Improving Your Game
Welcome to Performance +. We want to engage you further.
We invite our site visitors to read our Reviews on books and articles written about the challenges, trends, successes and failures of the enormously large and dynamic world of B2B marketing. We also include Commentary & Opinion.
To go a step further we will be adding some helpful links to sites and services related to improving “your game”, the basis for improving your top line.
Book Reviews
The market is exposed to an ever-changing environment that can be brutal at times. The players compete on a field with changing rules and obstacles and sometimes even changing goal posts. The winds of change are driven by technologies and innovations, fierce pricing competition, and the ever-important force of brand power and all its magic and myth. It's your world!
We think you'll be interested in our "take" on the gurus and pundits and savants who interpret and influence this dynamic B2B World. Enjoy!!!!
Performance +
Improving Your Game
Book Reviews
“Who said that B2B Branding is boring?”
Title of book: B2B Branding
Author: Bob Lamons
Publication date: 2005
Pages: 214 pages
The Setting
Written by Bob Lamons, an acknowledged guru in the business. The jacket encomia are peppered with praises from some of the marketing illuminati such as Al Ries, Kevin Clancy and Don Schultz. Interesting is the fact that there are no client testimonials but that’s par for the course in an ad industry that tends to pat itself on the back. Lamons has given us a great field guide, a how-to manual based on actual case studies, twenty-one of them in fact. Each case does a good job, albeit somewhat short on description and detail.
The book addresses the challenge that so many B2B marketers face today – the challenge of resisting being painted with the Big C Commodity paintbrush where the lowest bidder always wins and competition is fierce and each business tends to pay lip service only to the commandments of quality branding. Lamons emphasizes the importance of the basics and outlines the seven steps for effective branding (it’s always seven, isn’t it? It makes me wonder if the alchemists are in the backroom blending the herbal essences for power branding!). Anyhow, Lamons gets the job done!
The Main Points
The content of this book is in two brief but elegant sections – the Seven Steps and the Case Studies. Here are some main points:
- Expectations are the essence of branding. It’s about the promise that you make and it better be kept or your brand equity is down the drain old’ boy.
- Simplicity is critical to success. Stay away from too much analysis and too little creative inspiration, too many processes and not enough sound basic logic and thinking.
- The perfect example is GE and the brilliant branding of a commodity – the soft white light bulbs. A light bulb is a light bulb by any other name or is it? Why do consumers buy the GE brand when it may be three times the price of a generic no-name label? …Because of the trust factor, stupid! That’s right. GE is known for its trust – you expect it, and the purpose of branding is to actually create a positive expectation that is satisfied with a loyal purchase. Simple, right? But only the High Priests of Branding know the formula, and Lamons earns a spot with this little handbook.
- Lamons give us his seven step prescription: 1-effective teamwork; 2- brand architecture; 3- audience identification, starting with employees; 4 – brand positioning; 5- brand personality; 6- consistent execution; and 7 –brand equity.
Pros and Cons
One of the best chapters of B2B Branding is the one on Brand Equity. Lamons outlines a pretty good formula to calculate brand equity for the B2B marketer. This exercise can be fraught with difficulty because the calculations can add to or diminish the worth of the company. Accountants cringe and CEOs are dying to use models that calculate a bigger number, naturally. Lamons references a few Brand Heavyweights: David Aaker, Scott Davis and Interbrand. The Interbrand chart is a good one – it lists three specific metrics: Perceptual, Behavioral and Financial. Check this one out if you want to understand brand research and how to measure value.
Get your Brand Equity vehicle out of the garage and make the trip often, Lamons urges his reading B2B marketing audience. Don’t just calculate Brand Equity, but track its changing value on a regular basis.
In appraising the book there’s little on the downside. Maybe you can argue that its treatment of principles and steps to a success is a tad too brief but the 21 case studies take care of that one. Not much else negative to report. Lamons achieves his objective and the B2B industry should be grateful. The book’s relationship to the discipline of B2B marketing is a valued one. It should earn a place next to Ries and Trout’s Positioning: the Battle for your Mind although it is not as well known.
How can it help your business?
Well, let’s count a few of the ways: one: have your marketing team read it –twice; two –use it as a thought- starter or a basis for a good executive off-site planning session; three- distill the points made and use them as a base for a scorecard and asses your branding efforts.
Rating: 1- 5 star (1= very poor and 5 = excellent)
This book is a 4. It’s not only a good “read” but it’s filled with real-world examples that can stimulate some good strategic thinking.
