Business-to-Business Pack | | | Bob Lamons, Published by Thomson, 2005
ISBN: 0-324-39865-4ReviewHardcover, 160 pagesThe Case For B2B Branding (by Bob Lamons) is a refreshing overview of the principles of business branding. The book is divided into two clear-cut and well defined sections: part one details the “seven simple steps to effective brand image management”; the second part details twenty-one B2B “branding” case studies from some of the world’s best known (and less well known) business and industrial companies. This section is a gem: the Intel “story”, for example, includes visuals from the early unsophisticated Intel campaigns for the 286 and 386 chips; hard to believe it’s the same company that eventually came up with “Intel Inside”.Bob Lamons’ career spans 33 years and he has the closest thing to an impeccable B2B pedigree: he is a highly recognized B2B practitioner; he writes a monthly column for AMA Marketing News; he served for 11 years on the Board of the Business Marketing Association including one year as chair and has received prestigious publishing awards. He is currently Chief Marketing Officer for Unleaded Communications of Houston, Texas and can be reached at lamons@ulcomm.com.PART ONE – The seven step process for building strong B2B brands: * Chapter 1 – Introduction – in this chapter Bob Lomans summarizes his basic philosophy of B2B branding: “keep it simple”. The author also details the seven steps for B2B brand building and emphasizes the need for B2B marketers to be more attuned to branding. * Chapter 2 - Effective teamwork – this premise stipulates the seven “team” members that must band together behind the B2B branding strategy: the CEO, CMO, CFO, HR, Sales, Customer Service, Marcom. The author defines quite precisely the role of each of these in formulating brand strategies – it’s a fairly generic portrayal that could easily apply to most B2B or industrial companies. *