Brand Management Waldemar Pfoertsch_1

12 Being Known or Being One of Many Future Perspective – In this chapter we will try to provide you with some outlook into the future. We will concentrate on depicting gen-eral implications rather than making specific predictions of the fu-ture. Future trends towards Corporate Social Responsibility and Design emphasis for instance are important developments that can change and redefine brand management of the future. The essence of this book is to infect B2B companies with the brand-ing-virus – empowering them to make the leap to becoming a brand-driven and more successful company. There are many ways to measure overall company success: sales increase, share value, profit, number of employees, mere brand value (index), etc. To keep it simple and to limit alterations that may have been influenced by various other sources than the actual brand, we chose sales over time as measurement for a company’s success in our Guiding Prin-ciple. The transition point represents a company’s rise to the chal-lenge of building a B2B brand. Summary x Branding is just as relevant in B2B as it is in B2C. Brands like Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Dell, SAP, Siemens, FedEx, Boeing are vivid examples of the fact that some of the world’s strongest brands do exist in B2B. x Branding is not about stirring people into irrational buying deci-sions – it is rather an effective and compelling means to com-municate the benefits and value a product or service can provide. x Branding is about taking something common and improving upon it in ways that make it more valuable and meaningful. x Trusted brands act as touchstones, offering orientation the flood of information, and many other benefits and advantages to buyers. x A brand is much more than a product, a brand name, a logo, a symbol, a slogan, an ad, a jingle, a spokesperson; these are just tangible components of a brand – not the brand itself! Being Known or Being One of Many 13 x “Brand” comprises various aspects. A brand is a promise, the totality of perceptions – everything you see, hear, read, know, feel, think, etc. – about a product, service, or business. It holds a distinctive position in customer’s minds based on past ex-periences, associations and future expectations. It is a short-cut of attributes, benefits, beliefs and values that differentiate, re-duce complexity, and simplify the decision-making process. x Branding should always start at the top of a business. Build-ing, championing, supporting and protecting strong brands is everyone’s job, starting with the CEO. x Brands do pay off. Companies with a strong brand can benefit tremendously from it. A vibrant brand and its implicit promise of quality can provide businesses with the power to command a premium price among customers and a premium stock price among investors; it can boost their earnings and cushion cycli-cal downturns. x The most important brand functions in B2B are increased in-formation efficiency, risk reduction and value added/image benefit creation. Notes 1 David A. Aaker and Erich Joachimsthaler, Brand Leadership, 2000, p. 22; Mia Pandey, “Is Branding Relevant to B2B?,” brandchannel.com (27 Janu-ary 2003). 2 As quoted in Gerry Khermouch, Stanley Holmes and Moon Ihlwan, “The Best Global Brands,” Business Week (6 August 2001). 3 Gerry Khermouch, Stanley Holmes and Moon Ihlwan, “The Best Global Brands,” Business Week (6 August 2001). 4 Web site of The Boeing Company, Chicago, IL, cited August 2005. 5 Paul Hague and Peter Jackson, The Power of Industrial Brands, 1994. 6 Peter de Legge, “The Brand Version 2.0: Business-to-Business Brands in the Internet Age,” Marketing Today, 2002. 7 Scott Bedbury, A New Brand World, 2002, p. 14. 14 Being Known or Being One of Many 8 James C. Anderson and James A. Narus, Business Market Management: Understanding, Creating, and Delivering Value, p. 136. 9 Dan Morrison, “The Six Biggest Pitfalls in B-to-B Branding,” Busi-ness2Business Marketer (July/August, 2001): p. 1. 10 Tom Blackett, Trademarks, 1998. 11 Jim Collins, Good to Great. Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t, 2001. 12 Gerry Khermouch, Stanley Holmes and Moon Ihlwan, “The Best Global Brands,” Business Week (6 August 2001). 13 Mia Pandey, “Is Branding Relevant to B2B?,” brandchannel.com (27 Janu-ary 2003). 14 Michael Dunn, Scott M. Davis, “Creating the Brand-Driven Business: It’s the CEO Who Must Lead the Way,” in Handbook of Business Strategy (Vol. 5 No. 1, 2004), pp. 241-245; Duane E. Knapp, The Brand Mindset, 2000, p. 7. 15 David A. Aaker and Erich Joachimsthaler, Brand Leadership, 2000, p. 8. 16 Scott Bedbury, A New Brand World, 2002, p. Intro. 17 David A. Aaker and Erich Joachimsthaler, Brand Leadership, 2000, p. 9. 18 Source: BBDO Consulting Analysis 2005 – reprinted with permission. 19 Gerry Khermouch, Stanley Holmes and Moon Ihlwan, “The Best Global Brands,” Business Week (6 August 2001). 20 Rita Clifton and John Simmons, Brands and Branding, 2003, p. 5. 21 Mirko Caspar, Achim Hecker, and Tatjana Sabel, “Markenrelevanz in der Unternehmensfuehrung – Messung, Erklaerung und empirische Befunde fuer B2B-Maerkte,” 2002, p. 13. 22 Ibid. 23 We understand the Guiding Principle as the leading idea and guiding help to follow our thinking and the structure of the chapters. CHAPTER 2 To Brand or Not to Brand Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. William Jennings Bryan, former presidential candidate (1860-1925) Millions of words, thousands of articles and hundreds of books have already been written on the subject of branding. How many of them have you read? Not too many, we suppose, since almost all of them are dedicated only to consumer products and markets. So when it comes to the decision of “to brand or not to brand” in a business-to-business environment, many marketers push forward the fundamen-tal differences between industrial and consumer markets as justifica-tion for neglecting the relevance of brands and branding. But as William Jennings Bryan said, destiny is only a matter of choice. In this case we argue for the positive B2B branding decision. If you take a look at the guiding principle graph (Fig. 3) it becomes quite clear what we mean. As indicated by the black arrows in the middle of the transition point, most B2B companies share a modest growth rate throughout their whole lifetime. Now, you might be thinking, “Well, that’s probably just the way it is.” Our theory is that by implementing a holistic brand approach, companies can accelerate and increase their overall success. Numerous, very suc-cessful B2B brands are the “smoking gun” for this theory. While some of them tapped into branding rather by accident, the majority made a conscious decision for B2B branding. They identified the great potentials that a well-managed B2B brand can offer them at an early stage. 16 Company Success To Brand or Not to Brand Future Perspective Success Stories Acceleration Through Branding B2B Branding Decision Branding Dimensions Branding Pitfalls Time Fig. 3. Guiding principle B2B branding decision Holistic Branding If you are wondering what is meant by the holistic approach that we are advocating in this book, the answer to your question is as follows. Holistic means that everything from the development, de-sign, to the implementation of marketing programs, processes, and activities is recognized as intersecting and interdependent. The days when each was handled separately are gone for good. Holistic marketing, just as holistic brand management recognizes that “eve-rything matters”. It is necessary to have a broad, integrated per-spective to assure consistency of the comprehensive approaches. Relationship marketing, integrated marketing, internal marketing, and social responsibility marketing are components of a holistic marketing concept. It is thus an approach to marketing that is char-acterized by the strong alignment of all marketing activities to their overall scope and complexity. Caterpillar Let us take a look at Caterpillar. For eighty years now, the earth-moving equipment of Caterpillar Inc. has boldly shaped the world’s ... - tailieumienphi.vn