Building brand awareness for an SME in an international B2B context throught an adapted communication strategy

Abstract

Being thought of at the point of purchase is crucial for the growth of a company, even more for a young SME that is facing established players. For this purpose, and in the context of a high buyer implication and the adaptation of an intellectual mode of consideration, brand awareness presents itself as the 1st step in the hierarchical response model: the cognition is an antecedent of affection, and the latter is an antecedent of conation. Following the logical chain, driving brand awareness is the starting point to eventually be considered at the point of purchase. Hence, the purpose of this thesis is to develop solutions that SENSORADE can adopt to grow in notoriety and touch their target. This work provided the answers to the research questions which allowed us to understand what the appropriate communications are to be put in place for driving brand awareness for an SME in an international B2B context. The fruits of this paper are the result of a comprehensive literature review which shaped the theoretical framework and the basis of this work. The second step consisted in conducting a competitive-benchmark analysis which helped shed light on the practices of the competitors. Lastly, 15 qualitative in-depth semi-structured interviews were administrated with international niche B2B SMEs. A brief summary of the findings is visually illustrated through the conception of two models which explain the concepts and pinpoint the key elements and communication tools to include to drive brand awareness. It was also uncovered that brand awareness facilitates the establishment of business relationships with potential clients. Thanks to the delivered recommendations which were issued from the literature, the benchmark, and the qualitative study, SENSORADE now has the key guidelines for building their brand awareness. Moreover, the fruit of this dissertation can be considered as a key reference not only for SENSORADE but also for the academic community.