بررسی ادبیات و دستور کار آینده برای برند B2B: چالش های نام تجاری در زمینه B2B

The existing body of research knowledge on brand management has been predominantly derived from business-to-consumer markets, particularly fast moving consumer goods and has only recently started to expand in other contexts. Branding in business-to-business markets has received comparatively little attention in the academic literature due to a belief that industrial buyers are unaffected by the emotional values corresponding to brands. This paper provides a critical discussion of the fragmented literature on business-to-business branding which is organized in five themes: B2B branding benefits; the role of B2B brands in the decision making process; B2B brand architecture; B2B brands as communication enablers and relationship builders; and industrial brand equity. Drawing on the gaps and contradictions in the literature the paper concludes by proposing an agenda for future research.

Branding is a discipline that has emerged from the consumer goods domain particularly fast moving consumer goods (FMCG). Historically, brand has been inextricably linked to the product (e.g. Gardner & Levy, 1955) and branding is seen as the process of adding value to the product (Farquhar, 1989). A brand is a cluster of functional and emotional benefits that extend a unique and welcomed promise (de Chernatony & McDonald, 2003). This conceptualization of a brand is universal and applies to various domains including FMCG, internet services and B2B (de Chernatony and Christodoulides, 2004 and Lynch and de Chernatony, 2007). What changes in every context is the enactment of the brand. It is argued that the concept of a brand is universal however some adjustments are required in line with the specific context applied; in this case the B2B context. Branding has myopically been viewed by business marketers as largely irrelevant to business markets. Associated mostly with emotional value, branding was believed to offer very little to what is traditionally considered a very rational process i.e. the organizational decision making process (Robinson, Faris, & Wind, 1967). More recent research acknowledges that despite the differences between B2C and B2B contexts (e.g. fewer and larger buyers in B2B markets) both B2C and B2B brands need to engender trust and develop both cognitive and affective ties with stakeholders (Lynch & de Chernatony, 2004). Various changes in the business environment such as the increasing homogeneity of product quality and the decreasing number of personal relationships due to digital communications have also lead to an increase in the interest in B2B branding (Baumgarth, 2010). The paper makes an attempt to bring together the fragmented body of research on B2B branding. Through a systematic and critical review we identify contradictions and gaps in the pertinent literature and propose an agenda to push B2B branding research forward. It is noted that the majority of studies on the subject were predominantly published in the last decade with a substantial research stream appearing in the literature only very recently (e.g. Gupta et al., 2010a, Gupta et al., 2010b, Ohnemus, 2009, Roper and Davies, 2010, Wise and Zednickova, 2009, Zablah et al., 2010 and Zaichkowsky et al., 2010). The paper is organized in five sections. It opens by reviewing the main benefits and problems associated with B2B branding. It then focuses on the decision-making process of industrial buyers by highlighting the relative importance of brand as an evaluation criterion as well as the role of the decision making unit and nature of the buyer in branding decisions. Next we examine alternative brand architecture options for B2B organizations and contextualize branding within a relationship marketing paradigm. The last section of the literature review focuses on the concept of brand equity by discussing the applicability of consumer-based brand equity models in a B2B setting. The paper concludes with a proposed agenda for future research.

This paper provides a literature review on B2B branding and identifies an agenda for future research. Our review of the pertinent literature has suggested that the academic inquiry on the subject is limited, fragmented and inconclusive. Whilst the mainstream B2C branding literature has almost unanimously embraced a multi-faceted perspective of brand that goes beyond the mere name and logo, the majority of B2B branding research still adopts a narrow and myopic view of the brand. We have identified five broad areas (B2B branding benefits; the role of B2B brands in the decision making process; B2B brand architecture; B2B brands as communication enablers and relationship builders; and industrial brand equity) within which we need to have more systematic and rigorous research to develop further understanding of how branding can be applied in a B2B context. The basic research questions that need to be addressed under each theme are outlined in Table 2 and discussed in more detail below.