Which MBA?

Feb 20th 2012, 17:17 by B.R.

THE world of retail is polarising. Nowadays, it seems, there are only two options if you want to sell your product: you can be a commodity or a luxury. Which makes life difficult, you might think, if you are a toilet-paper manufacturer with haughty aspirations. 

Not so. INSEAD has written a case study looking at Renova, whose big idea is black toilet paper. 

The INSEAD case study documented how Renova, a privately-held European paper products company headquartered outside of Lisbon, Portugal, managed to differentiate itself from its international competitors, transform white toilet paper from a commodity into a premium product, and then enter new business sectors through innovative marketing. The result was “Renova Black,” the world’s first black toilet paper, which rapidly shifted from a novelty item to a luxury fashion item. Equally rapidly, the company moved from supermarket aisles into boutique hotels, fashion shows and the headlines.    

INSEAD's study won an annual competition run by ecch, an online depository of such works. The French school is the first non-American institution to win. Pierre Chandon, one of its authors, reckons that writing case studies for business-school students is an evolving art. Whereas a few years ago teaching material was primarily paper-based, he says, they are now “multi-sensory, multi-media super-productions”. In the Renova case, he goes on, “INSEAD created video interviews of consumers, company executives, and opinion leaders with computer animations and sent out product samples to instructors.”

There is a whole other world, right there. For a start, who are these toilet-paper instructors? And how exactly does one qualify to be an "opinion leader" in the field? On second thoughts, I don't want to know.