CH#2 Developing Marketing Strategies

and Plans
Q.1 How is building a brand in a business-to-business context
different from doing so in the consumer market?
Building a strong brand that is able to set a company apart from other business is
always an important job. However depending on who the intended client is
determines how the company will build their brand. A brand is defined as a name,
term, sign, symbol, or design, or any combination to identify goods and services of
a seller or group of sellers.(2007) According to Walter Landor, founder of the
Landor Associates, the world’s leading brand consulting firm; a brand is a promise
that the company will provide satisfaction and quality. (Burgess, C) While many
things in branding are the same, building a brand that supports brand to brand,
B2B, or brand to customer, B2C, sales has slight differences. In B2B branding, a
focus will be made on making a strong connection with the client business in
order to make their brand seen as the top choice and safe to do business with. In
order to do this, the brand will be built around making strong and personal
relationships with the customer to become the go-to source. Instead of mass
marketing and small ads, B2B branding requires that the business be willing to
accept the time to completely educate the professional buyers about the brand.
These professional buyers are used because they are well informed about the
needs and goals of the purchase,and focus on purchasing a product that allows
them to achieve higher revenues at a lower total cost then other competitive
businesses. (Kotler)These buyers will be less influenced about the price and
demand that the brand will be available when needed. For this, the brand will
need to have a simplified supply chain and logistics to meet these demands.In B2C
branding, the consumer market looks at a vast majority of people.While
customers can develop a strong connection to a brand, little is spent for
personnel information; relying instead on mass communications such as TV, radio,
and magazine ads that are distributed. In making a brand become a top choice for
consumers, things such as price, packaging, color,characteristics, name and logo
are all designed to attract the average individual. (Media, D)

In using the Cisco Company as an example, there B2B and B2C branding has been
different. In the being Cisco would have spent their time and energy branding the
company in a way to show their electronic hardware as the best choice for
specific client company. Now as they expand to the average consumer, they focus
on making themselves known on a mass market; making things such as the
Linksys routers a house hold name.

Q.2 Is Cisco’s plan to reach out to consumers a viable one? Why or

why not?
To answer the question of whether Coco’s plan is viable or not we must first
define what constitutes a “viable” plan.

According to the case study, Coco’s goal is to increase verbal Internet trams,
wanly ultimately roller anemia Tort Its networking unaware products. (Kettle and
Keller 2012) As Kettle and Keller also point out “Coco’s revenues increased 41
percent from 2006 to 2008, led by sales increases in both home and business use.
By the end of 2008, Coco’s revenue topped $39. B and Business Week ranked it
the 18th biggest global brand. ” Clearly they have achieved their goal of reaching
out to the consumer market and in doing so have increased their shareholder
value.

Now that we have established what the target was and confirmed that Cisco had
a viable plan to reach their consumers it’s time to answer he questions how and
why. Mindy Chalk put it this way when she was analyzing Coco’s early struggles in
the consumer markets. “Eradicating Jargon internally and externally has also
helped Cisco. It aimed to change the way in which it was seen by customers,
employees and shareholders by changing how it communicates, defining and
rolling out its tone of voice, which employees have adopted. She went on to say
that, “This was because engineers who developed the products were the ones
naming and describing them. Those names were used internally and then
externally by the sales force and marketing departments, among others.
However, Coco’s customers didn’t fully understand the product terms. ”
“Customers felt like they were wasting time and these are people that are
advocates, evangelize our solutions and services,” says Michael Lent, director of
brand experience at Cisco. The experience demanded clarity in the [tone of] voice
and how we presented ourselves to our customers. …

When we are designing the brand experience there are steps and foundational
pieces that need to be put in place, one of which systemically we had to fix and
that was language. ” (Chalk 2013) As stated in question 1, one of the biggest
ruinations hurdles that had to be overcome was converting from being
technologically specific to being simple to understand and easy to implement.

Q.3 Discuss how Intel changed ingredient-marketing history.What did

it do so well in those initial marketing campaigns?
In 1980s, Intel faced a problem to distinguish itself from the competitors and tried
to convince consumers to pay more for its high performance products. By creating
the ingredient-branding campaign, Intel mended the matter and made history in
1991. To become distinctive, it chose a name for its latest microprocessor
introduction that could be trademarked, Pentium. The “Intel Inside” campaign
was the answer for the brand awareness problem. This campaign helped move
the Intel brand name outside the PC and into the minds of customers when the
Intel gave significant rebates to computer manufacturers to include Intel logo in
their PC ads or add the “Intel Inside” sticker on the outside of theirs PCs and
laptops. It succeeded in distinction and then raising customer’s brand awareness
in its very first step of marketing campaign. The later achievements came from
several effective and identifiable marketing campaigns in the late 1990s to
become a recognizable and well-liked ingredient brand name. Special
advertisements coming out with “Bunny People” series had made strong
impression in the audience’s mind. Famous Blue Man Group was also used in its
commercials for Pentium III and Pentium IV. Intel effectively utilized the basic
factors of advertising like creativity and used celebrities’ influence with the public
to draw most attention of consumers.
In 2000s, Intel promoted its development by doing more marketing efforts. New
products were developed to extend its target market. In 2003, a multimillion-
dollar media effort was made around the new platform called “Unwired” which
based on the core product Centrino, a unique integration of a new
microprocessor, an extended battery, and wireless capabilities. Although the PC
industry slowed in the mid-2000s, Intel continued to lead the market by seeking
opportunities in new growth areas such as home entertainment and mobile
devices with Viiv and Centrino Duo. A remarkable reposition campaign was
carried out to change Intel from a brainy microprocessor company to a “warm
and fuzzy company”. A replacement in logo and slogan from familiar “Intel Inside”
to “Leap Ahead” happened, too. New improved products has been continuing to
be regularly launched to consolidate Intel’s position and expand its new market.
Classmate PC for children in remote regions of the world in Learning Series in
2007, Atom processor for mobile Internet devices, netbooks, and nettops in 2008,
the Intel Core i7 in the same year brought in turn a big revenue for the company.
Intel’s most recent ad campaign named “Sponsors of Tomorrow” was the effort to
improve the Intel’s brand awareness in customer’s mind.

In conclusion, Intel did a series of marketing campaigns to help it become the top
brands in the world. Focusing on creating trademark, positioning its brands,
making a series of attractive ads and finding new opportunities accompanies with
upgrading continuously its powerful products, Intel made it to be one of the most
valuable brands in the world.

Q.4 Evaluate Intel’s more recent marketing efforts. Did they lose
something by dropping the “Intel Inside” tagline or not?
In mid-2000s, the PC industry got into slow development and it influenced all the
related companies, not excluding Intel. This urged Intel to change and if they want
to grow more, they have to make an innovation. They took action by creating a
new $2 billion global marketing campaign: changing their familiar “Intel Inside”
tagline, creating new logo and repositioning the company. Things stuck into
customers’ mind whenever they think about Intel are all changed. There will be
no more “Intel Inside”, it’s “Reap Ahead” instead. This new clearly outstanding
slogan showed us new company’s direction will reflect in their future products
and culture.

The question is whether Intel lost something by dropping the “Intel Inside” tagline
or not. In my opinion, they lost their “traditional value” that is the familiar “Intel
Inside” tagline but this change is necessary to adapt to the development of
economy and the change of market. Change is inevitable and a market leader
must be willing to embrace change to maintain the leadership position rather
than resist it.

Some people who identify themselves with the old tagline will find it difficult to
get used to the new slogan. But customers who trusted in the Intel’s quality will
not doubt their new products with new slogan and logo. Because the good
reputation of Intel which helped them become a giant in microprocessor
producing industry, has been deeply established in consumer’s mind. They can’t
simply be replaced or rejected.

The new slogan of Intel “Leap Ahead” indicated their ambition to lead the market,
continue to creating new things that meet the needs of people from all walks of
life. And in fact, they took the initiative in market expansion. There are many
examples for that: Viiv aimed at home entertainment enthusiasts, Centrino Duo
mobile, Classmate PC for children in remote regions of the world, Atom
processor, and especially is Intel Core i7 for video, 3-D gaming and advanced
computer activities. The positive effects eventually came in their new product’s
consumption showed that the board of managers of Intel took the right action.
They lost some old value by dropping the “Intel Inside” tagline but what they
gained is more enormous. The recent ads campaign aimed to improve the
company’s brand awareness entitled “Sponsors of Tomorrow” emphasized their
new slogan and highlighted their role in changing the future of technology.