[Research Round-Up] New Insights on B2B Marketing and the World's Most Valuable Brands

 (This month's Research Round-Up features an overview of the latest "State of B2B Pipeline Growth" survey by Pipeline360 and Demand Metric and a discussion of Interbrand's 2024 ranking of the world's most valuable brands.)

H2 2024 State of B2B Pipeline Growth by Pipeline360 and Demand Metric

Source:  Pipeline360/Demand Metric

• Based on an online survey of 424 marketers with B2B (47%) and B2B/B2C (53%) companies in the United States (56%) and the United Kingdom (44%)
• 73% of the respondents were at the manager or director level, and 21% described their role as "CMO/head of marketing"
• 63% of the U.S. respondents were with companies having annual revenue of less than $250 million; 69% of the UK respondents were with companies having annual revenue of 200 million or less (British Pounds)
• The survey was conducted in July 2024

The objective of this study was to examine "the latest challenges, opportunities, and areas of interest that marketers are facing, including:  channel usage, sales and marketing alignment, generative AI usage, sales cycle length, and data privacy, all from a B2B perspective."

Here are some of the key findings from the survey.

Top challenges - The top three challenges identified by survey respondents were:

• Budget/headcount/resource cuts (48%)
• Economic slowdown (46%)
• Sales and marketing alignment (44%)

Marketing budget - 52% of the respondents said their 2024 marketing budget was slightly or significantly higher compared to 2023.

Marketing success - Over half (53%) of the respondents said they were meeting their goals for this year to a great or very great extent.

Sales/marketing alignment - 75% of the respondents said their sales and marketing teams were mostly or completely aligned, and 62% said the KPIs and/or objectives used by their sales and marketing teams significantly or completely overlap. Almost three-quarters (73%) of the respondents who reported complete sales and marketing alignment also said they were meeting their goals so far this year.

Generative AI - 85% of the survey respondents said they were using generative AI in one or more ways. The four uses most frequently identified by respondents were:

• To develop content (51%)
• To brainstorm new topics (45%)
• To personalize content (41%)
• To summarize meetings (41%)

This survey produced numerous other interesting findings, and I recommend you take a look at the full report.

Best Global Brands by Interbrand

Source:  Interbrand

Earlier this month, Interbrand, the global brand consultancy, published its 2024 ranking of the 100 most valuable global brands. Interbrand has been analyzing the value of large global brands for 25 years.

Interbrand's valuation methodology includes three key components.

• Financial Analysis - This component measures the economic profit of the brand. Economic profit is defined as the after-tax operating profit of the brand less a charge for the capital required to produce the brand's revenue and margin.

• Role of Brand - This component measures the portion of the purchase decision attributable to the brand as opposed to factors such as convenience, price, or product features.

• Brand Strength - This component measures the ability of the brand to earn customer loyalty and, therefore, create sustainable demand and profit in the future.

The five most valuable global brands in the 2024 Interbrand ranking were:

• Apple ($488.9 billion)
• Microsoft ($352.5 billion)
• Amazon ($298.1 billion)
• Google ($291.3 billion)
• Samsung ($100.8 billion)

In addition to the brand rankings, Interbrand's report includes several thought-provoking ideas regarding the role of brand as a driver of business growth. Interbrand noted that its research has shown that excessive reliance on short-term performance marketing tactics is detrimental to business growth. The report states:

"Utilizing our Best Global Brands data, we see that an increased focus on operational efficiency and short-term performance tactics over mid-term and long-term brand potential has cost the world's most valuable brands $3.5 trillion USD in cumulative brand value since we started our study. This equates to approximately $200 billion of lost revenue opportunity over the past 12 months."

Interbrand also argued that today's most successful companies take a fundamentally different approach to driving growth. Rather than finding customers for their products or services, they develop a deep understanding of customer needs and desires, and then build competencies to fulfill those needs and desires. Again, from the report:

"Now and next, the world's most successful companies start not with product, but with brand as their critical growth asset and engine. They use the utility and equity in their brand to drive exponential growth in new spaces, while continuing to capitalize on existing incremental sector gains."

Some of Interbrand's ideas are unconventional, and you may or may not agree with them or see their relevance for your business. Whatever the case, the Interbrand report will be a worthwhile read.