Rethinking an approach to b2b and b2c branding: a review of the literature, conclusions and future research directions.

Despite significant interest in industrial branding and important insights offered by extant literature, this work in progress paper identifies a research gap that we propose to address to develop future research on the theme. It is found that different perspectives, although not mutually exclusive, have been adopted so far in marketing literature to tackle brand management issues in B2B contexts: - a first approach contrasts consumer and industrial markets and consequently suggests different branding guidelines for the two contexts; - a second approach suggests conforming or adapting consumer research approaches and interpretative theories and models to industrial brands; - finally, challenging contributions are identified, which aim to reformulate concepts and measures proceeding from context specific verifications. At the heart of all existing literature there is the dichotomy between B2B and B2C markets. However, as a result of market dynamics, this distinction is increasingly blurred and companies face branding challenges related to their coexistence in two distinct or overlapping environments. No previous research addresses this specific situation. We thus focus on the “interface” between the two “souls” of a same brand and provide first possible indications as to brand coexistence in industrial and consumer contexts, along with comments and implications useful for further research development.