Branding through manufacturing intermediaries

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Key points

The main point about manufacturers/assemblers is that they will mostly prefer not to promote your brand at all as they will assume (rightly) that they will be locked into paying more for your products/services than for functional equivalents available from your competitors.

They will have to be convinced that your brand will bring them a significant competitive advantage - which means that you should make a major investment in customer research to track the value your brand is providing to their customers, & therefore the advantage co-branding or ingredient branding will bring to manufacturers/ assemblers in terms of additional revenue & enhanced image.

The classic example of this approach is the Intel Corporation. Intel had a problem - they were supplying computer manufacturers who were continually trying to drive down their prices. The approach Intel took was to invest an estimated $250 million (initially) in persuading you and me, who would not recognise a chip if we saw one, that Intel chips were the best. From then on, most buyers looked for the Intel Inside badge on a PC. Intel also tracked the pricing implications of this on a regular basis so that they could show the computer manufacturers how much more they could charge if they stuck the Intel Inside badge on their PCs. The figure quoted at the time was that a $35 Intel chip was worth an additional $150 to the PC manufacturer.

Assuming that you have persuaded them to promote your brand, you should seek to:

• maximise their customers' understanding of your brand
• maximise your brand mentions & endorsement in their communications
• feature your logo as prominently as possible in their product/service

Luckily, you are just seconds away from some very smart brand marketing solutions. Click here!

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