Consumer branding principles won’t help you to define your B2B services firm

Consumer branding principles won’t help you to define your B2B services firm

Brand. The single most over-used and poorly-defined term in the business strategy lexicon.

As the services sector fragments and expands in 2016, the challenge for your firm to ‘stand out’ as a business that sells services to other businesses gets yet more difficult.

It’s a present challenge for b2b service businesses right across each of the three main branches of the b2b services sector: in Financial Services (including all the non-retail, non-consumer banking parts of the sector such as commercial and business banking, institutional asset management, investment banking and reinsurance), in Professional Services (such as Accounting and Law firms, Architects and Engineering practices, Real Estate consulting) and for Business Services providers, which includes everything else (e.g. Outsourcers, IT providers, Management consultancies, Marketing consultancies, the list is long…)

It’s an issue which is labelled differently by different b2b management teams. Some prefer to talk about the need to clarify their business’s ‘proposition’. Others see it as the need to articulate their firm’s ‘brand message’. However expressed, the point is essentially the same, namely, how do they answer any or all of the following questions: ‘How do we stand out from our competitors in our sector?’, ‘How do we articulate boldly what it is that we do?’ and ‘How to we express neatly what it is that we offer?’


Are you Head of Strategy of a b2b service firm that wants to sharpen your firm’s market positioning?

Are you responsible for brand strategy in your business and want to take it further in 2016?

Are you seeing stronger competitors in your sector and want to articulate a better set of client focused messages?

If so, start a conversation with Gulland Padfield. To find out more about our ideas and case studies that link brand strategy and business strategy for institutional, b2b-focused businesses and our recommended process to build or sharpen your brand proposition, contact James Edsberg on +44(0) 203 051 2295 or start a conversation at contact@gullandpadfield.com


Avoid confusion from the start
In 14 years of working with services firms as consultants on their business strategies, there is one issue which usually bubbles-up early on in our team’s assignments working on the ‘brand and proposition challenge’ with a banking client or a b2b firm.

It’s the unhelpful use of consumer branding principles and examples when applied to a business in the b2b services world.
Put another way, we frequently observe that management teams struggle to forge a distinctive proposition until they consider whether using consumer products or retail brands as reference points is partly or wholly unhelpful to the task at hand. Usually they conclude that b2c reference points confuse rather than clarify.

Instead, we’re suggesting that a different set of guidelines should apply to sharpen the brand proposition of b2b business such as, for example, a commercial bank or an institutional asset management firm. And this distinction is even stronger when that organisation is offering advice-based service (e.g. Law firms, Real Estate consultants).

Are there USPs in the b2b services world?

The most obvious example of an unhelpful rule which works well in the branding of a retail or consumer product business but not in the b2b context, is the issue of ‘uniqueness’. Conventional wisdom suggests that a retail business or consumer product firm that identifies, articulates and defends its ‘uniqueness’ has resolved the brand challenge successfully.

But in the consumer product world, it is easier to build a brand positioning around ‘uniqueness’. One of the main reasons for this relates to the protection given in law against a competitor copying another firm’s product design. By contrast, it is much more difficult to protect and defend the intellectual property in a service. And for that reason, building a brand strategy on a ‘unique’ differentiator is a dimension more difficult in the b2b services world.

In fact, we would go further. We have said for many years now, that in some service businesses (e.g. the provision of Legal or Accounting advice), it is virtually impossible to articulate and sustain a truly unique differentiator.

Instead, if a b2b firm focuses on building its brand message around what matters most to its clients (i.e. making the message highly client-centric) this is much more effective than trying to find a unique differentiator.

Appreciating this subtle but vital distinction between identifying a unique differentiator versus a client-centric differentiator, usually results in a more successful b2b proposition which drives stronger engagement with a firm\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s potential and actual clients.


Some new guidelines for branding your firm’s b2b proposition
Here are a few other suggestions which we follow at the start of projects to help services businesses clarify their marketing positioning, proposition and/or brand

  1. Define ‘brand’ at the start of the initiative. Without a common reference point on a branding project for a b2b services business, we find management teams and marketing teams take time to reach internal agreement around what the task is. Decide whether the project is just ‘a refresh of the visual identity’ or something more e.g. a better way to articulate the market position of the organisation. Gulland Padfield’s proprietary definition of the components of a successful b2b services proposition distinguishes between the ‘strategic’ aspect of a brand (i.e. the externally-focused market positioning that a firm wishes to articulate), the ‘creative’ elements of a brand (i.e. its logo and visual identity, etc) and the ‘internal’ aspects of brand (i.e. a firm’s values and the behaviours of its people). This latter aspect is particularly important in the b2b context where your service proposition is by definition, sold and provided in person by your staff. A healthy brand defines and aligns all three of these aspects.
  2. Clarify the difference between Brand and Business Strategy. Service businesses regularly confuse their objectives as a business (their strategy) with the explicit promise that they wish to fulfil to clients (their brand). Firm’s websites and collateral are often explicit about the firm wishing to be “No 1” in a market or “the leading firm” in it. These are strategic goals not brand issues. Gulland Padfield’s research among buyers of business services of all types consistently shows that ‘rankings’ are only a weak influencer on selection. Why? Because at the top end of most b2b service sectors, there are a group of high quality providers – and whether you are No.1#, No.2# or No.3#, the chances are, all three get invited to respond to a RFP and to pitch for the contract. No other business sector so frequently conflates ‘Strategy’ with ‘Message’.
  3. Only let the creative branding process start once there is a clear understanding of what a professional firm’s clients and prospects have told you they value. Most of the leading creative branding and advertising agencies go light on the analysis and heavy on the creative. You can’t blame them. That’s what they love. So make sure that their understanding of your business services market and the complex mindset of the b2b and institutional service buyers is substantial or find and provide that to the project before the ‘creative’ side of things gather too much momentum. Branding and advertising agencies offer an important and often exciting process to bring a defined positioning to life. But the end result is better if it is grounded in strong analysis of the end market and the b2b client mindset. Without this, many business services brands end up with a good-looking visual identity which fails to express the tangible value of your service to its clients.
  4. Leave the firm’s ‘ego’ outside the door when you’re designing your brand. Curiously, when it comes to brand - it’s not about you. At least, not directly. Services firms – particularly Professional Services firms are some of the worst offenders when it comes to talking about themselves rather than their clients and prospective clients. The best structured professional brands focus on what the clients want in an adviser: e.g. commerciality, sector knowledge, reliable project management, etc. If it helps, assume that all firms in your competitor set have the same service line capabilities – which in the minds of clients they probably do. Then ask what is it that you do in addition to your capabilities which is of benefit to your clients.
  5. Don’t build a brand around client service experience. Excellent client service is of course the essential offer of a b2b services firm. But isn’t easy to deliver it consistently to high standards. And as a brand message and as a differentiator, Gulland Padfield’s research among 1000s of Finance Directors, General Counsel and other executives each year, suggests that ‘service’ is a weak message to have at the heart of a brand without clarity on what it means. Clients expect good client service – to use the cliché, it’s a ‘given’. But as a marketing message the ‘service experience’ may not as powerful as other elements of a brand.
  6. Find the courage to ‘go narrow’. Many brand projects start with good intentions but end up weighed down with a whole series of values, positions and attributes. Try to have the discipline to identify the things that your clients value and are willing to pay for. It doesn’t have to be unique – see above. Devising a sharp brand will require difficult choices – but it’s worth it. A focused services brand gets noticed more and your b2b marketing budget will go much further.
Addressing and acknowledging the differences between how b2b services firms define themselves versus how retail and consumer product do so, may make the brand challenge that much easier for many firms in business banking, legal services and other services sectors. It’s a discussion worth having upfront in projects on which many b2b service firms will embark in 2016.

Are you Head of Strategy of a b2b service firm that wants to sharpen your firm’s market positioning?

Are you responsible for brand strategy in your business and want to take it further in 2016?

Are you seeing stronger competitors in your sector and want to articulate a better set of client focused messages?

If so, start a conversation with Gulland Padfield. To find out more about our ideas and case studies that link brand strategy and business strategy for institutional, b2b-focused businesses and our recommended process to build or sharpen your brand proposition, contact James Edsberg on +44(0) 203 051 2295 or start a conversation at contact@gullandpadfield.com

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