If I only had $5 for every time I heard a client say “I want [insert brand/company name here] to be like Intel Inside.” While I wouldn’t be rich, it would certainly buy me a nice dinner or two.

In fact, I was hearing this so much, and from one client in particular, that I finally decided to do some research into how much my client would need to spend to make their brand like Intel Inside.

How does TWO BILLION DOLLARS in marketing and dealer incentives sound to you? That’s right, for the low, low cost of only $2B, your brand can be the next Intel Inside!

Oftentimes, B2B businesses think that an ingredient branding campaign, like an Intel or Splenda, is a way to grow their own brand awareness by piggybacking on a stronger established brand, like IBM PC’s or Coca-Cola. What they fail to realize is that there is no free ride here.

What Intel wanabees fail to realize is that both Intel and Splenda committed hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money to building their own powerful brands.

Because they were already strong, consumer-recognized brands, their presence as an ingredient added real, incremental value to B2C products. When a manufacturer calls out the presence of Intel/Splenda in their products, they are actually communicating in shorthand the presence of additional consumer-valued benefits.

The lesson here is: Only you can grow a strong brand through smart marketing strategies. No one is going to do it for you for free!