Agentur Brandingagentur B2B INCREON Shanghai

There are only a few principles for efficient brand management. If you adhere to them, you will be successful – over the long run. At the heart of brand building is the core statement “Better first than better”. This has been confirmed time and again in brand policy. The first one to be on the customer’s mind has already won. Imitators are always the second to argue cheaper and better. But if the customer has the choice, the customer will prefer to buy from the market leader, the original, from the leading specialist. Only there do quality, experience and recognition come together in the customer’s perception.

However, one thing must be clearly distinguished: What must be the first thing on the customer’s mind is the B2B brand, not advertisements and promotions. Why? Emotional advertising does not yet make an emotional brand. Only a clear brand strategy and positioning strategy and, derived from this, a mature, coherent brand personality lay the foundation for lasting and revenue-generating advertising in the sense of B2B brand building. When all those elements are present, only one creative idea that divides the market in one’s own favour – and to which one remains loyal and which over the long term ensures a clear image of the brand in the customer’s mind – is sufficient. This can happen by creating a new category that divides the market into black and white and repositions the competition. Then brand success becomes market success.

Make your market

If you wish to exploit the full potential of your B2B brand, you have to neutralize and reposition the competition in the minds of your customers. “Everything for everyone” is the antithesis to success in brand building and brand management. A strategic branding process that is integrated into the brand-oriented management of the company significantly helps to extend the lead of one’s own brand in sales markets, labour markets, and opinion markets.

Our strategic branding process

The strategic branding process at our agency is a holistic approach that successfully contributes to B2B brand building and sustainable brand management.

  • In phase 1, our focus is on brand analysis. Brand analysis provides the basics, draws a picture of the brand environment, and shows current brand performance. The results of analysis provide future-oriented starting points for brand optimisation and future brand development.
  • Phase 2 is dedicated to the brand strategy. The strategy is, first of all, about divergence (differentiation) or evolution (further development). The brand strategy focuses, dividing the market in favour of one’s own brand. Brand positioning, brand core, and brand values are the key concepts during this phase. It is important to occupy an available position in the market in the long term and to consistently build up and expand this position for the brand.
  • In phase 3, brand creation, the foundations for the way the B2B brand affects the senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch) are created. This gives the brand a soul and defines the forms of how the brand is experienced. This makes the brand authentic, and this perceived quality becomes the key to brand and market success.
  • Phase 4 of the strategic branding process focuses on building a brand over the long term. With patience, the B2B brand conquers the market by consistently focusing on the right brand strategy and positioning strategy and reaching people’s minds and hearts. In combination with ongoing brand controlling, the understanding and behaviour of the brand grow. This knowledge flows into the ongoing measures and thus ensures a lasting increase in brand value and brand performance.

The brand work our agency performs for our clients is oriented to this strategic branding process.

Our digital branding process

Digitisation, and with it the Internet, is a constantly growing cosmos and never “finished”. Digital brand success lies in building a structure that can flexibly follow this development without losing its inner values. The digital branding process at our agency takes place in three stages, whereby it becomes more of a permanent control loop the deeper one dives into it.

  • The “digital check-up” is at the start. Onsite and offsite must always be considered equally. Analysis, tests and workshops show the current performance of the digital brand and provide starting points for optimisation.
  • The next step is about the “digital content architecture”. Consulting, strategy, and conceptual design define the goals of digital branding and describe the path of digital evolution.
  • In the “digital evolution phase”, the focus is on creation, implementation, and digital brand management. Ongoing check-ups, monitoring, and observation of trends lead to the constant development of content and technology. New digital and multimedia possibilities make strategy adjustments necessary again and again. At the same time, however, the brand core must not fall by the wayside. This is the great challenge in digital branding.