than hotels
• Available at a wider range of prices ($10 to $10,000)
• Q4 2020 results (22% decline YoY) significantly better than
than market expectations, and industry average
• In 2021, share price ARBNB (NASDAQ) is recovering. Up 22.5%
Up 22.5% in Q1
Source: Fortune.com, Euronews
The motleyfool.NASDAQ.Airbnb

15. THIS WEEK
Source: The motleyfool.NASDAQ.Airbnb
Consumer Shifts
1. (S)he cares about Health
2. (S)he cares about Local
3. (S)he cares about Purpose
4. (S)he cares about Experiences
@home
5. (S)he is Shopping more than buying
6. (S)he cares about value

16. JOHNSON & JOHNSON
• Skin lightening products are an integral part of the beauty
beauty industry
• The BLM movement sparked the outrage of unaddressed
unaddressed inequality and racism.
• "Can Indians support Black Lives Matter when we ourselves have
ourselves have so many prejudices?" activist Kavitha Emmanuel.
Emmanuel.
• This lead to J&J to discontinue the Clear fairness line
“Conversations over the past few weeks highlighted
highlighted that some product names or claims on
claims on our dark spot reducer products represent
represent fairness or white as better than your own
your own unique skin tone…This was never our
our intention – healthy skin is beautiful skin.”
Johnson & Johnson.
Source: Forbes.com
Reuters.com

17. IMPACT
• A small challenger brand made the market leader flinch
leader flinch
• Unilever now plans to remove wording "fair,"
"white/whitening," and "light" from packaging and
marketing
Source: Allure.com
Consumer Shifts
1. (S)he cares about Health
2. (S)he cares about Local
3. (S)he cares about Purpose
4. (S)he cares about Experiences
@home
5. (S)he is Shopping more than buying
6. (S)he cares about value

18. House party
• The pandemic restricted movement around the
around the country and world.
• Rise in the demand for video calling apps.
apps.
• People couldn’t visit their loved ones.
• BlueJeans, Zoom, Skype, Google Meet and
and Teams designed for ‘Meetings’
• Houseparty – The name tells what it does
• No meeting IDs, in-app games, trivia and
challenges
• Became the go-to app for socialising remotely
Downloads skyrocketed following the
pandemic.
Source: Techcrunch.com

19. IMPACT
• Record downloads of 50 million of the app months into
months into the pandemic.
• Users spent an average time of 60 minutes on the
the app.
• Became the No. 1 Social app in 82 countries, including
including the U.S. App Store.
• The No. 1 Overall app in 16 countries.
• Got No. 2 overall app in the U.S. App Store and Google
and Google Play.
Experiencing a decline in
Source: Techcrunch.com
Thedrum.com
Consumer Shifts
1. (S)he cares about Health
2. (S)he cares about Local
3. (S)he cares about Purpose
4. (S)he cares about Experiences
@home
5. (S)he is Shopping more than buying
6. (S)he cares about value

20. Disruption is a path to finding your blue ocean
Follow your users to find the next opportunity to disrupt

21. REMEMBER, THERE ARE NO PERMANENT WINNERS
Every business is vulnerable to disruption
Even the disruptors of today

22. You’ll hear experts
talk about their
industries
In the next
few hours

23. Is this industry a
disruptor, or at risk
of being disrupted?
Where does it
industry go from
here?
Two questions to
think about

24. vikas.mehta@ogilvy.africa
TW: @vikipedia77
LinkedIn: VikasMehta