Business is always about change. In industries like technology and life sciences, breakthroughs in code, science, or business models can define who wins. But buyers aren’t always ready for those innovations, so modern brands need to work harder. Your company should aim for B2B and B2C marketing that inspires audiences to accept and embrace change that delivers value. We believe that happens by reframing conventional category wisdom to help buyers make better decisions. Because then we can deliver the change that helps you win.
Here’s how we do it:
As your brand consultant, we’ll work with you to define a brand position grounded in the highest-value opportunities in your market – and focused on the market gaps your brand can address better than anyone else.
Here’s an example. Using DNA tagging technology, our client PimaCott has created a true farm-to-store supply chain that verifies cotton purity. The consumer trust gap is huge–think of the last time you bought sheets and tried to make sense of thread count and cotton weaves. Rather than focusing on technology, our brand strategy was to position PimaCott as the new standard for simplifying consumer decision-making.
It's time to talk about what we can do for you.
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I always felt I was getting a pound and 1/2 for every pound I spent. I was really impressed with the agency’s view on what they call considered consumership, which is not just trying to get a visceral reaction to an idea or a brand, but also intellectual.David GreensteinPIMACOTT
The kind of change we’re talking about starts outside the brand. Put simply, it reframes how buyers think, so they can make different and better decisions. Take Salesforce. It wasn’t always the CRM juggernaut it is today. To get people to take them seriously as an alternative to SAP and Oracle, they first had to get buyers to question the very notion of on-premise software.
So a change strategy needs to begin with identifying key gaps in the market, and unique strengths and assets that qualify you to meet them. For our client Veracode, the blind spot was a readiness gap—applications are a major security concern, but Chief Information Security Officers are not prioritizing investments required to reduce the threat.
Once we define the desired change, we develop a relevant, higher-level brand role. Think of this as the change-oriented mission you want to rally people behind. PJA’s Unconventionals guest, GE, has been reinventing itself around its industrial core. As they pivot, much of their corporate marketing is aiming for big, cultural change: getting people excited about science and technology.
To deliver change, it’s important to engage the “crazies”—the people who can make the biggest difference for your brand. This certainly includes customers and employees, but also like-minded buyers and influencers who share your vision. In our experience, the crazies are those few people—typically only about 30% of a market—who are most open to change. For Red Hat, we created a content community called The Enterprisers Project, co-created with “enterprisers”—CIOs who share a powerful belief that their role is to harness technology infrastructure as a driver of business innovation.
When we work together, we’ll challenge you to find the change your brand can drive that best helps you achieve your B2B marketing and business objectives—and to think of your brand’s highest purpose as the key to delivering that change.
