B2B Brand Management

Product Information

Digital brand management or online brand management takes traditional brand management principles and applies them to customer experiences across multiple digital mediums. Ojasalo, J., S. Natti, and R. Olkkonen. 2008. Brand building in software SMEs: An empirical study. Journal of Product and Brand Management 17: 92–107.

Ghosh, M., and G. John. 2009. When should original equipment manufacturers use branded component contracts with suppliers? Journal of Marketing Research 46(5): 597–611. Man, T.W.Y., and T. Lau. 2000. Entrepreneurial competencies of SME owner/managers in the Hong Kong services sector: A qualitative analysis. Journal of Enterprising Culture 8(3): 235–254. Linting, M., and A. van der Kooij. 2012. Nonlinear principal components analysis with CATPCA: A tutorial. Journal of Personality Assessment 94(1): 12–25. Jarvinen, J., A. Tollinen, H. Karjaluoto, and C. Jayawardhena. 2012. Digital and social media marketing usage in B2B industrial section. Journal of Marketing Management 22(2): 107–117. Tarnovskaya, V., and G. Biedenbach. 2016. Multiple stakeholders and B2B branding in emerging markets. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal 9(3): 287–309.Homburg, C., M. Klarmann, and J. Schmitt. 2010. Brand awareness in business markets: When is it related to firm performance? International Journal of Research in Marketing 27(3): 201–212. Our research also indicates that the unfavourable COO image is one of the major branding challenges. This findings suggests that the Chinese policymaker and industrial agency should aim at improving the overall image of ‘Made in China’ by upgrading the COO image from a low-price and mass production image to a high value-added image to help minimise the negative impact on manufacturers’ branding. Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China. 2016. Regular press conference of the Ministry of Commerce (December 9, 2016). Beijing, China. http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/article/pressconferenceinyears/2016/201612/20161202192275.shtml. Accessed November 20, 2017. Nyadzayoa, M.W., M.J. Matanda, and R. Rajaguru. 2018. The determinants of franchise brand loyalty in B2B markets: An emerging market perspective. Journal of Business Research 86: 434–445. B2B companies tend to underinvest in marketing their overall brand, relying instead on traditional marketing campaigns that tout the performance of their products and services. New data from a recent survey by BCG and Google shows that this is a missed opportunity. Marketing the brand can be just as effective as marketing performance—if not more so.

A strong brand value proposition - with brand promotion now taking place across diverse channels, brands really need a strong, vibrant message to stand out. The B2B buying process involves a greater number of actors over a longer timespan compared to the case in the consumer market (Webster and Keller 2004), which creates difficulties in implementing branding strategies (Kotler and Pfoertsch 2006). This is even more challenging for firms in the manufacturing and exporting sectors, as M3 claimed that it is hard to satisfy international buyers with various needs and demands. The pluriformity of the market impedes firms from sketching out a clear brand vision, thereby making it difficult for them to position a brand. Insufficient resourcesIngredient branding, also known as component branding, draws key features of one brand to incorporate in another brand, aiming to pull sales demand from the end market (Desai and Keller 2002). The ingredient brand best suits industrial goods, with ‘ingredients’ being the crucial component of the final product (Kotler and Pfoertsch 2010). The best illustrations are Intel, Gore-Tex, and NutraSweet that are often integrated into other host brands (Kotler and Pfoertsch 2010; Moon and Sprott 2016). Such brand alliance strategy offers a number of benefits to both host brand and ingredient brand—i.e. it helps both firms involved to reduce costs and risks (Vaidyanathan and Aggarwal 2000), form a positive product image (Bengtsson and Servais 2005) and gain a competitive advantage (Radighieri et al. 2014). King, C., K.K.F. So, and D. Grace. 2013. The influence of service brand orientation on hotel employees’ attitude and behaviours in China. International Journal of Hospitality Management 34: 172–180. Buil, I., L. de Chernatony, and E. Martínez. 2013. Examining the role of advertising and sales promotions in brand equity creation. Journal of Business Research 66(1): 115–122.