Reaching a common goal
Corporate and consumer brands are traditionally separate – in terms of tactics, teams and objectives. But that line is shifting as a new breed of company emerges, forcing the two to merge. Does this allow companies to achieve greater results? Amy Sandys investigates
As personal and professional lives merge together, distinction between corporate and consumer brands blur and questions surrounding the individual characteristics of each begin to arise.
It is true that each has fundamental differences which cannot be ignored by those marketing the brand in question. Yet increasing similarities between branding for corporate and consumer leads to a need to develop an appropriate and efficient brand strategy to ensure differentiation – or perhaps to more closely align the two entities.
With this in mind, a roundtable discussion of branding professionals focused on the implications of this ever-close alignment. Attended by delegates from Telefonica, ING, McLaren, Queen Mary University of London, Post Office, Lloyds Bank and NHS Improvement, the discussion focused around what branding, marketing and communications professionals can do to ensure their brand identity retains clarity.
Steps taken by sectors, from public, to third sector, to private, may differ – but the ultimate goal of retaining its intended audience and attracting new custom, remains the same. For many companies, this has entailed a rethinking of relationships, particularly in the B2B branding space which is traditionally more personal relationship-driven. For B2C brands, it is ensuring the multiple stages implicit in the client-customer relationship are made as simple as possible, with compromising the quality of the customer experience.
Despite the similarities implicit between brands in the B2B and B2C space, however, some unique characteristics clearly emerge.
The role of decision makers is paramount to both branding spaces – yet the numbers involved on each side is, in general, vastly different. For a B2B brand, a great many stakeholders have a say in how a relationship or transaction should be directed – in B2C, the amount of people involved in a decision on whether to invest in a brand is limited, according to product. This has obvious impacts on timescale, with B2C brands operating in a much smaller timeframe. For B2B brands, this could not be much further from the truth.
Nick Liddell, director of consulting at London-based branding agency, The Clearing, says, “For B2B brands, people like capability. For example, you know it is multiple stages to win a piece of business, usually 18 months from reporting to the tender to actually getting to appointment.”
He continues, “Within the B2C audience you get a very limited number of decision makers. If you are buying something big for you house, it might be more than a single influence within that purchase decision. But usually its one or maybe two people, whereas in B2B, you’re talking about many stakeholders. You’re making a big investment, putting in the systems into the organisation, and one to one versus to one to many is the biggest most fundamental difference that we see with that – in terms of the brand that we put around them.”
One company branding to attract the services or business of another carries the perennial risk of being caught up in a business relationship whereby stakeholders are discontent with the brand offering. In this instance, a great number of factors must be considered – not least the importance of appealing to an organisation in which a vastly different number of views may be held.
As a result of this difference, and a key point emphasised during the roundtable discussion, was the importance of distinguishing emotionality from rationality. Traditionally, the B2C space has been concerned with emotional appeal to the customer, with the intention of engaging with key touch points to make a purchase more likely.
For a B2B brand, however, rationality is integral in creating and maintaining a distinct business to client relationship. While building rapport is an important consideration, interaction in a business to business environment must be conducted under certain conditions to allow for a progressive and mutually beneficial relationship to develop.
Liddell says, “Generalising slightly, a B2C brand is probably a blend of about 80% emotional, 20% rational. This is flipped for a B2B brand, where more rational decisions are going through. One of the things I would say is that boundaries are increasingly blurring. Think of the rise of the discounter in the sole sector of retailer at the moment – you definitely see a shift towards more rational consumption.”
There is no doubt that a clear difference between emotionality and rationality is present – yet, as Liddell identifies, B2B branding increasingly relies on some tactics of B2C branding in order to connect with its target audience. Liddell comments, “What people do forget in the B2B area is people will always say, well you have this business brand presented as a very rational thing, but that actually is a very clever emotional piece of marketing. It’s all about the trust that brand gives you – so it’s easy to simplify and say one is rationally based and the other is emotionally based.”
Another attendee agrees. She argues that the customer experience encompasses all brand propositions, whether emotional or rational – and actually, it is the customer who is really involved with any brand. The delegate says, “I’m involved with the B2B guys, but that the conversation is very different. If there is a big deal going through then I see how to make the deal more attractive to the customer – at the end of the day they tend to be the experts, and actually more and more, there’s lots of concern around ‘please don’t tell me the network is going to go down.” This acknowledgement is particularly important for telecommunications, as its a key arena in which the human side of a brand installs hardware, or fixes technical issues.
There is also an emotional connection to objects such as mobile phones which, the delegate argues, blurs the lines increasingly between the way the brand should position itself to a business, and to a customer audience. How the company approaches branding to a specific audience may differ. Yet, to the customer, all facets of the business are as integral to the other – if the B2C brand isn’t delivering, then the B2B brand should be held accountable.
The delegate continues, “It’s giving permission to do something different and actually innovate with the customer and try to do something in a way not done before. We really want to try and do something fundamentally different, in not just being the clause and the package, but in what we are offering the customer.” And for many businesses, how pressing customer issues are dealt with, and how efficiently, can contribute in a large way to marketing their own corporate branding.
Such an approach is often more obvious than the supposed distinction between corporate and customer branding might have its audiences believe. Some key words, described as the best way to benchmark a brand regardless of its external facing during the discussion, was “profession, decision and performance.” This attendee argues that the differences separating B2B and B2C brands are on the face it unimportant. Instead, he suggests, it is how the corporate and customer brands are benchmarked that really sets the precedent for future innovation – as well as investment.
Perhaps there is little difference between B2C brands; perhaps there is a lot. What is clear is that new brands, in the both the public and private sectors, are emerging on the market in a way that is causing more traditional brand structures to be called into question.
As Liddell notes, “There is a new breed of brands coming to the floor that don’t necessarily think in those terms of pure B2B and B2C. So you look and you know, that’s the consumer brand, isn’t it – but actually you know it’s a massive B2B brand, and you know it has relationships with advertisers, that’s where it’s making its money.”
And although profit margins are ultimately the final consideration for brands, whether B2B or B2C, fundamentally brands are changing to incorporate better the ideals of their audience. Liddell continues, “It comes back to the narrative and the promise and the singularity of idea – what’s our purpose for being? A narrative stiches it together and is much more central. LinkedIn is another one, Skype is another one, these brands they seamlessly fly between B2B and B2C. It’s all about winning and it’s all still got to be there – but it focuses everybody on the common goal.”
