B2B Branding Research Articles

“Just be there”

PurposeIn business-to-business (B2B) settings, research on social media sites (SMS) has primarily examined the benefits and challenges relating to their use, as well as factors driving their adoption. Recently, attention has turned to the consequences of using SMS in B2B markets. The purpose of this paper is to extend this line of research by investigating the impact of B2B brands’ social media presence, interactivity and responsiveness on customers’ perceptions of four indicators of brand relationship strength (commitment, intimacy, satisfaction and partner quality).Design/methodology/approachData from an online survey (N = 200) with customers of UK-based B2B firms were analysed using structural equation modelling.FindingsThe study reveals that a supplier’s presence on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook has a positive impact on all four brand relationship strength indicators; interactivity enhances perceived partner quality, while responsiveness positively influences commitment. Differences across the three SMS are also observed.Research limitations/implicationsThe research was conducted on a sample of UK-based firms with varying degrees of SMS use that may influence the impact on B2B brand relationship strength.Practical implicationsThis study indicates that B2B brands ought to focus primarily on presence on SMS, given its positive impact on brand relationship strength. At the same time, however, B2B brands should be active in responding to customers’ queries on SMS, as well as interacting with them to enhance commitment and perceived partner quality, respectively.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the digital marketing and B2B relationships interface and is the first to examine the role of B2B brands’ presence, interactivity and responsiveness on SMS in enhancing relationships with customers.

Empirical Research on Value Relevance between B2B Brand Valuation and Market Value

Empirical Research on Value Relevance between B2B Brand Valuation and Market Value

Managing and building B2B SME brands: an emerging market perspective

PurposeThis paper aims to distil the management challenge pertaining to B2B SME branding strategy, communication and constraint in the emerging market context of Chinese manufacturing.Design/methodology/approachComplemented by 19 interviews, this paper adopted a novel methodological approach – netnographic analysis – to investigate a selection of Chinese manufacturing SMEs.FindingsFindings revealed three managerial approaches to B2B brand management: conservative, flexible and integrated-exploratory.Practical implicationsUnderstanding the three approaches offers managerial implications for Chinese manufacturer SMEs to redesign their branding practice. Informed with a better understanding of the available option, they will be able to achieve high value-added production through branding to gain competitiveness. This study sheds light on B2B SME branding from an emerging market perspective, an area that has been largely neglected in the existing literature.Originality/valueFindings make a novel contribution to B2B SME brand management literature by clarifying practical management issues pertinent to Chinese emerging market manufacturers in particular, and offering widely generalizable lessons for B2B brand management research.

Reframing the awareness funnel and lead nurturing strategies to increase B2B brand awareness and quality lead generation

Many business-to-business organisations tend to focus their efforts predominantly on intent marketing strategies owing to the very nature of the buyer’s understanding of, and willingness to buy, their product. For the most part, this strategy makes sense — when someone is actively looking to buy your product or service, it is an easy win for your organisation. However, adding well-executed paid social strategies is an effective way to reach and educate a wider audience, nurturing their intent and feeding your lead generation machine. Intent marketing strategies are great at reaching a certain subset of your target market — but more needs to be done to reach larger audiences who may not yet have intent to buy your product owing to lack of understanding and knowledge of your brand and service. This paper, outlines tried and true strategies aimed at increasing brand awareness while simultaneously educating and nurturing intent.

Exploring brand management strategies in Chinese manufacturing industry

The purpose of this paper was to empirically explore how Chinese private manufacturers make strategic branding decisions. We develop a conceptual framework to investigate the branding decisions undertaken by Chinese manufacturers. Interview data were subjected to qualitative thematic analysis and quantitative categorical principal component analysis. Data reveal a branding schema that illustrate four types of B2B brander: achievement competencies branders, awareness competencies branders, novice competencies branders, and no-competencies branders. The schema describes the trajectory of the progressive evolution of B2B branders. This paper contributes to the long-called-for formation of a theoretical framework of B2B branding from the amorphous literature and provides a direction for manufacturers to undertake branding practice. The exploratory nature lays foundations for further research to investigate B2B branding in other contexts.

A framework to manage business-to-business branding strategies

PurposeIn the past decades, a growing body of studies has assessed the importance of brands in business-to-business (B2B) markets. However, until date, a comprehensive understanding of B2B branding strategies is lacking. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to develop a framework to select and manage B2B branding strategies.Design/methodology/approachThis study’s arguments are developed in line with MacInnis’s (2011) guidelines on conceptual contributions in marketing.FindingsAs a result of the arguments of this study, a framework is developed to identify the relationships between the types of B2B contexts and effective B2B branding strategies.Research limitations/implicationsDespite deriving from an extensive analysis of the literature, the framework requires future empirical validation. Moreover, the relationship linking a supplier to its customer is unique, and hence, each supplier should carefully select a branding strategy depending on the specific situation.Practical implicationsThe suggested framework provides actionable insights to inform managers’ decisions about the most effective B2B strategy for their firm, based on the relational complexity (number of customers, intensity of co-production and co-creation, and dyadic vs multiple-actor view).Originality/valueThis is the first study to provide a comprehensive model of B2B branding strategies. Therefore, it contributes to both advance theoretical knowledge and managerial practice.

The narrative strategies of B2B technology brands

PurposeWith the rise of digital media and content marketing, business-to-business (B2B) technology firms increasingly use narratives in their marketing strategy. If research has studied the impact of narrative on audiences, the structuration of the narrative strategies is still an overlooked area. The purpose of this paper is to understand the structuration of narrative strategies.Design/methodology/approachAuthors studied the cases of narratives on the Internet of Things produced by two leading technology firms, IBM and Cisco, between 2012 and 2016. Material includes advertising campaigns, blogs, written customer cases, white papers, public speeches and selling discourses.FindingsThe research highlights the importance of metanarratives as the core of the structuration of seemingly different contents. It also shows how firms tap into fundamental mythic archetypes and broader sociocultural narratives to try and legitimate the emerging technology. Finally, research also introduces the concept of transmedia strategy and illustrates its use by the two firms studied.Research limitations/implicationsThe results are based on only two cases of multinational firms, limiting the generalization of the findings.Practical implicationsThe results of the research may encourage firms to use more narrative branding strategies. They also offer directions for the key elements to manage when elaborating a narrative strategy (defining key metanarratives, identifying and using broader sociocultural narratives, designing a transmedia strategy).Originality/valueThe paper is among the first to try to understand the structuration of narrative branding strategies. While exploratory, it contributes to research on B2B branding and digital branding by bringing the narrative into B2B branding research.

B2B brands on Twitter: Engaging users with a varying combination of social media content objectives, strategies, and tactics

The objective of this research is to increase understanding about B2B company-led user engagement on social media content. Building on hierarchy-of-effects (HoE) theory, we explore how the world’s leading B2B companies use content objectives (why), strategies (how), and tactics (what) on Twitter. We first integrate B2B advertising and social media research on companies’ content objectives, strategies, and tactics. Then, using qualitative analyses, we examine the existence of objectives, strategies, and tactics in the most engaging tweets (N = 365) of the worlds’ ten leading B2B brands, covering five industries, in 2017. Finally, we quantitatively examine how the use of diverse objectives and strategies differs between the most engaging tweets (N = 318) and least engaging tweets (N = 229) of the companies in 2018. The companies use objectives, strategies and tactics that relate to creating awareness, knowledge and trust, interest, and liking in the majority of their most and least engaging tweets, and express preference, conviction and purchase aspects much less. Differences exist in general, industry-wise, and company-wise. The study is a rare attempt to integrate the extant B2B advertising and social media research, and compare the most and least engaging B2B social media content.

Fostering brand engagement and value-laden trusted B2B relationships through digital content marketing

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how digital content marketing (DCM) users can be engaged with business-to-business (B2B) brands and determine how such engagement leads to value-laden trusted brand relationships.Design/methodology/approachThrough an online survey, data were collected from the email marketing list of a large B2B brand, and the hypothesised research model was analysed using covariance-based structural equation modelling.FindingsThis paper identifies a bundle of helpful brand actions – providing relevant topics and ideas; approaching content with a problem solving orientation; as well as investing in efforts to interpret, analyse and explain topics through DCM – to foster relationship value perceptions and brand trust. Critically however, cognitive-emotional brand engagement is shown to be a necessary requirement for converting these actions into relationship value perceptions.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper furthers the understanding of the dual role of helpful brand actions in functionally oriented DCM. Additionally, this paper offers evidence of the central role of cognitive-emotional brand engagement in influencing value-laden customer–brand relationships.Practical implicationsThis paper introduces a bundle of helpful brand actions that forms the basis for the dual roles of a brand in enhancing customer value and in fostering brand engagement and building relationships. This approach helps practitioners to steer brand-related perceptions arising from DCM interactions towards building trusted brand relationships.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the marketing literature by revealing a potential approach to DCM in managing customer relationships. Instead of focusing solely on the content benefit-usage link to support engagement, this paper reveals the potential of helpfulness as a brand-initiated DCM engagement trigger in engaging customers with the brand, vis-à-vis the content.

Computer Estimation of Customer Similarity With Facebook Lookalikes: Advantages and Disadvantages of Hyper-Targeting

The advertising systems and the algorithms they use are constantly evolving and expanding the possibilities for reaching potential customers. Hyper-targeting (also called microtargeting) is the use of detailed customer data and marketing automation to deliver highly targeted and personalized messages across a large number of channels. These campaigns are designed to appeal to specific people or small groups of customers. By using the ability to process large amounts of data through innovations, such as predictive analytics, marketers can gain a deeper understanding of their audiences, focusing on specific accounts and not on the entire segments. This reportedly allows B2B brands to target customers directly and provide unique personal and highly relevant experiences. However, the scientific evidence to support this claim is missing. Some previous studies even suggest a negative impact of highly personalized advertising content on user reactiveness and purchase behavior. In this article, we test the effects of different levels of personalized advertisements using the advanced campaign targeting tool called Facebook Lookalike Audiences. Facebook Lookalike Audiences works on the basis of the estimation of customer similarity based on the characteristics of a custom audience, as defined by the advertiser. We examine the performance of various targeting settings using data from 840 Facebook ads with different personalization levels. These advertisements are compared in terms of reach, number of reactions, frequency of impressions, number of clicks, average time spent on a website, number of viewed pages, number of conversions, and profitability. We believe that the findings presented in this article help clarify the factors that influence user reactiveness toward personalized online advertising using evidence from actual Facebook ad sets.

A Practice-based Model of Effective Marketing Based on an Auto-ethnographical Observation of Brand Management Training at Procter & Gamble (p&g)

Seeking to advance the search for "real" marketing initiated by Stephen King in his 1985 paper "Has marketing failed.....?", this article presents a model of marketing effectiveness derived from commercial practice at Procter & Gamble (P&G). Marketing is described as the toolkit for building a brand's value for many stakeholders but is deemed "effective" only when it bestows measurable financial value on the brand's owner(s). The model is constructed from an observation of the management of P&G brands as discrete business. Through auto-ethnography, the author reflects on 'classic' brand management training at P&G and its coherence with twenty-first-century statements of brand and corporate purpose. The model invites further research. Every small brand (which might include B2B and SME brands) can be viewed as an (intangible but valuable) asset. Each may represent an unrecognised and underdeveloped opportunity for academics, managers and students to work with brand owners on measuring and building brand value - and to share in its bounty.

Market orientation, positioning strategy and brand performance

As the importance of B2B branding increases, literature has received considerable attention in the recent years. An underexplored area in B2B branding revolves around brand positioning and its antecedents. Towards this end, this study links market orientation (proactive and responsive) with the various positioning strategies. Specifically, we extend the extant literature by (1) exploring the possible connections (and alignments thereof) between market orientation types and brand positioning, and (2) examining the effects of these positioning strategies on brand performance. Based on data collected from individuals responsible for managing B2B brands in various industries, this study finds that both proactive and responsive market orientation types support the development of specific positioning strategies. These positioning strategies, in turn, mediate the relationship between market orientation types and brand performance. Implications for researchers and practitioners are provided.

B2B brand equity: investigating the effects of human capital and relational trust

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of human capital and relational trust on business-to-business (B2B) brand equity.Design/methodology/approachData collection was conducted among the clients of one of the Big Four auditing firms in Sweden. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized effects.FindingsThe results demonstrate positive effects of human capital and relational trust on the core dimensions of brand equity. In the context of the professional services, human capital was found to have a stronger direct impact than relational trust on brand associations, perceived quality and brand loyalty.Practical implicationsThe study provides practical recommendations for marketing managers on how to consider the nature of B2B brand equity and its determinants in developing successful branding strategies. The findings indicate that although relational trust has a positive impact on brand equity, it draws on the clients’ positive perceptions of the service providers’ human capital. Thus, investments that generate positive perceptions of a service provider’s human capital will strengthen its competitive position. Leading to the creation of relational trust and having a strong impact on the dimensions of brand equity, human capital is a strategic asset that needs careful management.Originality/valueThe study advances extant knowledge on B2B brand equity by examining contextual conditions and factors that are critical for building strong brands in industrial markets. The study demonstrates that clients’ perceptions about the knowledge, skills and abilities of service providers are more important than relational trust for enhancing B2B brand equity.

B2B Brand Management and Private Labels Products

Brand management always requires the definition of a strategy, in order to maintain and strengthen relationships with customers. Brand management makes it possible for companies to pursue a variety of goals, which is the aim of every company. This is irrespective of the fact that every organization can scale their intensity and priorities on the basis of their specific strategic guidelines, influenced by endogenous and exogenous variables to the company. Also in B2B, it is crucial to properly assess the opportunities, and the related commitments, linked to brand management. A particular businessto- business context occurs due to the progressively growing phenomenon of private labels. After their success in supermarkets, private labels have also gained a foothold in the wholesale trade. Therefore, for some manufacturing firms, a different channel is feasible and is represented by commercial companies that wish to submit their own brand products to end customers (supermarket chains) and professional operators (wholesale warehouses).

VERIFYING IMPACTS OF B2B SERVICE QUALITY ON PURCHASER-SELLER RELATIONSHIP PERFORMANCE IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS BY CONSIDERING MEDIATOR ROLE OF SATISFACTION WITH BRAND RELATIONSHIPS AND PERFORMANCE - CASE STUDY: MEDICAL EQUIPMENT INDUSTRY

The goal of this research is reviewing impacts of B2B service quality on relationship satisfaction and performance by considering mediator role of brand performance in B2B environment. The population is all CEOs of medical and treatment equipment industry; 147 persons have been selected by random sampling. The results showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between B2B service quality and brand performance, satisfaction with purchaser-seller relationship and relationship performance. Also, brand performance plays a significant mediator role in B2B service quality and relationship performance. And finally, customer-seller relationship satisfaction had a significant mediator impact on brand performance and relationship performance. Also, the pattern of B2B service quality influence on relationship satisfaction, brand performance and relationship performance has proper and acceptable fitting. Article visualizations:

Hermeneutics as innovative method to design the brand identity of a nanotechnology company

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop an innovative branding method based on the hermeneutical approach and interpretive theory, to respond to the need of a simple and effective tool to build corporate identity through an industrial brand identity design and, being a new business, has been considered the brand perception of their stakeholders as the main input to analyze. Design/methodology/approach The case study of a small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME), that produces nanomaterials for the business-to-business (B2B) industrial market, is used to design the new hermeneutic branding method. The methodology process has been structured in four phases that have marked the investigation and that correspond to four different levels of knowledge that, in succession, between them, constituted the so-called hermeneutic circle. Findings This new approach allowed us to understand the social phenomenon related to the brand: its characteristic, context and the brand itself. Though hermeneutic analysis has confirmed that business strategy is only part of a more complex system of brand management, it must also consider the competitive environment and the views of the stakeholders. Practical implications This paper contributes to research on industrial branding by adopting the hermeneutical approach in managerial practice. This paper is the first of its kind in detail modelling the design phases of a B2B brand, providing an operational tool for marketing specialists. Originality/value There is a lack of research studies in the methods for designing industrial brands. The contribution of this paper lies in proposing a new interpretative approach that, acknowledging the different expectations of the stakeholder in the supply chain, allows to draw a B2B brand that communicates the system values of the product and company.

The Innovation of B2B Brand Story Marketing

The purpose of this research is to discover the B2B brand story for marketing strategy. The research question is: What is the brand story that can attract the consumers? The methodology analysis is Grey Relational Analysis. Based on the results, one can see that when the brand story is placed on the website, that sellers must be very careful as far as their marketing activities are concerned. The research findings indicate that the web page content, may have an impact on buyers/sellers’ impression.

Brand worlds: Introducing experiential marketing to B2B branding

Experiential marketing instruments and the extraordinary experiences they provide are one of the strongest means of branding in B2C. Inter alia as brand worlds, they also exist in B2B marketing practice, but have only received limited attention from the B2B branding perspective. Differences between B2C and B2B branding raise questions regarding why B2B companies operate brand worlds, what they consist of, what their nature is, and how they are experienced. We build on a rich, comprehensive sample of 37 expert interviews, comprising the perspectives of operating companies, business visitors, and exhibition designers. We find that B2B brand worlds differ substantially from their B2C equivalents in several aspects, but they apply similar experiential techniques. Operating companies' motives focus on providing live product experiences to explain complex products and create product awareness. B2B visitors expect more functional than hedonic benefits, and the visit has to support them in their own business activities. Affordances of the experiencescape and the action-perception between visitor, brand employees, and the physical environment are at the core of how the B2B brand world experiences are co-created. Our research highlights the important role and nature of B2B brand worlds as three-dimensional “business cards”, where relationships are initiated and built.

Digital enablement and its role in internal branding: A case study of HUANYI travel agency

Digitalization has generated new challenges and opportunities for brand communication and relationship marketing. As more and more B2B brands are utilizing digital technology for brand communication with multiple stakeholders, it is worth further investigation how digitalization can empower employees to reach better branding-supportive outcomes at various stages of the internal branding process. Through a case study, we propose a process model framework in which digital technologies promote employees to become Institutional Adaptor, Brand Performer, and Brand Champions. Specifically, our case findings reveal that depending on the degree to which digitalization can be viewed as an add-on service or an ingrained element in the value chains aligned with strategic goals, digital technologies can be associated with different enablement mechanisms relating to operational optimality, better sensing and responding capability, and ultimately ambidexterity. As existing literature largely examines the technological dimension of digital enablement technologies, this study emphases the importance of technology-strategy alignment in B2B internal branding context.

Perceived globalness and localness in B2B brands: A co-branding perspective

This research explores the topics of perceived brand globalness (PBG) and perceived brand localness (PBL) in the B2B context—specifically in terms of how brand localness and globalness factor into B2B buyers' decision making. It does so by examining co-branding relationships that involve alliances between well-known global and local B2B brands with unknown B2B brands in order to tease out the specific influence of brand globalness and localness on buyers' quality evaluations of the unknown brand. In other words, it considers the potential spillover effects of well-known PBG and PBL ally brands on lesser-known focal brands in brand alliances. Notably, we analyze data collected from a sample of Brazilian and U.S. based purchase decision-makers and uncover a number of robust findings likely to benefit both academics and practitioners.