"Brand" factor in make or buy decision

Buyers are heavily influenced by "Brand" in their purchasing decisions. It's a no-brainer to realize that in a consumer industry Brand is driven primarily by advertising and marketing. While product (or service) is also important, the experts in the consumer industry will unanimously agree that, differentiation is very difficult to achieve by a product centric approach.

The question I am trying to answer is "The role of brand in a B2B industry" ( which is more releavent for my line of work. ) Branding has a new flavor and meaning for a B2B industry. Here are some of them according to my experience:

• Product/Service innovation
• Quality of work
• Variety or range of solutions
• After Sales Service (Ex: HP)
• Parent brand association (Ex: Corning getting into telecom)
• Relationships (Ex: Intel and Microsoft)
• Natural affinity (Ex: Healthcare and Pharma)

While there could be some more, I have listed what I thought are important for discussion. What is more important I think is the consistency in the company's differentiation. Once the strategy is defined, it is very important that the company work's consistently on the differentiators. Obviously, it is impractical to differentiate on all the dimensions or only one dimension but to at least 2 dimensions gives the company options when competing.

While many B2B companies do some advertising for branding, they don't consider advertising to be their core strategy. "Word of mouth" or "Customer References" are most important than advertising in B2B branding. So the solution for B2B branding is primarily a two step approach.

1. Differentiation strategy: Align every function or department in the company to focus on the differentiators. (Ex: Innovation and relationship)
2. Consistent execution: to ensure Customers experience the differentiation.

This will lead to word of mouth and consequently the brand the B2B company wants to create.