New Study Reveals Customers Prefer Family Brands

Several recent studies confirm what many family-owned businesses already know: family branding is a key factor that builds both identity and success. In fact, 76% of companies surveyed by Ernst & Young (EY) and Kennesaw State University report that they refer to themselves as a family business in their marketing materials to establish a strong identity, differentiate, and build trust with customers and employees. Overall, family businesses are the most trusted of any business type worldwide, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer, with the exception of the Asia-Pacific region.

While 60% of consumers prefer to buy from family businesses, according to Family Business magazine, marketing and advertising that identification varies. AmeriPride Services Inc., Minnetonka, MN, for example, makes that promotion a more subtle marketing decision. AmeriPride, which is 100% family-owned, with a board split evenly between family and independent advisers, weighed in on the subject in a recent article published in Harvard Business Review. “We talk about family in our supporting materials but not in our tagline,” said Andrew Steiner, vice president of marketing and customer operations for AmeriPride. “Family is important to the feel of our company.”

He adds that advertising family branding also depends on your market. “The ‘family’ attribute has a different meaning depending on your target customer,” Steiner said. In a B2B (business-to-business) space, Steiner explained, the employee making purchasing decisions is less likely to make a buy based on an emotional response. “In B2B, we’re often being compared to a competitor on a spreadsheet, based purely on price and performance,” Steiner said. “So our first goal, in marketing, is to make ourselves what we call ‘un-spreadsheet-able.’”

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