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Mark S. Glynn is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Business and Law Faculty, AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand. He obtained his PhD in marketing from the University of Auckland. In 2006, Mark won the Emerald/EFMD best thesis award for outstanding doctoral research in the category of marketing strategy. His research experience is in the areas of branding, relationship marketing, business-to-business marketing, and retail channels. Mark Glynn's business-to-business research appears in Industrial Marketing Management, the European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Advances in Business Marketing & Purchasing, Australian Marketing Journal, and Marketing Theory. He also serves on the editorial boards of Industrial Marketing Management and the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing.

In the literature on product branding, significant attention is given to brand equity in the consumer context, but relatively little attention is paid to the application of the concept in the business-to-business (B2B) context. Even less research exists on the role of brand equity in the retailing context. Retailers are often seen as irrelevant to the source of brand value, resulting in manufacturers not targeting retailers to help them build stronger brands. Potential occurs, therefore, for some channel conflict to exist between manufacturers and retailers. On the one hand, retailers tend to focus on building their own, private brands to differentiate themselves from other retail competitors and to increase their power in relation to manufacturer brands. At the same time, most retailers still need to create a good image in the consumer marketplace by selling famous, manufacturer-branded products. In other words, retailers often have to sell famous brands even if they would prefer to sell other brands including their own. Manufacturers tend to focus their brand-building efforts on the consumer market to entice consumers to insist that retailers stock their brands, rather than placing any real emphasis on building a strong and positive brand relationship with the retailer directly.

This chapter examines the empirical evidence about business-to-business (B2B) brands and offers implications for value creation. Brand marketing texts typically emphasize the competitive advantage of strong brands but often assume a consumer branding (B2C) perspective. However some of the world's most valuable brands are predominantly B2B in nature, and the question arises regarding the importance of branding in B2B marketing. This chapter examines the following question. How do B2B brands create and deliver value for firms in interorganizational transactions? The chapter begins by examining the relevance of current theoretical frameworks of branding in the B2B context and the stages of the brand value chain. Next, the chapter considers extant research showing the impact of B2B branding at the various stages of the brand value chain. The chapter also suggests areas for future research in B2B branding and concludes with a reader case study.

The research and the authors spotlighted in this book represent a series of recent exciting developments in the topic of business-to-business (B2B) branding. The papers in this book enhance our understanding of practice in this important facet of the marketing discipline. Furthermore, each author presents areas for future research and important managerial implications. The papers in this book cover a broad spectrum of industries and continents as well as both product and service offerings. The papers address a wide range of B2B applications including resellers, retailers, logistics service providers, subcontractors, hairdressing services, and a producer of high-tech materials. In addition, two papers address branding in B2B markets and pricing more generally. These papers provide details of the research background, methodology, analysis of each study. The topic coverage of this volume is extensive as the following list shows: (1) Building a Strong B2B Brand; (2) Building a Strong Brand to Resellers; (3) B2B Brand Equity: Theory, Measurement, and Strategy; (4) Effective Strategies for B2B Service Brands; (5) Brand Meaning and its Impact in Subcontractor Contexts; (6) Brand Image, Corporate Reputation, and Customer Value; (7) Internal Branding Theory, Research, and Practice; (8) Pricing Theory and Strategy Applications in B2B Brand Management.

Collectively these papers address most aspects of the marketing mix for B2B and industrial marketers. Each of the papers provides valuable brand management insights for managers.

Following this introduction, the Chapter 2, “A Note on Knowledge Development in Marketing,” by Amjad Hajikhani and Peter LaPlaca, examines four themes in the development of marketing management knowledge. The discussion initially considers the scientific basis for the marketing discipline, then the academic divide between academic researchers and marketing managers.

This paper focuses on the role of manufacturer brands for resellers within retail channels. This topic is important because of the strategic value of manufacturer brands and the increasing influence of resellers within channels of distribution. Much of the branding research emphasizes a customer-brand knowledge perspective; however, emerging perspectives suggest that brands are also relevant to other stakeholders including resellers. In contrast, channels research recognizes the manufacturer sources of market power, but does not consider the impact of manufacturer “push and pull” strategies within channels. Existing theoretical frameworks, therefore, do not address the reseller perspective of the brand. As a result, the research approach is a multi-method design, consisting of two phases. The first phase involves in-depth interviews, allowing the development of a conceptual framework. In the second phase, a survey of supermarket buyers on brands in several product categories tests this framework. Structural equation modeling analyzes the survey responses and tests the hypotheses. The structural model shows very good fit to the data with good construct validity, reliability, and stability. The findings show that manufacturer support, brand equity, and customer demand reflect the manufacturer brand benefits to resellers. A key contribution of this research is the development of a validated scale on manufacturer brand benefits from the point of view of a reseller. This research shows that the resources that relate to the brand, not just the brand name itself, create value for resellers in channel relationships.

This book (BBMM) provides knowledge and skill-building training exercises in managing marketing decisions in business-to-business (B2B) contexts. The topic coverage is broad and deep. The intent is for the book to help answer four questions: (1) what questions should executives ask when crafting and implementing effective strategies in B2B contexts; (2) what tentative answers may be useful for executives to consider to these questions; (3) what skills in crafting strategies and decisions are necessary for executives to excel in for achieving effective outcomes consistently; and (4) how should B2B go about acquiring these skills?

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how manufacturers' brands benefit retailers and how these benefits affect retailer evaluations of the brand.

The researchers develop a conceptual framework, from a literature review and qualitative interviews, which outlines the benefits of manufacturers' brands for retailers. A series of hypotheses tests the effects of these brand benefits on retailer brand attitudes. Data are collected using a survey of supermarket category buyers and analysed with structural equation modelling in order to validate this framework.

Manufacturers' brands deliver four benefits to retailers: financial, manufacturer support, meeting customers' expectations and brand equity. Financial benefits and customer expectations have a stronger effect on retailer satisfaction with the brand compared to manufacturer support and brand equity. Retailer satisfaction with the brand is an antecedent to the retailer assessment of brand performance as well as trust and commitment of the brand. An alternative model shows that brand equity influences retailer commitment to the brand and that financial benefits affect retailer performance assessment of the brand.

Manufacturers should think of their brands as channel resources when dealing with retail buyers, and need to consider how to best utilise these four brand benefits to encourage channel support.

This study proposes a conceptual model and measures the influence of manufacturer brand benefits on longer term retailer attitudes towards the brand, which research has not previously addressed.