Getting customers to stick takes more than a sticker
Years ago, Intel struck gold with its “Intel Inside” campaign. This chip supplier found a way into more OEM equipment by going through the consumer. Going B2C turned into the perfect way to build on its already-strong reputation in the B2B world. Soon the sticker “Intel Inside” appeared on PCs all over the world (I’m looking at one as I write this blog).
Eventually, though, the B2C branding craze among traditional B2B brands hoping to get consumers to do their marketing faded. The shrinking of electronic components enabled the shrinking of electronic devices – leaving a lot less real estate for stickers.
But miniaturization and innovative thinking have enabled B2B veterans like our client, Parker Hannifin, to stay fresh and relevant among OEMs on a growing list of markets without the consumer’s help. Parker’s involved in so many sectors of industry, but its R&D efforts in life sciences, for instance, have given OEMs of lab equipment the license to shrink their equipment. This meets their customers’ demand for smaller instruments that consume less laboratory space and energy and require smaller test samples. Parker’s clients soon learned to rely on them as critical partners in reducing the overall cost of ownership of an instrument. They didn’t need consumers to remind them of Parker’s existence. In fact, as the engineering talent challenge takes its toll on OEM staffing, these manufacturers are relying more and more on component suppliers like Parker to be engineering service providers.
For example, as modular automation takes hold in all industries, subcomponents suppliers are developing pre-engineered modular elements with OEM-defined performance characteristics. This lets those OEMs design new equipment more quickly and get it through quality control faster because the modules they’re using contain tried-and-true technology. This also enables the customers of these OEMs to add their devices to the Internet of Things (IoT) so they can achieve greater value and service by leveraging the full power of their value chain.
In my last blog I told you about a white paper I was developing with FLIR, another client. We’re doing more and more such projects to help our clients detail their role in their clients’ engineering organizations. The above information is from one I’m working on now for Parker. That’s a more substantial way to say, “Parker’s Inside.”
Before reading this blog you might have associated Parker more with the guts of planes, trains and automobiles. Now that you know about its role in the life sciences, you can impress your doctor with that knowledge the next time you get a physical. Tell him Parker’s probably inside the equipment that will be processing the bodily fluids he took from you. Maybe you’ll get his nerd discount.
Written by Tom Andel:
Goldstein Group agency account manager and content creator who writes with an editor’s mind, a writer’s soul and our clients’ best interests at heart.
