Building B2B brands often implies a positive exchange of value. A brand gives something of value in order to establish its place and position within a potential buyer’s psyche.
That all sounds tremendously grand, but what does it really mean?
Well, it could mean that to gain some kind of traction with large-scale purchasers, a brand needs to think laterally about the difference between price (what a thing actually costs to buy) and value (the worth perceived by the recipient).
That these are two totally different things is fairly easy to demonstrate.
A few years ago, I worked for a company with a motor-racing sponsorship. We asked that some posters be signed by one of the team’s drivers. Cost (given that we had already paid our sponsorship fee) was zero. Value, to the customers and prospects to whom we gave them, was substantial.
Always, when confronted with the task of generating response, dialogue and interest within a hard-to-reach community, our instincts are to find things that will have value to that community, but which may not actually have a big price attached.
Sometimes though, it is even necessary to step outside that framework.
When we were asked to build awareness and presence for a software company with Times Top 250 finance directors, we were stumped, until someone suggested a remote control model car. The unit cost would not be insubstantial. We would have to repackage the car to make our point about our client and its product.
But when we looked at the cost of alternatives (a page in the Financial Times, perhaps?) our method provided better value. And we could do other things too.
We could make the mailing a two part exercise, sending the car first, and only sending the controller for the car if a simple card was returned to signify receipt. (That would underline our client’s message about ‘staying in control’ also, and might also open up a necessary dialogue).
We could phone to check that we weren’t infringing any corporate governance issues. (We offered an equivalent to a nominated charity). At the same time we could test to see if our message had got home.
The results were spectacular, but I have to say we can’t always be that clever, and I have to thank our client for being brave.
Maybe it was just a one-off, and things don’t really work like that any more. Maybe.
But maybe more companies need to think about value and price when planning direct response campaigns into precisely defined markets?
