Chapter 12

Brand, Messaging, and Competition

Every book is a children’s book if the child can read.

—MITCH HEDBERG

Contextual pricing relies heavily on what customers know, or worry they do not know, about a product. This makes pricing exercises a lot like branding exercises, since branding managers spend a lot of time evaluating what customers, and potential customers, know and don’t know. Branding managers have the fun job, however, working at multiple levels to increase the propensity to buy. While complex, it tends to focus on the positive: matching customer affinities to company strengths. Customers like being made aware of products and solutions to their needs, and everyone in a company is delighted to see their company’s strengths communicated to the world. There is relatively little internal dislocation.