An Exploratory Study of The Malaysian Chemical Industry

With the force of globalization and huge product commoditization pressure in the Business-To-Business (B2B) markets, the B2B marketers have turn their attention to branding in order to tap the brand potential from their product and corporate name. The main objective of this dissertation is to explore the industrial brand value and B2B brand equity in the context of the Malaysian chemical industry. The industrial brand value is explored by using the pinwheel model proposed by Mudambi et al (1997). The pinwheel model of industrial brand value comprised of 4 major performance components: product, distribution, support services and company. Each of these performance components is attach with the tangible and intangible elements. The result obtained from the semistructured interview with the industry respondents confirmed that intangibles element is gaining more importance in the organization buying process. Differentiation based on the intangible elements is sustainable because it is difficult to be imitated by industry competitors but hard to achieve by the B2B companies. Brand equity is conceptualized by Aaker (1991) as the assets (or liability) linked to a brand’s name and symbol that add to (or subtract from) a product or service. This research study has found that brand equity such as willingness to pay premium price, making referrals and brand extensibility are well existed in the B2B markets. Hence, brand equity should be leveraged as the strategic assets in helping the B2B companies to break out from the intense products and services commoditization pressure. At last, branding is proven to be now more relevant than ever in the B2B markets. B2B marketers could no longer afford to ignore the potential value of branding