At the end of the factory tour, the managing director took us aside and confidently declared: “You know, in capital goods marketing, it’s all about the chief salesman… The brand I am… Everything else is just expensive ski, which we can’t afford precisely because of the Asian competition… In addition, our product is so in need of explanation that you can’t put many technical details on a simple formula anyway…”.

As we only learned later, several key customers of this German mechanical engineering company have already had a generational change in full swing. Several strategic positions within the buying centers had been filled by internationally trained experts who not only made their own professional judgement. Instead, they brought with them unexpected and, from his point of view, annoying questions regarding radically new business models and value chains. In the end, the customer trusted a New-Comer, who positioned himself more flexibly than the traditional southern German company with his team and his entire market presence as an innovation partner and enabler.

The more complex a decision-making situation becomes, the more people must be willing to trust their own intuition. In order to cast the last doubts for a contract award overboard, customers must have absolute confidence in the brand of their suppliers. This applies in particular to B2B specialists. In order to be able to perceive this brand confidence, a jolt must go through the communication of many capital goods manufacturers. Instead of a further increase in factually functional added value, investments should be made primarily in the emotional brand core: Story Telling is more than the brand myth of the founding team and its now dusty garage stories. For example, BASF has 140. birthday party, alternatively, asked its customers and employees about their very personal encounters with BASF. This collective emotional memory is now regularly used in acquisitions and training sessions. Customers want to be impressed.

Such an emotional quantum leap can trigger B2B Brandlands. Interactive art worlds invite you to experience a problem solution in a personal way. The importance of how we perceive a product with our senses cannot be overestimated. Multisensory usability concepts create curiosity and desire to use a product. The key questions are: How does the B2B brand feel haptically? What unmistakable sound does it emanate? Which inner images are activated?

Classic export approaches are discontinued models. In former emerging markets in particular, local job creation is increasingly expected. Social and environmental projects, improvements in occupational safety and sustainable production processes are part of the reputation of a B2B brand, as are factually functional values.

Although the role of top seller should come first in the future, there are a number of communication channels that are either used too little or not in line with the core messages of a brand strategy in the B2B business: Social networks serve to meet and exchange experiences between experts and users. Sales and advertising have to stay outside. B2B brands thus position themselves as opinion leaders and problem solvers. Open Innovation invites you to participate. Special questions for which there are no internal competences can be addressed and rewarded to a community.

These few examples show that the construction or relaunch of a B2B brand usually still offers a lot of growth potential. However, this must not end solely in a new paint job or search for a claim. If you are a B2B company on this journey, you should ask yourself the following key questions:

1. What values do I stand for?

2. Why is my brand a competent partner (co-branding) and an attractive employer (internal branding)?

3. What makes my company an attractive, secure investment (positioning the brand to the financial community)?

4. Where is my brand different from the competition, both objectively and emotionally?

5. On which future topics from Economics & Work, Politics & Law, Media & Culture, Science & Technology, Ecology & Energy do I want to position myself?

Those who have hearty, surprising and memorable answers will easily design their future B2B word-image brand in a purposeful and creative way. An investment that will pay off in the next price war with the customer.