| dc.description.abstract | Purpose – B2B branding has become evermore important in the online environment during
the 21st century. However, there has not been unified normative guidelines for brand
positioning best practices. This critical assessment aims to provide a coherent and
exploratory study of the leading brand research within the homepage realm.
Methodology – The research is based on the content analysis and binary coding of the five
major American investment banks’ homepages. Normative guidelines for brand positioning
were developed based on extensive literature review. Customer benefits were identified for
the comparison of B2B points-of-parity and points-of-differentiation.
Findings – The research findings suggest that the American investment banks have very
similar positioning and a lack of differentiation. Two of the banks focused on emphasizing
Reputation and three of the banks Sustainability. Most banks provided medium level of
additional information on customer benefits and some possibilities to search for more
information. One of the banks did not provide any evidence for their customer benefits,
which was a significant weakness in points-of-parity compared to the competition. These
B2B companies should provide even more central focus on the actual customer needs.
Limitations – The research is focused on a specific sector in financial services, which can
entail a risk for the generalizability of the results to other B2B sectors. Application of the
Normative guidelines by future research to other B2B industries would be pivotal for
developing this research stream.
Managerial Implications – Business practitioners should be more cognizant of the
Normative guidelines for brand positioning and align their brands towards central customer
benefits. Creating a strong brand differentiation is something that should be focused more
on, as the points-of-parity seem to dominate in the American investment banking industry. | en_US |
