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May 16th, 2008
Director Nick Hague’s second Thursday Night Insight post takes a look at what the colours we adopt in both our personal and business lives really say about us.
If you want to get ahead, wear red.
Well I would say that wouldn’t I, being an avid Manchester United supporter, especially in the aftermath of their winning the English Premier League last weekend. However, it appears it might not be all down to the tantalizing skills of Ronaldo and Rooney but have something to do with the colour of United’s home kit. So say academics anyway who have analysed all the English Football League results since 1945. It seems that red is a testosterone-fuelled colour that exudes strength, aggressiveness and passion.
It must be said that my view might be slightly biased, but has the colour chosen for Manchester United’s home kit played a significant part in the club’s success; especially when viewed against their city rivals, Manchester City? And can the same be said when looking at other derby rivals? What about Liverpool and Everton or even Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur – has colour influenced the historical path that these clubs have trodden? Even when looking further afield to the USA, attempting to determine who the best all-time NBA basketball team isn’t easy, but surely the 1995 Chicago Bulls team would come close, especially if viewed on the most games won in a single season.
Of course, there isn’t one deciding factor in success but colour does play a part and the same should be said within business. Branding is all about communicating the essence of your company, your products and your services to your own personnel and to the wider world. It is about letting existing and potential customers, and your staff, know what sort of company you are and what they can expect from you. It is an intricate process of combining visual communication with behaviour to create an image in the public’s mind of who you are.
Far too often, companies approach their marketing and logo creation in a very simplistic way. Many companies spend so much time focusing on second guessing their target market and don’t put enough resource behind market research to find out the market’s view on a brand, what it stands for and the brand personality. Branding research can deliver a wide range of colours that can be used differently to deliver consistency and powerful positioning in logos, corporate marketing, packaging and even uniforms. Take a look at the colours below and what they stand for:
- Red – strength, aggressive, passion, boldness
- Blue – regal, authority, dignity, security, faithful
- Orange - fun, cheeriness, warmth, positivity but can also look cheap if used on its own
- Green – environment, tranquility, health, freshness
- Pink - femininity, innocence, softness, health
- Yellow – optimism, motivated, energy, cheerful
- Purple - sophistication, spirituality, royalty, mystery
- Brown - earthiness and subtle richness
- White - purity, truthfulness, contemporary, refined
- Black – somber, serious, distinctive, bold, classic
- Grey - authority, practical, conservative
What does your corporate brand say to you and your market?
For more information about how B2B International and market research can help you and your company please visit our pages on branding and corportate positioning, or take a look at our white papers for information on branding in b2b markets.
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Thursday Night Insight, Nick Hague, Branding |
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May 15th, 2008
The Market Research Podcast, the highly successful podcast site from B2B International, relaunches on Monday 19th May following a well deserved break!
2007 was an incredibly successful debut year for the Market Research Podcast and, after a few months working on new material - including a brand new audio book - we decided it was time to return.
Next Monday (19th May) sees the publishing of the first in a three-part podcast series on Marketing & Selling to Chinese companies. Following that, on the 9th June we will be starting the serialisation of our new free audio book “Questionnaire Design”. If you simply can’t wait until then, why not have a listen to our two audio books that are already available by clicking here.
Make sure you are subscribed to the podcast - if you aren’t already, visit the Market Research Podcast site at www.themarketresearchpodcast.com. Remember to check back on Monday!
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May 15th, 2008
Since the start of the new millennium, direct mail volumes in the UK increased year on year until 2003, but have been in steady – some might say dramatic – decline ever since. Whilst a low of 4.65 billion direct mail items in 2007 is not to be sniffed at, it is nevertheless a drop of some 14% from 2003’s high of 5.43 billion items.
Direct mail volumes
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2007
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4.65 billion items
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2006
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5.02 billion items
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2005
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5.13 billion items
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2004
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5.41 billion items
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2003
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5.43 billion items
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2002
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5.23 billion items
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2001
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4.93 billion items
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Source: Royal Mail
By contrast, the growth of digital marketing has been well documented, both in terms of volume and of increased design/technical capabilities. Of course, with digital marketing seemingly taking precedence over more traditional forms of direct mail, it does potentially leave a gap in the market for really eye-catching and attention-grabbing direct mail pieces. Nevertheless, the marketing agencies that are currently thriving are those that have embraced the concept of digital marketing with both hands.
Unsurprisingly, this digital growth has touched other areas of marketing, and we in the market research industry have witnessed a huge increase in online market research applications.
First of all, quantitative desk research has been transformed over the past decade or so. Visits to the library and the purchase of huge directories, which are out of date before they have even been opened, are almost things of the past since so much - and such up to date - information is available online, if you know where to look.
Then we have online focus groups, which are an innovative, cost-effective and increasingly popular way of carrying out qualitative research into the opinions of small groups of respondents. More information on this technique is available in our white paper, Using Online Focus Groups.
Web surveys have become the preferred method of data collection for many of our larger-scale customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction surveys, since they have the potential to offer significant cost and time savings, as well as increased data accuracy.
The advancement of technology and constant evolution of digital techniques in so many aspects of our business life need not signal the end to traditional ways of working, but there’s no doubt that new and exciting opportunities are presenting themselves all the time.
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May 12th, 2008
Following the opening of its new office in New York, B2B International is pleased to announce the dates of its New York business-to-business marketing workshops in October 2008.
The workshops will take an interactive format and be led by senior business-to-business marketing and market research practitioners. There are two workshops - on Tuesday 21st October and Wednesday 22nd October - each of which is designed to provoke discussion and learning around key business-to-business issues.
On Day 1 (Tuesday 21st October) we will consider the challenge of branding and differentiation in business-to-business markets. For example, how do make our offer distinct when our competitors offer something extremely similar, and when the buyer’s decision-making unit is dispersed throughout the organisation?
On Day 2 (Wednesday 22nd October) we consider the equally significant challenge of segmentation and CVP development in business-to-business markets, on an international basis. For example, is it effective to rely on the obvious firmographic criteria of geography, company size and company type when targeting our offering at a worldwide b2b market? If we decide to use a needs-based segmentation, how can we reliably identify the needs of the market and how do we implement the segmentation? What are the implications of implementing a single CVP across different geographies?
The workshops will be led by Paul Hague, a world-renowned business-to-business marketing and market research expert, with 35 years’ experience behind him. Paul remarks:
We have conducted business-to-business marketing workshops for some of the largest corporations in the world, across the fields of engineering, chemical and petrochemical, gases, construction, pulp & paper and many more. In the last year alone, we have run sessions in Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore and London, with great success. Our New York office allows us to bring this offering to our many US-based clients.
A detailed programme of the sessions will shortly be made available. In the mean time, enquiries regarding the workshops or our market research capability in the United States should be directed to our New York office at newyork@b2binternational.com.
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May 9th, 2008
In his first Thursday Night Insight post, Research Executive Oliver Truman looks at how an unlabelled 170 year old beer serves to illustrate some important points on the nature of brands.
Belgium. Famous for fine chocolates, Brussels sprouts, statues of urinating children and also as the country that gave the world the Duffel coat. Furthermore, and contrary to the belief that it’s impossible to name 3 famous Belgians, it’s also the birthplace of Audrey Hepburn, Hergé and, erm, Jean-Claude van Damme. And all of this, without even mentioning that it arguably produces some of the best beer in the world.
I can certainly attest to this last point having visited the country recently – Not only is it a far more diverse country than it’s ever given credit for – it must also be said that the ale in Belgium is pretty good, too.
You may, at this point, be wondering where on Earth I’m going with all these misty-eyed (and, it could be said, dreadfully stereotyped) ramblings about the place. Well, it comes back to the beer…
You see, during my trip I was lucky enough to have sampled what is considered by many to be the finest beer in the world: Westvleteren Abt 12. This shining example of tradition over the depressing homogeneity of the modern world has been brewed by Trappist monks at the Abbey of Saint Sixtus of Westvleteren for around 170 years, with little change in the methods or scale of production in that time. Indeed, production levels have remained static since about 1946, in spite of skyrocketing demand for the stuff and record levels of brand awareness.
The monks’ view is a pragmatic one – "We sell beer to live, and not vice versa", in the words of Brother Joris, the brewery director. To this end, the monks have never advertised their ale and it continues to be sold in unassuming, label-free brown bottles. The question then arises: how has the “brand” of Westvleteren been cultivated?
On first blush, the fact that I should even describe Westvleteren as a brand, and not a quaint cottage industry may be anathema to some. It is easy to simply think of brands as being constructed from logos, slogans and colour schemes all backed-up with global, wall-to-wall advertising in the manner of big consumer names like Coke or Nike.
This is anything but the case: instead, brands are probably best thought of as the consistent norms or values that become attached to a company or product. In all sorts of ways, brands are shortcuts for the feelings and connotations we all attach to particular commodities and entities.
In this respect, Westvleteren is just as much a brand as any other: The tradition and folklore surrounding the product, and the undeniable quirkiness that this brings, all serve to create a strong identity - the like of which many marketers would kill for. That said, it’s probably safe to assume that the monks of Saint Sixtus don’t see it this way.
And all of this has direct relevance for those operating in Business to Business markets. Very often in these more specialist, niche markets, the visual aspects of a brand may be less pertinent than to bigger, consumer-oriented multinationals. However, this isn’t to say that branding shouldn’t concern B2B companies – it just happens to be manifested in different ways.
Just like the wider public, industrial buyers purchase on the basis of trust. This means that other projections of a company’s ethos and values become especially important – and this may include, just as in the case of Westvleteren, the provenance of a product or an unusual story behind a company.
However, while all this is easy to assert, perhaps the most difficult part of cultivating a successful brand is firstly identifying precisely what an organisation’s strengths and core values are. With years of experience in helping organisations to build effective corporate identities, this is something that B2B International is pretty good at.
More information about branding is available through the following B2B white papers:
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