Positioning Guide #13

In business to business marketing, a brand’s unique brand benefit should be economic.

It’s amazing how many business to business marketers obfuscate the value that they deliver to their target customers.  Businesses are economically motivated; they want to make money.  Even not-for-profit enterprises want to operate as efficiently as possible.  Thus, business to business marketers need to tell their target business customers how their unique brand benefit will increase the customer’s revenue and/or decrease their costs. 

Despite the simplicity of economic appeal in business to business marketing, business to business marketers often speak obtusely about the value they are delivering.  A currently popular phrase is “solutions provider”. A quick Google search will show 5.5 million matches for the phrase “solutions provider.”  The business customer will dismiss such appeals without even remembering them because the phrase is both vague and empty.  Solutions to what?  It doesn’t answer how the marketer is going to make the customer’s business more profitable.

Vague statements of providing value are also common in business to business marketing.  A Google search on the phrase “we deliver value” yields 43,500 hits.  However, few of these marketers are able to quantify in dollar amount the value that they deliver to their customers.  A good unique brand benefit for business to business marketers say that the marketer is going to saving the customer money and/or help the customer generate more revenue.  The challenge of business to business brand positioning is to express this brand benefit in a unique way.

Positioning Guide 12

Product benefits often serve as benefit supports for a brand benefit.

Marketers in all product categories fall in love with their products.  As a result of this love of product, they want to talk about their products more than end-users want to hear about their products.  And often they forget to tie the product benefits to the brand benefit.

As an example, Ford stylists and marketers expected the second generation of Tarus to be a success because of the oval styling.  They proudly said that the side sculpting of the vehicle when viewed directly from the side with overhead lighting produced an oval shadow on the side.  How many consumers noticed?  Not enough to make the model a marketplace success.

One of my favorite example brands is Pantene Pro V shampoo.  The target customers are women, and what do women want out of a shampoo?  Beautiful shiny hair.  Why do women want beautiful shiny hair?  So that they’ll get hugs and kisses from attractive people.  Hugs and kisses from attractive people (social want/need) is the root motivating benefit for this product category.  Pantene Pro V is vitamin enriched which contributes to healthy hair.  If Pantene Pro V stopped at healthy hair, they would just be stating a product benefit and healthy hair doesn’t directly lead to hugs and kisses from attractive people.  So Pantene Pro V goes one step further with the theme-line, “For hair so healthy it shines.”  An example commercial for this brand may be found on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxswBtKkKUE

If you’ve read my biography on the blog home page, you saw that I spent many years doing marketing in the tire category.  One of the best product launches that I saw in my career was for a consumer passenger tire name the Michelin HydroEdge (following the game rule of good names are suggestive of use or benefit).  At that time, the unique brand benefit of the Michelin brand was security of the family (social want/need)/  Michelin trains its salespeople in feature / advantage / benefit selling.  The benefit, however, is a product benefit, not a brand benefit.  Nevertheless, marketing people can focus on those product benefits which support the brand benefit of security. Here are a couple of examples of product benefits of the Michelin HydroEdge that support the unique brand benefit of security:

Moving from the consumer product category to the business-to-business product category, the Michelin X One commercial truck tire has product features/advantages/ benefits that directly support an economic brand benefit of increasing the end-user’s revenue.  In some trucking vocations, such as bulk hauling, vehicles reach their weight limit before the vehicle is full.  If the tires and wheels weigh less, then the operator can carry more cargo thereby increasing revenue.  To demonstrate the weight savings of the Michelin X One over a set of dual tires in tractor and trailer application, the marketing people have developed the chart below.

Note that this example stops with the product benefit of weight savings.  Target end-users will be forced to make the translation of weight savings > carry more cargo > make more money.  The impact of this chart would be increased if some dollar amounts reflecting “make more money” were included.  While it would be best to have dollar amounts which could be generalized to all target end-users, a testimonial could serve the same purpose.

Positioning Guide #11

While a brand should have one, and only one, unique brand benefit, it may have many benefit supports.

Benefit supports to some advertising people are called “permissions to believe.”  They are specifics to which marketers can point to make their claim of a brand benefit believable to target end-users.  They may be product features/advantages/benefits, endorsements, testimonials … anything that makes your unique brand benefit believable to your target customers.  Recall from Positioning Guide #7 that you should constrain yourself to only one unique brand benefit; however, you can list as many benefit supports as you wish.

Most marketers find it difficult to constrain themselves to one unique brand benefit.  If something is good, they want to claim it for their brand.  Be disciplined and focus on only one unique brand benefit.  Shift the urge to claim more than one unique brand benefit to your benefit supports and develop compelling supports that make your unique brand benefit believable to your target customers.

Positioning Guide #10

In consumer marketing, a brand with unique brand benefit which satisfies a higher order want/need in Maslow’s hierarchy will have fewer competitive substitutes than a brand with a unique brand benefit which satisfies a lower order want/need.

Returning to the sports drink category to illustrate this guide, all sports drinks promise to quench thirst.  This satisfaction of thirst is a basic physiological want/need.  There are many competitive substitutes which could also quench thirst: water, juice, beer, etc.  A brand position which promises to satisfy a lower order want/need will find itself open to many competitive substitutes.

Some sports drinks promise to provide extra energy.  While just providing energy is the satisfaction of a physiological want/need, providing extra energy is probably the satisfaction of safety wants/needs.  So what competitive substitute in the beverage category could also provide the value of extra energy?  Anything with sugar.  Still lots of competitive substitutes.

Gatorade promises to make its target customers winners.  With all of their marketing investment in sports over the years, they have become closely associated with the attribute of winning.  So much so that Gatorade has become part of American culture with everyone expecting the the coach of the winning Super Bowl team will have the iced cooler of Gatorade dumped on him at the end of the game.  What competitive substitute in the beverage category will satisfy the ego want/need of being a winner.  The answer is nothing. 

Positioning Guide #9 told us that a product benefit is not a brand benefit.  If a marketer focuses on product benefits, such as “quenches thirst” or “provides extra energy”, your saying that your brand satisfies a lower order want/need in Maslow’s hierarchy.  Your target customer knows that there are a variety of products and brands that could satisfy that lower order want/need.  Marketers who focus on product benefits aren’t giving their target customers a reason to consider their brands.