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Support The Customer's Marketing
Posted By: ecke* on 10/14/2004 3:58 AM (CST) 250 Points
Doing a research study on how a producer/material supplier can help their customer's with marketing efforts.

The customer is normally an OEM Manufacturer and the producer has quite strong own brands.

I will interview representatives of the manufacturer or distributor's marketing department.

The objective is to describe the selling situation between manufacturer/distributor and the end-user. Which are there problems and how could they be supported?

Theories to base this on? What is relevant to get to know?

For example, study the:
- Relationships to customer, supplier, competitor
- The market offer (price, service, product)
- How the offer is communicated (promotion, sales force)

Any suggestions?

Posted by: Peter (henna gaijin) Accepted Answer
10/14/2004 1:12 PM (CST)
In general, you as the supplier of one part used by an OEM, would not get that involved with the marketing of the OEM product to the end user. You would provide many technical details on the performance and use of your product to the OEM, and perhaps provide some marketing (financial) support, usually in the form of providing some money if their advertisements promote the product specifically.

One exception to what I listed above is if your product is a very key part the OEM's product. If you are Intel, then you provide comarketing help whenever they put the "Intel Inside" logo on their ads (or in Intel's case, also run your own branding ads, which is an unusual step for a company selling to OEMs).
 
Posted by: mgoodman Accepted Answer
10/15/2004 9:37 AM (CST)
I've been involved in a number of these situations over the years, and there are a few notable successes.

Perhaps the best known example is DuPont, which markets a nylon carpet fiber under the "Stainmaster" brand.

It became the best known brand in the industry, even though DuPont does not make carpet. They sell the fiber to mills that manufacture the actual carpet. (And virtually all the mills have their own brand names as well.)

DuPont did many things right on that product launch. First they advertised heavily. The market was not heavily advertised prior to then, so their spending level looked even bigger than it was.

Then they mounted a campaign aimed at carpet retailers -- their customers' customers. They provided sales training, point-of-sale promotion materials, and even a field merchandising force that called on retailers on a regular basis -- even though they couldn't take or deliver an order.

And they provided the manufacturers with an alternative: they could buy "unbranded" fiber (which couldn't be called Stainmaster or be linked to DuPont) for less money. Of course, there weren't many takers when the manufacturers saw the kind of support DuPont was putting behind the primary brand.

I actually have a few additional stories about ingredient branding, but the Stainmaster example is probably the most visible/notable success I've seen for ingredient branding. (Intel did a lot of the same things with "Intel Inside," but that came several years after the DuPont experience, and Andy Grove learned a lot from DuPont in this regard.)

If you need more examples, DuPont has several: Lycra, Nylon, Orlon, Corian, Kevlar, Nomex, Quallofil, Cool-Max, etc. Also think about Kodak paper used for photographs, where the paper is just an "ingredient," not the primary product (i.e., the image itself). There are dozens of examples like these.
 
Posted by: jcmedinave Accepted Answer
10/22/2004 1:00 PM (CST)
The supplier importance begin in the strategic plan, you always need to consider the supplier topics in order to guarantee the successful of your strategies. For instance if you want to guarantee your Quality of Service and customers compromises, the supplier agreements and permanent communication with them is critic. All the quality theories of improvements talk about the suppliers processes. You can easy develop a win - win Relations with your suppliers because they will be also interested in develop them. They are interested in increase the customer knowledge and perceptions, they will be interested in helping to resolve the customers claims and problems.

Some useful articles:

http://misweb.com/magarticle.asp?doc_id=23247&rgid=7&listed_months=0

http://www.optimizemag.com/article/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=21400851

http://www.industryweek.com/currentArticles/asp/articles.asp?ArticleId=1133
 
Posted by: pkemper* Member Response
10/28/2004 5:42 PM (CST)
Ecke, I don't know where you are (your profile is quite empty), but I know that Telindus, a nufacturer of telecom infrastructur equipment, has their own marketing consulting arm that helps national telecom's create marketing programs around their offerings. The main group is based in Antwerp, in Belgium. Maybe worthwile to check it out.
 
Posted by: pkemper* Accepted Answer
10/28/2004 5:52 PM (CST)
Made a mistake. It is Alcatel in Belgium, Antwerp. The guy that presented their marketing efforts is called Mike Wilkinson, VP Strategic Marketing. He presented at the IT Focus Europe, a Baptie marketing conference held last week in The Netherlands.
 
Posted by: Val (Moderator)* Moderator Response
11/2/2004 1:43 AM (CST)
Hello all. I am closing this question, since its more than 10 days old. We do this to make sure members' contributions are rewarded in a timely manner and to improve the visibility of newer questions. Thanks, so much, for participating!

Val (Moderator)
 


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