The Relational Roles of Brands

Jill  Avery

Chapter | Marketing Management: A Cultural Perspective | 2012

The Relational Roles of Brands

Abstract

In contemporary culture, brands play important relational roles, linking consumers to others and serving as relational partners. This chapter provides an understanding of the relational roles of brands to illuminate why and how consumers connect with brands and how those connections enable consumers to relate to each other. Moving away from an economic definition of marketing relationships as exchange-based, the chapter provides a more nuanced understanding of consumer-brand bonds and highlights the core processes that drive customer relationship development. It cautions managers not to try to "manage" their customer relationships, but rather, to negotiate them with consumers, providing a fresh approach to CRM.

Keywords: marketing; Brands; brands and branding; brand management; Brand equity; brand building; customer relationship management; CRM; Customers; Customer Focus and Relationships; Brands and Branding; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Products Industry;

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Avery, Jill. "The Relational Roles of Brands." Chap. 9 in Marketing Management: A Cultural Perspective, edited by Lisa Penaloza, Nil Toulouse, and Luca M. Visconti, 147–163. Routledge, 2012.

For decades, American parents were warned to avoid introducing potential allergens to their babies prior to their first birthday. But two influential clinical studies caused the medical establishment to radically reverse their position. Parents were now warned that delaying the introduction of these types of foods increased a baby's risk of food allergies. Adeo Health Science was ready, with patents filed for a baby food that made it simple for parents to introduce allergens. Now, the new company had to turn its product into a brand and map its go-to-market strategy, including creating a compelling value proposition, choosing a path to market that was either direct-to-consumer, through grocery retailers, or via the physician channel, and planning its marketing communications and sales strategy. As a new startup with constrained resources, the company knew its marketing decisions would make or break the new product.

In September 2016, Marriott completed its $13.3 billion acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, which added 11 brands to its already robust 19 hotel brand portfolio. Tina Edmundson, Marriott's global brand officer, was charged with making sense of the brand portfolio and designing a strategy that would clearly differentiate each brand from the others and a brand architecture system to communicate to consumers how to navigate among them. She would need to decide whether and how to prune brands from the portfolio, whether and how to combine brands through dual-branding and or sub-branding strategies, and whether, where, and how to use the Marriott parent brand to endorse the remaining brands.

Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2018 (Revised March 2018)

HubSpot and Motion AI: Chatbot-Enabled CRM

Jill Avery and Thomas Steenburgh

HubSpot, an inbound marketing, sales, and customer relationship management (CRM) software provider, announced that it had acquired Motion AI, a software platform that enabled companies to easily build and deploy chatbots, fueled by artificial intelligence, to interact with their customers. Before unleashing bot-building technology to its B2B customers, HubSpot first needed to develop some best practices for the use of chatbots for CRM. First, the team had to clearly assess the trade-offs between effectiveness and efficiency associated with the use of bots versus humans to create, nurture, and manage customer relationships. Second, they had to decide to what extent to anthropomorphize the chatbots. How human-like should they be? Was a conversational user interface (UI) the desired solution for B2B CRM or would a stripped down, more functional UI produce more efficiency for the customers who interacted with the bot? Historically, HubSpot had “practiced what it preached,” using its own products to build its business. The team had to consider whether to use chatbots to nurture and service its own customer relationships and manage the effectiveness and efficiency of its sales funnel. Currently, a team of chat representatives worked with marketing to qualify and prime prospects for HubSpot’s sales team. Could they and should they be replaced with chatbots? Was HubSpot ready for bots to become the face of its brand to its prospective customers?

Keywords: marketing; customer relationship management; CRM; marketing strategy; Sales; sales management; customer service; brands and branding; artificial intelligence; B2B vs. B2C; business marketing; software; SaaS; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Customer Focus and Relationships; Sales; Salesforce Management; Technological Innovation; Technology Industry; Service Industry; United States; North America;

Citation:

Avery, Jill, and Thomas Steenburgh. "HubSpot and Motion AI: Chatbot-Enabled CRM." Harvard Business School Case 518-067, February 2018. (Revised March 2018.) View Details

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