The Role of Personalization in U.S. Food & Beverage Products

Create Brand Image - Brands allow businesses' value propositions to be more emotive and persuasive. Above all, a positive brand image appeals to all stakeholders, making it simpler to attract and retain talent. Increase Sales - The primary purpose of most businesses is to make money. Companies with strong brands can benefit not only from improved margins, but also from increased sales volume. Command Price Premium - Companies with well-known brands can charge a premium for their products and services. It automatically becomes less vulnerable to competitive influences. The acquisition prices reflect B2B brands' value as resources. Brands can significantly increase these prices. They not only make high-quality bricks, but they also provide a 100-year guarantee, which is unusual given the industry standard of five. In addition, the organization demonstrates a significant commitment to the areas in which it operates. For example, whenever a house is built with Acme bricks, the company donates to the Troy Aikman Foundation for Children. Furthermore, local and regional Acme offices help charities including Habitat for Humanity, Ronald McDonald Children's Charities, the American Cancer Society, the American Red Cross, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and many more. The results of a telephone survey in four large Acme markets revealed an 84 percent preference for Acme bricks, considerably outpacing all competitors.

Tata Steel.

Steel is another pure product that appears to be impossible to brand, however contrary to popular belief, Tata Steel is well-branded. Faced with an industry trend of oversupply, management saw that the only option was to shift away from selling commodities and toward marketing brands. Tata Steel started branding their products in 2000. Meanwhile, it introduced several brands, including Tata Steelium (the world's first branded cold rolled steel), Tata Shaktee (galvanized corrugated sheets), Tata Tis-con (re-bars), and the family brands Tata Pipes, Tata Bearings, Tata Agrico (hand tools and implements), and Tata Wiron (galvanized wire products).59 Chapter 5.8 contains a more extensive explanation of Tata Steel. The Importance of Emotion in B2B Branding Forget about the perfectly sensible and ideal "business" person. They are no longer around, if they ever were at all. We are all human beings with emotions and feelings, which makes us naturally susceptible to branding, whether at home or at work. If your neighbor talks you about his experiences with a certain brand, you will remember that chat as soon as you arrive at work. We are all exposed to a large amount of information from various social strata, which is imbedded in a variety of emotional circumstances. This effectively opens the door to branding in B2B markets. The most emotional choice in a CEO's life will probably be whatever type of business jet to purchase. He can choose between Lear Jet, Falcon, Bombardier, and others. Rational factors are typically utilized solely to justify their judgments. The CEO's ego is typically the driving force behind the decision to purchase a business jet. Of course, we cannot dispute that corporate jets serve a legitimate economic purpose, but there are many companies that would not have purchased their own aircraft in the first place if it weren't for the CEO's ego and the appealing toy element.

Emotions are more than just causes for laughter or tears. 

They are also important in our decision-making. Numerous studies have shown that if our brain's emotion regions are damaged61, we lose not only the ability to laugh or cry, but also the ability to make decisions. While intellect leads to conclusions, emotions drive action. This should raise red flags in any firm. Waldemar Pfoertsch worked for IBM a few years ago, and he participated in a study to discover the ideal brand traits that would tip the scales in favor of one middleware vendor over another. They were astonished at the outcome. Conservative IT B2B decision-makers regularly cited emotional brand qualities as determining considerations. Of course, the items have to be trustworthy and secure. But for those vendors that matched the rational criteria, emotional connections were critical. This is probably not a surprise. After all, we're human. Even the most intellectual person (whether they realize it or not) is swayed by emotions. In his book, Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi, made an even stronger case for the link between emotion and brand success. He demonstrated how certain brands command greater loyalty. He refers to them as "Love-marks" and describes them as trademarks that elicit loyalty beyond reason. Interestingly, among his 200 Lovemarks, major industrial names such as AMD, Caterpillar, Cessna, IBM, and Zeiss are featured as well. Caterpillar, for example, is a fantastic industrial and yet extremely emotive brand. Even commodities may be branded, as demonstrated by Acme Brick and Tata Steel. Emotions in B2B branding play an important part in corporate decisions, especially if they are plainly identifiable.

Caterpillar is one of the few brands that evokes a strong sense of ownership. 

The CAT brand's strong emotional appeal and passionate loyalty target both employees who design, build, sell, and maintain CAT machines and those who own or want to buy CAT equipment.63 Summary: Establishing trademarks in a B2B setting differs from branding for the general public. The role and process of an industrial brand strategy must be more specific than those developed and implemented in consumer markets. The primary distinction between B2B and B2C markets is the nature and complexity of industrial products and services, the nature and diversity of industrial demand, fewer customers, higher volumes per customer, and, last but not least, closer and longer-lasting supplier-customer relationships. A holistic branding approach is essential, with everything from the creation, design, and implementation of marketing programs, processes, and activities acknowledged as interconnected and interdependent. B2B companies' buying scenarios can be classified into three types: direct re-buy, modified re-buy, and new task. Members of the buying center are classified based on their role in the purchasing decision: user, buyer, decider, and influencer. They must all operate in light of the numerous interconnected dimensions of the buying center. An organizational buying process includes problem recognition, need description, product specification, supplier search, proposal solicitation, supplier evaluation, order-routine specifications, and performance review. Human variables, such as interpersonal relationships among buying center members, influence business decisions. Establishing B2B brands involves building trust, confidence, and comfort among all partners involved in the purchasing process.