Where the Internet is involved, there are horror stories. It's not always the company’s fault -- Xerox sure couldn’t help it. But not all companies are so innocent. When building your company’s B2B branding strategy, it’s best to learn from horror stories of the past to avoid the same mistakes.
4 Examples of B2B Branding Gone Bad
1. TeamWork Online
TeamWork Online matches talent to jobs in major sport and live event organizations. Recent job listings include positions with the PGA Tour and the Anaheim Ducks NHL team. Unfortunately, in 2014 TeamWork’s online marketing team created a big-time headache to match its big-name clients.
Their tweet sums it up nicely:
… Done cringing in secondhand embarrassment? Great, now let’s go over why newsjacking is a tactic you must use carefully.
Every company craves that moment in the limelight. The truth is, almost every company leverages current events to boost its brand. But riffing off the Malaysian Airlines tragedy of 2014 shows a complete lack of awareness, tact, and empathy.
Attempting to use a tragedy to your advantage will undoubtedly create negative backlash, spotlighting your brand for all the wrong reasons.
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The Lesson: For B2B brands, relevance isn't worth forcing. If you have to squint to see how a trending topic connects to your company, your customers probably won't see it either. You can sit this one out. The internet will survive. |
2. Quantum Tech
To make sure you understand what being an oblivious dummy looks like, we’ll double up on the insensitive posts.
In a press release titled “WTC Collapse Highlights Need for Quantum Tech's Remote Backup,” released two days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the company trivialized the tragedy by using it to tout its storage solutions:
“The collapse of the World Trade Center destroyed more than lives. It also took computers and the vital data stored on them. But at least one company -- Morgan Stanley -- was able to function the very next day. Why? They used an off-site remote backup facility that stored their data safely, far from the catastrophe.”
Quantum retracted the release within five minutes of issuing it -- arguably record time in the pre-Twitter era. The employee responsible for issuing the release was fired.
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The Lesson: There’s being timely, and then there’s being a vulture. Your B2B brand doesn’t need to have something to say about every major event. If the connection leads straight back to your sales pitch, maybe keep that draft in the drafts. |
3. The Brand That Couldn't Get Out of Its Own Way
We've worked with B2B companies that turned a branding decision into an endurance sport.
A logo needs another round of discussion. Then another. A color needs another opinion. Before long, everyone has spent a whole lot of time debating something their customers probably won't think about for more than a few seconds.
There's nothing wrong with caring about your brand identity. You should. The problem starts when your branding strategy gets stuck chasing perfection instead of putting the brand to work.
A logo can't generate leads while it's trapped in revision No. 42. At some point, you have to let the thing out of the conference room.
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The Lesson: Give branding strategy the attention they deserve, then move. Your customers need something worth remembering about your company. They probably don't need your team to spend another 3 weeks deciding between two nearly identical shades of blue. |
4. The Manufacturer With a Homepage Stuck in Time
We won't name names, but we once worked with a manufacturer whose website branding wasn't doing its brand any favors. And the dated look was only the beginning:
- Much of the homepage copy was baked directly into an image, meaning Google couldn’t consider it for SEO ranking.
- There were only about 50 words of actual text on the page.
- It was tough to figure out exactly what the company did.
- The website gave visitors few opportunities to take the next step.
Company name changed to protect the not-so-innocent.
And people weren't exactly lining up to see it. In November 2017, the entire website received 30 visits. Just 14 came from organic search.
After rebuilding the site and giving the company a digital presence that better reflected the business behind it, those numbers started moving. One year later, monthly traffic reached 334 visits. By November 2019, it had climbed to 2,019.
Turns out looking the part helps when people can find you, too.
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The Lesson: Your website is a massive part of your B2B branding, whether you treat it that way or not. If the business has grown up but the website hasn't, prospective customers are still meeting the old version of you. |
Don’t Become Our Fifth B2B Branding Lesson
Bad B2B branding rarely comes down to one spectacularly terrible decision. The bigger problem is losing sight of what your brand is supposed to do in the first place: give potential customers a reason to trust your company.
Pay attention to how your brand looks and sounds, but don't let the pursuit of perfect brand consistency grind progress to a halt. And please, for the sake of whoever updates this article next, don't give us a fifth story to add.
Ready to Build a Brand People Remember?
Avoiding bad B2B branding is a good start. Now give people a reason to recognize yours. Download our guide for four steps to building stronger B2B brand awareness.
This article was originally published in August 2017 and was recently updated to reflect current industry trends.
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