Marketing

If a brand fails to develop or maintain differentiation, consumers have no basis for choosing it over others. The product's price will then be the determining factor in a decision to purchase. Absent differentiation, says the author, the core of any brand and its associated business -- a loyal customer base -- cannot be created or sustained. In a time when the competitive terrain for most brands is difficult to brutal, the author describes a new tool that can help companies maintain an advantage: the branded differentiator. A branded differentiator can be a feature, service, program or ingredient. To be worthy of the term "differentiator" -- to be more than just a name slapped on a feature -- it must be meaningful to customers; that is, it must be both pertinent and substantial enough to matter when people are purchasing or using the product or service. It must also be actively managed (and thus be able to justify the investment of management time) over an extended period -- years or even decades -- so that it does not become stagnant. This article explores the different types of branded differentiators, the pros and cons of developing them internally versus looking outside for them, and questions about managing these brands-within-brands.

Having received a great deal of attention for decades now, customer satisfaction (CS) practices have become one of the core prescriptions for managers and organizations. Indeed, for many companies, customer satisfaction has become the guiding principle, as they increasingly initiate all manner of strategies and processes under its banner. But more and more, says Fredrik Dahlsten, these practices are losing their effectiveness for companies and their customers alike. Using qualitative research at Volvo Cars, the author illustrates how the interpretation of customer satisfaction can become skewed, employing rigorous and extensive CS measurements, but measuring the wrong variables and using the information in mainly reactive ways. Many companies have only an intrinsic CS focus -- a product orientation based on attribute quality and a short-term internal perspective triggered by surveys and aimed at cost control. With an intrinsic focus, customer satisfaction is seen mostly as the absence of dissatisfaction. In contrast, an extrinsic CS focus emphasizes finding new ways to increase the positive, emotional aspects of the customer experience over time. The author argues that managers who wish to climb out of their customer satisfaction rut must move beyond the mere measurement of quality, refocus their practices on the customer's actual experience and formulate a comprehensive strategy for using that knowledge throughout the organization. He illustrates those concepts by showing how practices at Volvo are being improved to incorporate a greater extrinsic focus and make better use of the resulting customer knowledge.

Conceptual frameworks provide insight into creating marketing strategies targeted at groups.

Companies with the best connections to their customers focus on the people and businesses that buy from them.

Most suppliers lack sufficient customer knowledge to implement anything but the most sales-oriented growth strategies and tactics. If they wish to achieve profitable, sustainable growth and a larger share of their customers’ wallets, they need a fine-grained, disciplined approach to obtaining, leveraging and documenting customer knowledge. James C. Anderson of Northwestern’s Kellogg School and James A. Narus of Wake Forest University have been conducting management-practice research with companies that have superior knowledge of their customers and use it to devise and implement focused, inventive strategies that create profitable growth while increasing the value delivered. Using the examples of best-practice suppliers such as Bank of America, Seghers, Technische Unie, KLM Cargo and Telindus, the authors suggest a strategic framework to guide supplier managers in the selective pursuit of a greater share, predicated on estimating the current share of each customer’s business, selecting and pursuing appropriate and inventive opportunities to increase that share, and carefully documenting the profitability efforts. According to Anderson and Narus, building the scope of the market offering, broadening collaboration and using multiple single sourcing each represent ways of growing business share selectively with a customer while improving profitability for both the supplier and customer.

Research indicates that buyers are more likely to perceive value in global brands.

Research reveals factors that affect the likelihood of transacting business over mobile phones.

How the industry's evolution can inform all e-tail enterprises.