BtoC brands have already reached a maturity stage while
BtoB brands remain in a fast-growing stage, both in terms
of marketing & brand manager positions and in terms of
allocated budgets for brand promotion.
Consequently, one of the main goals of this book is to provide
companies, schools and universities support to better
promote their brands. Without a brand strategy, companies
stay invisible in the value chain: no name, no gain! From
then on, they have to create value through a fitted professional
branding policy.
There are two ways to create value: the first one comes directly
from the selling of products/services made under the
brand promoted; the second one comes from the new
value of brand funds. By integrating the latest practices
and research results, this academic-rooted book meant for
functional purposes defines new strategic paths aiming at
managing the BtoB brand policy depending on the final
target. For the first time, a synthetic and clearly BtoB
oriented approach offers useful and practical perspectives
meant for brand management:
-
BtoB: the target is the client organization and it is impossible
to precisely identify the individual beneficiaries
-
BtoBtoC: the brand addresses the end-consumers of the
final products (manufactured by the client organization).
This approach is characterized by the strong prescription
role of the client company's marketing department and
can lead to a vertical co-branding (or in-branding).
-
BtoBtoE: the final customers of the brand are the employees
of the public or private client organization. The
goods and services are sold to the latter but are meant
for the company's employees use. In this approach the
Human Resources department can have a prescription
role.
-
BtoAtoU: The brand does not target a consumer but a
user (sometimes called road-user in public transportations).
Lobbying techniques are particularly effective in
this case.
Aside from functional recommendations, this book
contains many examples illustrating these diverse BtoB
approaches. It provides useful practical tools to teachers
and university/business and management school/engineering
school students who wish to master brand policy in
the BtoB context.
