Overlapping B2B and Family Business Marketing : A Study about Family and B2B Firms Exhibiting at Bilsport Performance and Custom Motor Show

Abstract: Background: Family Businesses’ way of doing marketing has similarities with B2B marketing. Usuallyfamily firms focus on what they have traditionally done well and diversify in related areas using their knowledge of how to perform in certain markets with certain customers and by offering certain productsand services. In order to do this, it is important for family firms, as for firms operating in B2Bmarkets, to create and keep good relationships with their stakeholders, so that at the end their customersare satisfied in the best possible manner. The process towards establishing long-term relationships between stakeholders and businesses requires certain characteristics and acts aimed at developingcommitment and trust. Since many of the most successful firms that have survived the longest arefamily businesses as well as B2B marketing is mainly about building and maintaining business relationships,we have decided to focus our study on the similarities between family firms’ marketing and B2Bmarketing within a specific context. B2B firms and Family firms make use of trade shows as an importantmarketing tool for improving relationships in networks. Trade shows are considered as the primary marketing tool to gain and sustain relationships with key stakeholders. Therefore, we chose the tradeshow context to execute our empirical survey. Purpose: The overall purpose of this thesis consists in testing and comparing practices and principleswithin two apparently separate fields of study - B2B marketing and Family Business Development -with the aim of finding and developing associations that can complement and contribute to both fields of study on a marketing level. Method: A quantitative method study has been conducted testing 50 companies participating at theBilsport Performance & Custom Motor show 2009 at Elmia – Jonkoping, Sweden. The primary data was gathered through a survey and a semi-structured interview, which constitutes our case study. The sample was chosen out of a population of 223 firms exhibing at the trade show, using a disproportionate stratified random method. Most secondary data involves research articles, books, reports, bachelorand master theses, and journals in order to determine marketing practices similarities between business-to-business firms and family business. Conclusions: Our empirical findings confirmed most of the hypotheses derived from theory. Hence,we found that most exhibiting firms at the trade show are family-controlled and operate in B2C markets;B2B firms in our sample have a tendency to use more relationship marketing than transactional marketing; family firms in our sample are more likely to use long-term oriented than short-termoriented marketing; and the overlap between B2B marketing and Family firms’ marketing in the tradeshow context is characterized by the common marketing principles and practices of family and B2Bfirms that aim at gaining and sustaining long-term business relationships.