BRANDING

How to Build a B2B Brand

by John Quelch
NOVEMBER 21, 2007

Coming soon from John Quelch: Greater Good: How Good Marketing Makes for Better
Democracy (Hardcover)

Many business-to-business (B2B) CEOs view marketing as the domain of consumer goods
brands. They are wrong. Among Interbrands 10 most valuable global brands, we nd
Microsoft, Intel, IBM and GE. All generate far more B2B revenues than sales to end
consumers.

An HBS research team recently conducted a study of top B2B global brands. They shared the
following ve characteristics:

1. The CEO is a willing brand cheerleader, loves the brand heritage and is a great storyteller.
The CMO sees his or her purpose as helping the CEO achieve this role.

2. The CEO understands that building brand reputation reduces commercial risk, insulates the
company in a crisis and provides the common purpose that can bond all the companys
stakeholders.

3. Eorts are focused on a single, global corporate brand rather than individual product
brands.
4. The payback on marketing expenditures is measured rigorously to the satisfaction of the
hard-nosed engineers and nance sta who run the typical B2B enterprise.

5. Coordination of company websites worldwide to present a consistent face to stakeholders is

the best way to get control of marketing communications that may have become too
decentralized.

Why should brand-building be important to B2B CEOs?

First, most B2B marketers have to address thousands of small businesses as well as enterprise
customers. They cannot do so economically using the traditional direct sales force.

Second, if left unattended, individual managers will each do their own adhoc marketing. The
result will be a hodgepodge of corporate logos, taglines and packaging. Customers will be
confused and the company will look disorganized.

Third, B2B marketers are realizing that developing brand awareness among their customers
customers can capture a larger share of channel margins and build loyalty that can protect
them against lower-priced competitors.

Consider these examples:

Intel is the ultimate ingredient brand. Zero sales to end consumers yet Intel built a consumer
demand pull for its chips that required every PC manufacturer to incorporate them and to
advertise Intel Inside on their products and in their ads. Other ingredient brands include
Goretex, Teon and even the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (as a dierentiating ingredient for early
adopter airlines).

GE and Microsoft are hybrid brands with some direct-to-consumer sales that have helped to
build the reputations of what are primarily B2B rms. But these enterprises, although selling
to businesses, want to be in touch with end consumers, with their aspirations and their needs.
That is a source of competitive advantage in driving their innovation agendas.

Accenture sells nothing to consumers. But its Performance Delivered campaign, backed by
the advertising presence of Tiger Woods, has created a positive awareness of the brand among
hundreds of thousands of people who may be working for the enterprises to which Accenture
consults (or is seeking to consult). And the motivational value of inviting top customers,
prospects and employees to golf events involving Tiger cannot be underestimated.

Would Duponts shareholder value be the same today if it had not made consumers aware of
Nylon, Lycra and Stainmaster and linked these innovations to the Dupont name? Denitely
not.

Do you think brand-building is essential for B2B companies? Have you seen other
characteristics of leadership in smartly branded B2B companies?

MORE ON BRAND BUILDING:

Building A+ Brands (HBR Article Collection)
Building Brand: A Road Map (HMU Article)
Branding from the Inside Out, and from the Outside In (HMU Article)

John Quelch is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration at

Harvard Business School and holds a joint appointment at Harvard School of Public Health as a
professor in health policy and management.

This article is about BRANDING

FOL L OW T HIS TOPIC
Related Topics: MARKETING

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