Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Agenda
Why B2B Branding? What is B2B Branding? Steps for Building Strong B2B Brands Different Brand Elements In B2B And B2C Markets B2B Brand Equity Communications Strategy For B2B Brand Building Difficulties in B2B Branding
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that branding is not relevant to B2B markets. They argue that industrial products do not need branding as it adds little value to functional products and that customers knew a great deal about their products as well their competitors products. To them, brand loyalty is non-rational behaviour which do not apply to rational world of B2B products.
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market can be described as being divided into several parts. First, buyers select a smaller number of suppliers among the total array of firms that are able to deliver what is requested. This group of selected firms may be referred to as the evoked set, the consideration set or, simply, the short list.
Second, once further information has been gathered, this initial list can be reduced to form a choice set. Finally, buyers need to choose which suppliers in the choice set to engage. Various types of information and sources are used by industrial buyers in conducting an initial screening, evaluation and selection of available suppliers.
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buyer with limited information about the company, B2B buyers normally need to know more about the supplier, as the products purchased are often critical to their operations. Hence, when the evoked set of suppliers is examined further, additional criteria such as production capability, quality control, age of equipment, electronic advances and financial stability can be used.
Buyers can also evaluate production facilities, quality assurance programs and the companys management group. The criteria applied should be based on, for example, the role of the product/service (e.g. degree of criticality) in the buyers sourcing strategy.
reputed suppliers. Research on industrial buying behavior has indicated a wide variety of factors that can affect buyers during stages of supplier nomination, evaluation and selection.
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Buyers need security particularly when planning for long-term contracts and therefore vendors perceptions are more important higher the risk attributed to a purchase situation. New task purchasing is open to great brand influence, as the buyer has no experience of that particular purchase. The new task/new supplier situation is quite frequent and significant.
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facilitate the identification of products, services, and businesses as well differentiate them from competition. They are a guarantee of quality, origin, and performance, thereby increasing the perceived value of the customer and reducing the risk and complexity involved in the buying decision.
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As a result business market managers are increasingly seeking to brand their products to differentiate themselves from their competition and thus to avoid their products being commodities. Microsoft, IBM, General Electrics, Intel, HP, Cisco Systems, Dell, Oracle, SAP, Siemens, FedEx, Boeing are vivid examples of the fact that that some of the worlds strongest brands are B2B brands.
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defined as a distinctive identity that differentiates a relevant, enduring, and credible promise of value associated with a product, service, or organization and indicates the source of that promise.
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their image is potentially constructed by everything a firm is perceived to be doing. Thus, corporate brand image is synonymous with the companys corporate image.
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creation, which is central to the organization, but also important for its stakeholders, as it aids in identifying the organizations purpose and positions it in the market.
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can be no successful brand. The companies that thrive are the ones that create the most compelling and consistent brand experience for their customers. To develop a consistent brand experience, the marketer must understand how the B2B customer defines the concept of value and then to work to deliver that value throughout all interactions with the customer.
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The first step in building a strong brand is to ensure correct brand identity. The purpose is to create an identification of the brand with customers, and an association in their minds with specific product class or need. To do this the brand must have salience in the sense that how often and easily the brand is evoked under various purchase or consumption situations.
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The second step is to establish brand meaning by linking tangible and intangible brand associations. Brand meaning is characterized in functional (brand performance) and abstract (image related) associations. Brand performance relates to how the product or service meets customers functional needs.
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Functional attributes are primary ingredients and supplementary features; product reliability, durability and serviceability; service effectiveness; style and design; and price. Image associations relate to companys standing in the industry and their overall reputation.
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The third factor that is important in industrial branding is company support services. All members of the organization must understand that their customers may define the value of the product by the way a company representative responds to their specific need at a specific point of time and they must therefore respond to customers in a reliable, timely, and efficient manner.
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Finally, because loyalty is often directed more towards the entire company rather than a specific brand, the companys standing in the industry and their overall reputation are also considered part of the brand. This may be due in part to the increased perceived risk industrial customers feel as a result with dealing with an everincreasing number of technically complex product choices.
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The reputation a supplier company has can serve to reduce this risk. The company then must endeavour to create that positive intangible image for this brand through promotions, public relations, and in every interaction with their customers.
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In B2B market, the name of the company stand for many kinds of assurances such as:
Assurance of product quality. Assurance of service availability and dependability. Assurance of timely and reasonable upgrades. Assurance of priority attention to a relationship.
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In the pre-selection phase of the brand commitment, organizational decision-makers face three problems:
How to find eligible suppliers? How to judge which of them are most trustworthy? How to provide evidence to other concerned persons in the company to support the rationality of this choice?
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A B2B marketer must, therefore, promote the company and its products in all the right places. The role of the channel members is very important here. The good reputation of the prospective supplier is the evidence that will persuade first the individual decisionmaker and then the other members of the buying team about the trustworthiness of that firm.
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the brand (and also the company) which include its overall quality, credibility, consideration and superiority.
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responses and reactions to the brand and the company (including its personnel, and channel partners). As the customer experiences successful interactions in each of the components of product value product performance, distribution performance, support services performance, and company performance with a supplier over a period of time, the customer perceives there to be real benefit in continuing with that supplier.
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As the sense of value in these interactions continues to grow, customers develop a sense of trust that the supplier will continue to deliver that value, and the seeds of the meaningful relationship are sown. Brand relationships constitute the final step where brand response is converted to create an intense, active loyalty relationships between the customers and brand (including company). The brand relationship is based on trust and confidence.
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Competence
Brand Trust
Continuity
Value Resonance
Caring
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technical capability to completely make the product, or effectively deliver the service, they are offering. Probity: belief that the company will conduct its transactions with a customer in an honest and fair way.
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Value Resonance has two levels: A basic level of corporate good conduct in the sense that the company do not violate the value consensus on ethical and environment issues. A personalized level of life-style appropriateness and is concerned with whether or not the vendor company expresses values, which the individual consumer aspires to incorporate in their personal life style.
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Value Resonance
Technological Development
Linear Progress
Facts & figures Rational argument
Cyclical
Personal preferences
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important for B2B buyers though in case of consumer durable products with long lifetime this element is also important. Caring is likely to be relevant to nurturing brand trust in both types of buyers.
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The creation of significant brand equity involves reaching the top of the brand pyramid, and will occur only if the right building blocks are put into place. Brand salience relates to how often and easily the brand is evoked under various purchase or consumption situations. Brand performance relates to how the product or service meets customers functional needs.
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Brand imagery deals with the manufacturers reputation in the market. Brand judgments focus on customers own personal opinions and evaluations. Brand feelings are customers emotional responses and reactions with respect to the brand (and the company).
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Brand resonance refers to the nature of relationship that customers have with the brand and the extent to which customers feel that they are in sync with the brand. Resonance is characterized in terms of the intensity or depth of the bond customers have with the brand, as well as the activity engendered by this loyalty.
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Prof. A. K. Biswas
In the B2B world, the most important characteristic is technical competence. The most effective strategy for the supplier firm should be case-based communications strategy, which will show how the firm has successfully applied their competence to the benefit of previous customers.
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Interactive
Contents
Methods
Broadcasting
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and methods. For fashion-driven consumer products content can be characterized as iconic, i.e., the content is likely to consist largely with imagery aimed at eliciting emotional responses.
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For technology-driven B2B products, however, the content can be described as instrumental and pedagogic, meaning that it is designed to communicate information targeted at people who are looking for a product to fulfill a specific, often well-defined need.
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fashion products is broadcasting, i.e., addressing a mass audience with messages designed for isolated individuals. The messages are likely to elicit direct emotional responses, i.e., people are going to respond favourably to them or they are not.
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process within the targeted organization, and the message itself will be instrumental and/or pedagogic in nature directly referring to benefits which the product has to offer.
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The purpose of such communications is to get the firms product included in the prospects list of options for evaluation. This will almost certainly require at least some discussions between individuals within the prospect organization, and personal contact between them and the supplier organization.
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build a relationship of trust with a customer. Moreover, all personal interactions, which the customer has with the company, must be consistently managed well.
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responsiveness and assertiveness. They are extrovert, creative approval seekers, who work quickly and rely heavily on intuition. The sales strategy for Expressive buyers should support their need for status and acknowledgement and sales person must emphasize emotional brand values stressing the achievement of personal dreams and goals.
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buyers who are low in assertiveness and responsiveness. They are driven by logic and fact and actively seek detailed product information. They tend to be formal and precise in their interactions and their risk-taking approach is calculated. Salespeople dealing with Analytical buyers need to ensure that sales presentations are logical and objective and ideally backed up by expert testimonials and guarantees.
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purchasers categorized as Drivers demonstrate high levels of assertiveness with a low level of responsive behaviour. Brand value communication needs to be largely functional to satisfy the Driver's need for precise information on costs, performance and delivery. However, Drivers are also strongly motivated by results and achievements and therefore, emotional brand values that support their goal orientation should be emphasized.
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brands, the next step is to deliver complex, objective messages for which trade press editorial is the ideal channel.
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Trade press editorial can influence the people who are opinion leaders within their particular field. In addition, opinion leaders may well use trade press editorial to influence others, by for example circulating copies of articles which have interested them.
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with its products, or interact with customer service person, impressions are formed about the company, the products, and its employees. Strong B2B brands are, therefore, built one customer at a time.
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