Facets of business-to-business brand equity: mixed-methods approach

摘要

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to highlight various aspects of business-to-business brand equity (B2BBE) and explain relative impact of marketing/advertising, research and development (R&D), human resource and distribution network to build compelling business brands that display better firm performance. Design/methodology/approach A total of 51 in-depth semi-structured interviews with distributors and industrial buyers revealed different facets of B2BBE. Generalized method of moments (GMM) was applied on a large-scale panel data set of industrial firms to estimate the effects of firms' R&D, advertising/marketing, distribution and staff training (proxy to sources of B2BBE) on sales. Findings First, varying levels of product application criticality and end-customer brand stature reflect four distinct organizational purchase requirements, namely, assured performance, prestige, brand leaders and commodity. Second, a taxonomy of five sources of B2BBE (prominence, solutions, accessibility, relationships and network strength) manifests buyers' interactive experience during the purchase cycle. Third, it illustrates the positive short-term effect of all explanatory variables coupled with the positive long-term impact of R&D on sales. Originality/value The originality of this paper lies in proposing a comprehensive B2BBE framework based on triangulation; deployment of a common structure to simultaneously investigate distributors and industrial buyers, to discover whether their philosophies reinforce/undermine industrial branding strategies; and suggesting the use of GMM model to arrive at actionable insights.