This blog originally appeared at Content Bureau.
Have you been watching 30 Rock lately? Or The Office? CSI:NY? Heroes? If so, you probably know about Cisco TelePresence, a high-end videoconferencing system that makes it seem as if everyone participating in a virtual meeting is actually in the same room.
Cisco TelePresence is a B2B brand—at least, it started out as one when it launched in 2006. Because of its high price point (US$300,000), it has been aimed primarily at large companies that can afford it. It’s an awesome technology, but not exactly the kind of thing you’d pick up at Best Buy.
So, why is it on TV? Because Cisco has realized that in technology marketing, the lines between B2B and B2C are blurring. Pushing TelePresence directly into the public eye signals a new type of marketing strategy for B2B companies, one that Cisco strongly leads. Let’s call this trend B2B&C.
B2B + B2C = B2B&C
For decades, Cisco’s name wasn’t well known outside of the networking space where it has long been a giant. But now, the Cisco brand is everywhere. Check out this video, courtesy of Wikileaks, showing Cisco’s product placements over the past year in TV and movies. (You see? I do not exaggerate.)
Take Cisco IP phones: They are now in every classroom at my kid’s public school. Cisco recently acquired Pure Digital, makers of the Flip recorder—you’ve probably seen their TV ads this holiday season. It has even dipped its corporate toes into the home entertainment business. As for Cisco TelePresence, it is rumored that a consumer version of the technology is in development. A more affordable version, aimed at medium-sized businesses, has already been released.
B2B branding: Names, not numbers
As sophisticated technology—from video conferencing to smartphones—becomes more accessible to consumers, brands become more important. In our daily lives, we’re used to using brands, and brand names, as data points in evaluating purchases. In fact, we rely on brands as shorthand for attributes such as price point, reliability, and coolness. Sony? Expensive. Dell? Workhorse. Apple? Elegant.
B2B branding has relied traditionally on a strong “master brand” strategy, in which the corporate brand is the only brand, and all products and services under it are given descriptive names—think Cisco 1900 Integrated Services Router, or Microsoft Windows 7. Focus group research has shown that in B2B, this is quite effective, as purchasers only want to know what the product is and how it solves their problem. They aren’t impressed or swayed by clever brand names. (I’ve heard it myself countless times: “Just tell me what it does! I don’t care what it’s called!”)
But B2B branding has recently taken a cue from B2C, and is now giving memorable names to formerly “numbered” products. Look at the BlackBerry from Research in Motion’s (RIM). For years, RIM relied on a simple numbering system for its smartphones, which were aimed exclusively at on-the-go business users. But in 2006, RIM broke out of that pattern with its BlackBerry Pearl, a sexy, branded product for business users and consumers. Since then, they’ve introduced more single-word (and sexy) brands: Curve, Storm, and Bold. You can still buy the numerical models, but the marketing push is clearly around the glam brand names.
Meanwhile, just as Cisco and BlackBerry are promoting their (formerly) business-only products to standard consumers, consumer brands are finding their way into the workplace. Take Flip, for example: Cisco is pushing it not only as a fun way to share video of you partying with your friends, but as a business tool to bring your customers closer, and share information across the enterprise. And the iPhone is becoming common not just as an addition to a corporate mobile phone, but as a replacement—as well as a substitute PC.
As marketers, we should embrace this change. The days of the Berlin Wall between B2B and B2C are gone. Let’s celebrate this new union and explore the possibilities of B2B&C branding!