When asked about the business they are in marketers will frequently reply in terms of the immediate customer that the serve. Thus, marketers will identify their business as business-to-business (B2B) or business to consumer (B2C). Recruiters also often differentiate positions in terms of the need for a B2B or B2C focus. While such differentiation is a useful shorthand, it fails to capture a larger truth about marketing and markets, a truth that has implications for...
One of the more important strategic choices for a business is how it will organize itself and go about delivering value to its customers. Few firms have the capacity to be fully integrated and take responsibility for creating and delivering the entire product or service they sell. Even if a firm could do so, complete integration is rarely an optimal financial strategy.
Marketers are swimming in data. The amount of data available to marketers is exploding and the analysis of very large data sets, popularly referred to as “big data,” has been touted as the next wave of productive marketing practice. Such data range from records of transactions to the text of reviews and customer service interactions, to images and video. The availability of such data should make brand building easier.
Brands are defined as much by their market and competitors as their own unique characteristics. Just consider what happened recently to the airline industry where the problems of a single carrier shaded the whole industry. This means building and maintaining a brand must include paying attention to the market as a whole.
Brands are all about customer experience. Great brands deliver great experiences regardless of whether that experience is the taste of a freshly baked pizza, an exhilarating ride in sports car, or a refreshing night’s sleep on a firm mattress. Products that fail to deliver are rarely on the market for long.
