Corporate branding has made big names, and bigger brands with biggest emotional connects with customers the world over. Company branding is one of the most important tools that establishes the stature of the brand at a much higher level that the product or service offered. It has now become a huge aspirational destination for all small and medium B2C companies because the way it elevates the company brand beyond the immediate products and utility to a place where people would like to connect themselves with the company. With an established corporate brand, with a set of consistent message and values, people are more likely to associate with it without being sensitive to the premium cost largely ignoring other competitors involved.
Somehow there has been a misconception that B2B businesses do not need branding or brand building. The intensive strategic exercise to streamline company vision, values and a philosophy, which should resonate with clients, other business customers, and larger general public, is seen as an insignificant investment that doesn’t affect and help day-to-day business.
Contrary to this opinion, research and business related studies have made a strong case for corporate branding as an essential part of the company legacy for B2B business and its distinct positioning amidst similar businesses providing similar products and services. There are examples abound that clearly show that B2B brands with a distinct company branding focused on a particular value, or idea have the ability to penetrate collective memory much deeper, way beyond their immediate businesses. The perception positioning at a higher level with the help of a streamlined and consistent branding strategy reap higher and more significant benefits in the longer run. Companies like IBM, Cisco, Intel, Dow, BASF, DuPont, Microsoft have achieved the status of being reliable, confident and innovative purely on the basis of widespread corporate branding though they have nothing to do with B2C ecosystem.
There has also been a view that in the B2B sector, success of deals, conversions and actual purchase orders happen mostly in the micro environment of representatives of both businesses meeting face-to-face and communicating the superiority of the product or services to be sold involved. However, it may be noted that though business purchase decisions are based on dispassionate purchase or procurement procedures based on functions, features, technological benefits and coherence of both systems involved, the human factor in such processes is as indispensable as emotions to a human response. When an established popular brand with an established popular image enters into negotiations, it rides on the emotional connect it has been able to nurture with people across and beyond industry and businesses who have nothing to do with its apparent business or services. It brings into play the aura of an established player which is strong, reliable and would ensure ease of business and risk reduction to the partner business. In many cases in B2B collaborations, one business enhances its own image with the collective image and reputation of the other business it partners with. Branding of one brand adds value to the associated brand as well.
B2B Branding also instils a sense of community, engagement and ownership within the workforce, sales team, customers and all other people who feel associated with the company. An evolved business vision binds separate teams and sets of people with one identity and image which brings coherence through all external communication to the world.
People, either individual customers or business houses, rely heavily on consistency and reputation of a business brand and, as many researches have shown, are willing to pay premium price for the products and services of an established company with a strong and evocative corporate brand identity. The accessibility of the language of communication and its intermingling with individual emotions evokes a response where people are able to relate to the brand and are willing to associate with, directly as businesses, or as end beneficiaries in the longer run.
The prime example of such an evolution is Intel. While completely into B2B collaborations, Intel has positioned itself as an aspirational brand where people value it to the extent that the other B2C businesses making computer systems seem to validate that trust by putting Intel logos and Branding on their own products.
Contrary to this opinion, research and business related studies have made a strong case for corporate branding as an essential part of the company legacy for B2B business and its distinct positioning amidst similar businesses providing similar products and services. There are examples abound that clearly show that B2B brands with a distinct company branding focused on a particular value, or idea have the ability to penetrate collective memory much deeper, way beyond their immediate businesses. The perception positioning at a higher level with the help of a streamlined and consistent branding strategy reap higher and more significant benefits in the longer run. Companies like IBM, Cisco, Intel, Dow, BASF, DuPont, Microsoft have achieved the status of being reliable, confident and innovative purely on the basis of widespread corporate branding though they have nothing to do with B2C ecosystem.
There has also been a view that in the B2B sector, success of deals, conversions and actual purchase orders happen mostly in the micro environment of representatives of both businesses meeting face-to-face and communicating the superiority of the product or services to be sold involved. However, it may be noted that though business purchase decisions are based on dispassionate purchase or procurement procedures based on functions, features, technological benefits and coherence of both systems involved, the human factor in such processes is as indispensable as emotions to a human response. When an established popular brand with an established popular image enters into negotiations, it rides on the emotional connect it has been able to nurture with people across and beyond industry and businesses who have nothing to do with its apparent business or services. It brings into play the aura of an established player which is strong, reliable and would ensure ease of business and risk reduction to the partner business. In many cases in B2B collaborations, one business enhances its own image with the collective image and reputation of the other business it partners with. Branding of one brand adds value to the associated brand as well.
B2B Branding also instils a sense of community, engagement and ownership within the workforce, sales team, customers and all other people who feel associated with the company. An evolved business vision binds separate teams and sets of people with one identity and image which brings coherence through all external communication to the world.
People, either individual customers or business houses, rely heavily on consistency and reputation of a business brand and, as many researches have shown, are willing to pay premium price for the products and services of an established company with a strong and evocative corporate brand identity. The accessibility of the language of communication and its intermingling with individual emotions evokes a response where people are able to relate to the brand and are willing to associate with, directly as businesses, or as end beneficiaries in the longer run.
The prime example of such an evolution is Intel. While completely into B2B collaborations, Intel has positioned itself as an aspirational brand where people value it to the extent that the other B2C businesses making computer systems seem to validate that trust by putting Intel logos and Branding on their own products.