Branding In Industrial And Business-to-business Markets

By Author: Aniket Dicosta
Total Articles: 139
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brand is a typical ownership mark, similar to the mark found on the rump of cattle, made by using a blazing hot iron. On a lighter note, the companies probably may have taken a cue from this tradition and made most of the opportunity by using similar kinds of marks for their own products. Marks that would help them stand apart from the rest and make them instantly recognizable to their target audiences. This led to the rise of logos.

Today, a brand means much more than a logo. In fact branding is all about steady, mindful consistency in presentation that eventually becomes the true identity of a company. Also, it stands for value systems that company presents to the world

A fine test of branding uniformity is to gather business cards from everyone around and then arrange them on the table. Repeat the same thing with other pieces of stationary including slips, letterheads and labels. Arrange all the company advertisement and sales literature on the table. Is the layout and presentation in sync? Does the ...
... presentation look chaotic? The enemy of branding is probably a person within the company who believes that his concepts and way of thinking is far superior to his ilk. Every one in the company has a tendency to fiddle with brands and layouts. Whenever you come across a strong brand be rest assured that behind it there is a brand champion who won't mind ruffling a few feathers while enforcing the branding rules of that company.

The central point of a brand strategy is to focus on what the company stands for. What is the single most important factor the company intends to portray to the world? Then find out, is whether there is harmony of messages on the part of sales and technical team. The clothes and the words that elicit from the employee's mouth, do they represent company values? Does the response that a company makes to a customer or a potential customer suit company's current positioning. These are some of the tests the company needs to carry out to analyze where it stands on the branding ladder.

The branding ladder

How Do You Rank Yourself On The Branding Ladder?

On a broader level, it is imperative to differentiate a brand from a product. The two often are so interlinked since many industrial companies have bestowed brand names on their beloved products. However, do bear in mind the fact that too many sub-brands will end up doing nothing, simply sucking the blood from the corporate brand. In a larger picture, only corporate brand matters. However, many companies have a an array of brands that fail the following test

A Brand Is...

* Something customers refer by name
* The name people often use while referring the product to someone else
* Something which has a personality of its own beyond the product
* Something people would pay a premium for which won't be the case when it comes to some other name

A Product Is...

* Something could be ordered just by description
* Something that could be changed sans any loss of loyalty to the customer
* A label which customers really look up to, however, is not much concerned about

BRANDING IN INDUSTRIAL AND BUSINESS TO BUSINESS MARKETS

Everyone for sure is aware of two companies whose products are invariably identifiable.

though the two companies have large markets already flooded by dozens of competitors. Simply because both these companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola have convinced the customers that their products are far superior that their competitors. Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola have convinced people that phosphoric acid, the H2O, flavorings, colorings, sugar whatever they blend into the dark sticky brew is invariably better than simple H2O itself.

So, if branding is helpful for Coca-Cola, will it work for a manufacturer of industrial supplies? Yes! Of course. Branding is already working for industrial companies, but not with the same efficiency level. Many suppliers have a loyal buyer base. Over the years, they have build trust, friendships. Seldom have the industrial buyers changed their suppliers even if an unknown supplier offers the same goods for 10 percent less.

DOES A BRAND EFFECT INDUSTRIAL BUYING DECISIONS?

Marketing is all about having the right product in the right place at the right time. Good marketing ensures that customers and potential customers know about the product and have been convinced to buy it leaving out all others in the process .

But what makes someone desperately want your product and that makes him leave out all other options in the process? It would be very naïve of you if you believe that people drink Coke simply to quench thirst and drive Mercedes because it gives good value for money.

People show abiding interest in certain product or supplier may be because of the performance of the product, its price, the availability and the guarantee etc. Further, most buyers stick to a specific supplier because of inertia. Switching over to another product is not worth the effort. Another aspect could be trust in the product- like this product is good and another one may not be that good. Keeping all these explanations aside, the reason for choosing a brand over the others may go beyond the price, product and availability aspects. Brands have a much better influence than what we initially talked about.

THE VALUE OF A BRAND IN INDUSTRIAL MARKETS

The brand name in short is shorthand for everything that is on offer. The product quality, prompt delivery, value for money all are rolled into people's opinion of that brand. When people believe that Mercedes offer value for money, then they believe it in totality and don't wish to confuse the equation by weighing up with many options that would most probably have an equal or better value.

Being concerned about out what people associate with is only a part of the equation. It is imperative to take a step further and fix a monetary figure on these brand values given the fact that it helps the owner of the brand incorporate the figure in the balance sheet in the longer run. However, in the industrial markets the principal brand and the name of the company itself are same and one could measure the value by the premium that someone aggrees to pay for the company beyond the tangible assets. However, snags do arise when the premium is partly due to the brand and partly due to the patents, or because of a magnetic CEO.

HOW CAN COMPANIES BE POSITIONED TO ACHIEVE A SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE FROM THEIR BRAND NAMES?

Consider the case of three computer brands namely IBM, Sony and Dell- all the three are involved in the same thing. However, buyers view them from different points of view. One may stand for flexibility, another innovation and yet another for quality. Hence each company stands for a unique value and this endows them with the additional edge in an over cluttered marketplace.

Despite the importance of positioning only a few industrial companies have in place strategic plans for managing their company brand. Coming back to where we started, most companies are low on their branding ladder, and are yet to zero down on a common template for its stationary and adverts, forget about the brand essence that gets reflected in whatever the company does.

Branding, or positioning is not always easy. Some people may propose values, or a position that's aspirational in nature while others may propose something that reflects the current stand of the company. Simplicity attracts some, while a few others endorse a complicated essence. Some are fine with internal feedback, while others enforce on taking an independent viewpoint. A company that gets this wrong may end up loosing one of their crucial unique selling prepositions.

Focus on Arriving At a Company Brand Essence

In this cluttered world, when anything and everything seems to have a clone around, branding bestows you with an opportunity to stand apart. In fact when industrial companies benefit from branding, it's more or less an accident rather than design. Nonetheless a little extra effort, or cost might attract improved loyalty and greater profitability. A tad bit of pushing, shoving and promotional efforts could make the brand more precisely positioned. This might help raise the brand influence from almost 2 percent to 7 percent and this in turn would help the supplier increase the price and in case the price remains the same, a larger market share

Some companies have been carrying out branding activities quite religiously. Dow chemicals have built its brand around high technology and low costs.

Branding is not the be all and the end all of a successful business. In fact branding is just one element of marketing. Nevertheless, if a company gets its branding act right, all the other parts of the marketing mix will fall in place too. Branding sits at the core of company's philosophy given that a company's brand is what the company is.