The rules of B2B marketing are constantly changing. What worked yesterday won't necessarily work today. . .or tomorrow. This blog presents information, opinion, and speculation about where B2B marketing is headed.
After languishing in the shadow of performance marketing for more than two decades, B2B brand marketing is experiencing a renaissance. The number of blog articles, LinkedIn posts, and other forms of content highlighting the importance of having a strong B2B brand has increased dramatically over the past couple of years.
This growing interest in B2B brand building can be attributed to several factors. For one thing, many B2B marketers are finding that demand generation/performance marketing tactics that worked well only a few years ago have become less and less effective.
In addition, recent research studies by The B2B Institute, Bain & Company, Google, 6sense, and others have provided insights about the B2B buying process that make the value of a strong B2B brand abundantly clear.
Despite the increased attention on B2B brand building, many marketers are reporting that it's still difficult to win support from their CFO and CEO for increased investments in brand marketing programs.
In response to this challenge, several marketing pundits have published articles or guides advising marketing leaders on how to "sell" brand marketing to senior company leaders, particularly the CFO.
One of the better resources I've seen recently is "Selling brand marketing budgets to the CFO: proof, not promises" by Wynter, a provider of B2B brand tracking and research software. This article describes five steps B2B marketing leaders should take to make their proposed brand marketing spending more likely to win support from their CFO.
Here are Wynter's five steps:
Link brand investments to improved financial outcomes such as increased revenue, market share, and profit margin.
Incorporate specific, quantifiable KPIs and targets in the budget proposal.
Include competitive benchmarks whenever possible. What are your primary competitors spending on brand marketing? How does the health of your brand compare to that of your competitors?
Make the risks of under-investing in brand explicit.
Spell out when the proposed brand investments will produce results. In other words, provide a realistic ROI timeline that's supported by credible evidence.
I agree with these specific recommendations, but I have a couple of concerns about the section of the Wynter article that discusses "modeling brand ROI."
First, the article makes developing a credible, evidence-based quantitative model that shows the financial benefits of brand marketing appear to be simpler than it actually is.
And second, this portion of the article uses the term "brand ROI" in an overly broad way, which can make it more difficult for marketing leaders to win the support of their CFO for greater investment in brand marketing.
When You Say ROI . . . Mean ROI (The Sixth Step)
For years, many marketers have used "ROI" as a catch-all term to describe the value of a wide range of benefits produced by marketing activities, including brand marketing activities. Unfortunately, this practice has been perpetuated by marketing pundits and other industry participants who should know better.
Advocates of brand marketing forcefully argue that a strong brand produces several valuable benefits, including:
Increased share of branded search (an indicator of brand awareness and possible purchase interest)
Increased response and conversion rates from "performance marketing" programs
Increased presence in "day-one consideration sets"
Lower customer acquisition costs
Increased market share
Increased revenue (total revenue, not gross margin)
When some or all of these benefits are supported by credible evidence, marketing leaders should include them when discussing increased investment in brand marketing with their CFO. However, none of these benefits constitutes ROI.
Return on investment is a specific financial metric that has a well-established meaning among management and financial professionals. It's a ratio that compares the incremental financial gain from an investment (the "return") to the amount of the investment.
When marketing leaders use "ROI" to describe anything else, they can quickly lose credibility with their CFO, and probably with their CEO as well. If a marketing leader displays a fundamental misunderstanding of this basic financial metric, why should a CFO rely on any other financial estimates or projections the marketing leader provides?
The lesson here is clear: If you're a marketing leader, you need to be careful to calculate and use financial metrics in ways that trained financial professionals (like CFOs) will see as proper. This will enhance your personal credibility with your CFO and make it more likely that he or she will support your proposed marketing plans.
Edelman and LinkedIn recently published their 2025 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report, which was based on a survey of 1,934 management-level business professionals from a wide range of industries and company sizes. The survey was conducted March 17 - April 3, 2025.
The primary focus of this year's study was "hidden buyers" - people in the buying organization who influence a purchase decision even though they are not a primary user of the product or service being considered.
The 2025 report includes several survey findings for "hidden buyers" and "target buyers," defined as follows:
Hidden Buyers - "People who . . . are a final decision-maker in group purchasing decisions and are primarily involved as a representative of a function that does not require in-depth knowledge of the specific product or service. These functions might include finance, operations, legal, compliance, procurement, and others."
Target Buyers - "People who . . . are both a final decision-maker and are primarily involved as an expert in the service or product being offered."
Here are some of the major findings from the Edelman/LinkedIn report.
Consumption and Use of Thought Leadership
Hidden buyers consume as much thought leadership content as target buyers. Sixty-three percent (63%) of the hidden buyer survey respondents said they spend an hour per week (on average) consuming thought leadership, compared to 64% of target buyer respondents.
Fifty-five percent (55%) of the hidden buyer survey respondents reported using thought leadership content to evaluate potential vendors, compared to 56% of target buyer respondents.
Impact on Marketing/Sales Interactions
Seventy-one percent (71%) of the hidden buyer survey respondents reported having little or no interaction with vendor sales reps. However, 95% said that strong thought leadership content made them more receptive to marketing and sales outreach from companies producing such content.
Attributes of Strong Thought Leadership
Ninety-one percent (91%) of the hidden buyer survey respondents said that a key attribute of high-quality thought leadership content is that it helps them uncover challenges, needs, or opportunities that they hadn't previously recognized.
Two Controversial Findings
The Edelman/LinkedIn report contains two somewhat controversial findings. In this study, the researchers asked participants to rate the importance of several considerations when selecting a vendor.
The following table shows the percentages of hidden buyer respondents who rated each consideration as very important or moderately important.
As this table shows, hidden buyer survey respondents rated "Vendor is the 'safest choice'" as less important than five other considerations.
The second controversial finding relates to the importance of brand. The researchers asked study participants how much they agreed or disagreed with this statement: "In vetting vendors, if an organization produces high-quality thought leadership, it matters much less to me how well known they are." Fifty-three percent (53%) of both hidden buyer and target buyer survey respondents somewhat or strongly agreed with this statement.
The Alternative View
These two findings differ significantly from the results of other recent research. One example of this research is a recent study by The B2B Institute, Bain & Company, and NewtonX (the "B2B Institute Study").
(Note: This study is described in a 2024 LinkedIn article written by Mimi Turner and Jann Schwarz, both with The B2B Institute. I understand The B2B Institute is planning to publish a report or paper discussing this research later this year.)
The B2B Institute Study examined the attitudes and behaviors of hidden buyers and target buyers using definitions of those terms similar to those used in the Edelman/LinkedIn study. The study found that making a "safe" purchase decision is a primary driver for hidden buyers.
Hidden buyers care more than target buyers about factors such as brand reliability and "peace of mind." (See the graphic accompanying "Finding #2" in the LinkedIn article.)
About two-thirds of hidden buyers and target buyers said they would prefer products or services that "provide peace of mind without career advancement" over products or services that offer "business growth that involves potential career uncertainty."
The B2B Institute Study also found that a strong, well-known brand is important to both hidden buyers and target buyers, but is more influential with hidden buyers.
Eighty-one percent (81%) of the study participants said the brand they ultimately bought was known to everyone or almost everyone in the buying group at the start of the purchase process.
Hidden buyers are 31% more likely to reject brands they don't know and 70% more likely to reject brands that aren't well-known to other members of the buying group.
My Take
These two studies present starkly different perspectives regarding the tendency of B2B hidden buyers to make "safe" purchase decisions and the influence that brand has with hidden buyers.
I suggest that most of these differences can be attributed to differences in the focus and design of the underlying surveys. The B2B Institute Study focused on high-consideration, high-value technology purchases by large enterprises. Sixty-four percent (64%) of the survey respondents in this study were with companies having more than 10,000 employees.
The survey used in the Edelman/LinkedIn thought leadership study had very different survey demographics. In fact, 48% of those survey respondents were with companies having 200 or fewer employees.
Several other recent studies have highlighted the preference of most B2B buyers for safe purchase decisions and the important role that brand plays in B2B buying decisions.
Under these circumstances, I think the findings of the B2B Institute Study provide a more accurate picture of real-world B2B buying.
Top image courtesy of Hans Splinter via Flickr (CC).
Many marketing pundits are advising B2B marketers to connect with potential buyers on an emotional level. And at first glance, this advice appears to be sound.
In their often-cited paper, "The Long and Short of It," advertising effectiveness gurus Les Binet and Peter Field wrote: "Emotional campaigns . . . produce considerably more powerful long-term business effects than rational persuasion campaigns."
But emotional messaging alone is not a guarantee of marketing success. While most successful marketing messages will evoke an emotional or psychological response in potential buyers, not all messages that induce an emotional response will produce desired business outcomes. Here's why.
Emotional Marketing that Missed the Mark
Budweiser's 2015 Lost Dog Super Bowl Ad
Budweiser's Clydesdales have become one of the most iconic images in U.S. advertising. The Clydesdales debuted in a TV ad during the 1986 Super Bowl, and they've appeared in numerous Super Bowl ads since. Dogs (and puppies) have also been prominently featured in many of these classic ads.
Such was the case with the "Lost Dog" ad that aired during the 2015 Super Bowl. This ad featured the Clydesdales and an adorable yellow Labrador puppy. Here's the ad.
Source: TrueColors via YouTube
The Lost Dog ad took top honors in USA Today's Ad Meter poll for the 2015 Super Bowl and made Budweiser a back-to-back winner. The 2015 ad was a "sequel" to Budweiser's 2014 Clydesdale/puppy Super Bowl ad, which won the USA Today poll for that year.
Given the popularity of the Lost Dog ad, you would think Budweiser considered it an overwhelming success. Well, not quite.
In a 2015 article in Advertising Age(subscription required), Jorn Socquet, then the USA Chief Marketing Officer at Anheuser-Busch InBev, offered this assessment of Budweiser's 2015 Super Bowl ads: "Budweiser aired two very different spots in last February's Super Bowl, and we learned that content focused on the quality of our beer was most effective in generating sales."
Socquet went on to say that while everyone loved the puppies, "they have zero impact on beer sales. Those ads I wouldn't air again because they don't sell beer."
Coca-Cola's 1979 "Hey Kid, Catch" Ad
Coca-Cola's "Hey Kid, Catch" TV ad debuted in the fall of 1979 and was re-aired during the 1980 Super Bowl. It depicted an encounter between the Pittsburgh Steelers' Hall of Fame defensive end, "Mean" Joe Greene, and a young fan. Here's the ad.
Source: stiggerpao via YouTube
This ad ranks high on the emotional content scale, and it was highly regarded in professional advertising/marketing circles. The ad won a Clio Award for being one of the best television commercials of 1979, and it has been listed as one of the top ads of all time by multiple sources. The ad gained international notoriety when it was re-filmed in several other countries using local sports figures.
As with the Budweiser ad, you would think Coca-Cola viewed this ad as successful, but again, this assumption wouldn't be accurate.
Sergio Zyman was the Chief Marketing Officer of The Coca-Cola Company when the Hey Kid, Catch ad was aired. In his 1999 book, The End of Marketing As We Know It, Zyman explained his decision to pull the ad off the air.
"America loves it! People talk about it for weeks. The critics rave about it. . . The ad is so hot that Coca-Cola marketers all over the world want to translate it . . . The company should run it forever, right? Wrong. Coke doesn't run this ad forever. In fact, Coke pulls the ad altogether and launches a new campaign . . . Why would Coke do that? . . . The answer is simple. I know because I am the person who did it. My job as a marketer for The Coca-Cola Company was to get people out of their houses and into restaurants and stores to buy more Coca-Cola products - and the ad just wasn't doing that."
Why Didn't They Work?
What went wrong with these highly popular and critically acclaimed ads? Both were designed to touch viewers' emotions, and they clearly succeeded. So, why didn't they drive increased sales for Budweiser and Coke?
Why Motivation Is Critical
The short answer is that they were high on emotion but low on motivation.
The Budweiser and Coke ads illustrate a principle that is often underappreciated by marketers: Emotion can be a powerful tool in marketing, but emotional messaging without a motivational message won't produce the desired business results.
Basic concepts from the decision sciences explain why motivation is so critical to marketing success.
The Science of Motivation
Recent advances in the decision sciences have established that motivation is the primary driver of all human behavior.
The American Psychological Association defines motivation as "a person's willingness to exert physical or mental effort in pursuit of a goal or outcome." In a business context, a goal can be to solve a problem, satisfy a need, or get a particular "job" done.
As humans, we are motivated to pursue a goal because we expect to receive a reward if the goal is achieved. Neuroscience research has shown that the human brain has a "reward system" that's activated when our brain processes sensory inputs that signal a reward we value.
Research has also shown that our brain automatically scans our environment for information that aligns with our goals. So, in essence, our brain causes us to pay attention to information that's closely related to our goals.
Goals can be categorized in several ways, but two categories are particularly important for marketers. First, goals can be functional or psychological.
Functional goals relate directly to the core task or job a potential buyer wants or needs to get done. If my computer printer dies, my functional goal will be to determine what kind of printer I need and acquire a replacement. Functional goals can usually be described in terms of the features or attributes of an existing product or service category.
Psychological goals are more general and arise out of basic psychological needs that humans are always motivated to satisfy. Such basic needs include security (safety, trust, etc.), autonomy (success, superiority, power, etc.), and excitement (adventure, fun, etc.)
Goals are also either explicit or implicit.
Explicit goals are those we set and pursue at a conscious level.
Implicit goals operate at a subconscious level. We are motivated to pursue implicit goals even when we aren't consciously thinking about them.
Implications for Marketing
These principles of human motivation and decision-making have major implications for B2B marketers. The most important lesson is that the ability of any marketing message to resonate with a potential buyer is determined not by how emotional the message is, but rather by how closely the message aligns with the buyer's goals.
Therefore, your most critical job as a marketer is to craft marketing messages that will build mental associations between your company/brand/product/service and the goals of your potential buyers.
Using emotion in marketing messages is powerful because it makes your messages more memorable. That's particularly important in brand marketing because at any given point in time, most of your potential buyers, usually more than 90%, aren't actively engaged in a buying process.
You're communicating with these "out-of-market" buyers in the present, and you're hoping they will remember your message at some point in the future when they're ready to begin a serious buying process.
The bottom line is that effective marketing will convey the right motivational message in an emotionally engaging way.
An Example of Motivation Well Used
W.W. Grainger, Inc., the Fortune 500 provider of industrial MRO supplies, is currently running TV ads that illustrate how marketing messages can effectively tap into the goals that drive human motivation in an emotionally engaging way.
Several Grainger ads use the same overall theme, and some of the ads are available on YouTube. I've included links to a few of the ads at the end of this post, and I suggest you take a few minutes to view these videos. Here's one of the ads.
Source: Grainger via YouTube
To be clear, I have no relationship with Grainger, nor do I have any "inside information" about the strategy that led to the development of the ads. My comments are based on an analysis of the ads themselves.
The most important feature of all the ads is that front-line maintenance personnel are made the "heroes" of the narrative. The visuals show men and women in blue-collar working clothes, usually wearing hard hats, not executives or managers in business suits.
In the above video, the hero is portrayed as someone who always sees the big picture, not just a maintenance job, and who is capable of handling "whatever comes his way and has Grainger on his side."
This narrative appeals directly to the human psychological goals of being viewed as competent and having one's value to his or her organization fully appreciated. The ad also directly links Grainger to the achievement of those goals.
The tagline used in all of the ads - "For the ones who get it done" - captures the central theme of the ads in a memorable, concise, and effective way.
The key point illustrated by the Budweiser, Coke, and Grainger ads is: Emotion will make marketing messages memorable, but motivation is what makes them commercially effective.
Over the past several months, I've come to believe that we need a new operating model of B2B marketing, one that more accurately reflects how businesspeople actually make buying decisions. My conclusion is based on four proven truths about B2B buying.
At any given time, only a small percentage of a company's potential customers are actively engaged in a buying process for products or services like the company provides.
A buying trigger is almost always required to prompt potential buyers to initiate a buying process, and marketing activities alone usually won't be sufficient to trigger a buying process.
When a buying trigger occurs, most business decision-makers will create a mental list of potential vendors they believe are worth considering. This initial consideration set is formed before any research is done, and it's based on the mental impressions a buyer has formed from past interactions and experiences.
Most business buyers make most of their purchases from companies in their initial consideration set. (Bain & Co. and Google, 2022)
These ground truths reveal some of the major disconnects between current B2B marketing practices and the real-world behaviors of business buyers. Today, for example, many B2B marketing programs are designed to persuade potential buyers to begin a buying process, even though the evidence shows such programs are largely ineffective.
Companies are also spending substantial resources on programs designed to engage decision-makers who have already begun a buying process. In contrast, B2B marketers are investing far less in programs designed to get their company into buyers' consideration sets, even though that's often decisive for winning business.
The Real Goal of Marketing to "Potential Future Buyers"
If marketing can't usually persuade out-of-market buyers to begin a buying process, what should marketers try to accomplish with these individuals, and what kind of marketing works best for this purpose?
Numerous studies have shown that a strong brand will significantly influence the future decisions of out-of-market buyers, but marketers need more specific guidance to create effective programs for this audience.
To achieve success with out-of-market buyers, the starting point is to recognize that the people we call out-of-market buyers aren't actually "buyers" in any meaningful sense of that term. They may become buyers in the future, but they aren't buyers today. Therefore, they shouldn't be expected to behave like people who are actively engaged in a buying process.
In these circumstances, your ultimate objective when marketing to potential future buyers is to have your company included in their initial consideration set when they become active buyers.
To increase your odds of achieving that objective, you need to use marketing messages and tactics that will increase the mental availability of your company.
The concept of mental availability is closely associated with Byron Sharp and his colleagues at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science. In his book, How Brands Grow, Sharp defined mental availability as ". . . the propensity for a brand to be noticed or thought of in buying situations."
Mental availability is, therefore, different from simple brand awareness. It refers to the likelihood that a business decision-maker will think of your company when he or she experiences a buying trigger and decides to begin an active buying process.
Message Attributes that Boost Mental Availability
Your marketing messages must exhibit three attributes to create mental availability.
They must clearly link your company to the needs or challenges your potential buyers are most likely to experience.
They must be memorable. You're communicating with out-of-market buyers at a given point in time, and you're hoping they'll remember your messages at a future point in time when they perceive a need and are ready to begin a buying process.
They must be easy to consume, and most should be brief.* Remember that out-of-market buyers aren't actively looking for the information your messages are providing. So, they won't be inclined to spend much time or effort consuming content about a topic that (at the moment) isn't a high priority.
I discussed these attributes in more detail in this recent post.
The Takeaway
Initial consideration sets will include the companies that potential buyers mentally associate with specific needs. It's these associations that create mental availability. Therefore, your job when marketing to out-of-market buyers is to build and refresh the memory structures that link your company to the needs or challenges your potential buyers are most likely to encounter.
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*There are, of course, exceptions to every rule, and that applies to the rule that marketing messages for out-of-market buyers should be brief and easy to consume. High-quality thought leadership content can also be very effective with out-of-market buyers. In the 2024 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report by Edelman and LinkedIn, over 75% of the surveyed B2B decision-makers and C-suite executives said that a piece of thought leadership content has led them to research a product or service they weren't previously considering, and 54% said that an organization's thought leadership content has prompted them to research the organization's offers or capabilities.
Image courtesy of Mike Lawrence (www.creditdebitpro.com) via Flickr (CC).
If your company isn't in a potential buyer's initial consideration set, your odds of making a sale are no greater than 17%.*
To improve your chances of being included in buyers' initial consideration sets, you must increase your company's mental availability with prospective buyers.
Boosting mental availability requires marketing messaging and content that links your company to buyer needs and is memorable and easy to consume.
Why Initial Consideration Sets Matter
Creating an initial consideration set is an integral part of most B2B buying decisions, but most popular models of the B2B buying process ignore this pivotal step.
When a business person perceives a need to address an issue that may require a purchase, about 80% of potential buyers will create a mental list of companies they feel are worth considering before they do any research. And 90% of those buyers who purchase will ultimately buy from a company in their initial consideration set. (Bain & Co. and Google, 2022)
A potential buyer's initial consideration set is based on mental impressions that he or she has formed through touchpoints such as previous experience with a company, marketing messages, news reports, and conversations with colleagues and friends.
So, the perceptions that determine which companies will be included in the initial consideration set exist in the buyer's mind before he or she starts an active buying process.
What Is Mental Availability?
To increase the odds that your company will be included in your buyers' initial consideration sets, you must reach those buyers with the right messaging and content before they become active, in-market buyers.
More specifically, your objective is to increase your company's mental availability with your potential buyers.
The mental availability concept has been popularized by Byron Sharp and his colleagues at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science. In his landmark book, How Brands Grow, Sharp provided a simple definition of mental availability: "Mental availability/brand salience is the propensity for a brand to be noticed or thought of in buying situations."
Mental availability is different from general brand awareness. It describes the likelihood that a potential buyer will think of your company in the context of a specific buying situation.
Many marketing thought leaders argue that effective brand marketing is the key to creating mental availability. While this is generally true, it doesn't provide specific guidance about what kinds of messages and content will be effective for increasing mental availability.
Messaging and content must meet three requirements to boost mental availability.
Link Content to Buyer Needs
First, the messaging and content must clearly link your company to specific buyer needs. As noted earlier, when a potential buyer perceives a need that may require a purchase, the buyer will create an initial consideration set of companies that he or she believes may be able to address the need.
The initial consideration set will include companies the potential buyer mentally associates with the specific need he or she is experiencing. It's these associations that create mental availability. Therefore, your job is to build and refresh the memory structures that connect your company to the specific needs your potential buyers are most likely to experience.
You can't predict what specific need will prompt a particular buyer to move into the market. Therefore, to increase mental availability, you need to build and refresh memory links that will connect your company to all the important buyer needs your company can address.
With broader mental availability, you increase the likelihood that your company will be included in the initial consideration sets of a larger number of potential buyers.
Make Content Memorable
Marketing messaging and content must also be memorable to increase mental availability. When your goal is to boost mental availability, most of the potential buyers you are targeting won't be ready to begin a buying process.
You communicate with those potential buyers at a given point in time, and you hope they will remember your message at a future point in time when they perceive a need and are ready to start a serious buying process.
As discussed earlier, your messaging and content must clearly link your company to the needs your potential buyers are likely to experience, but how you express those associations is critical to making your messaging and content memorable.
In B2B, we tend to describe the benefits of doing business with our company in rational, "businesslike" terms - and sometimes in technical, quantitative, or economic terms.
To make your messaging and content more memorable, you need to capture in a visceral way what a potential buyer with a particular problem is experiencing, and you need to describe how your company can make that problem "go away."
Make Content Easy to Consume
The third important requirement for content that will effectively increase mental availability is that it must be easy to consume. By "easy to consume," I mean that the content doesn't require potential buyers to expend much cognitive energy.
This attribute is important because most members of your target audience are not actively engaged in a buying process and therefore won't be inclined to spend much time and effort consuming content that (at the moment) isn't a high priority.
As a practical matter, this means that most mental availability messages and content should be relatively short. That's why the 30-second or one-minute TV ad has been a staple of brand marketing for decades.
In B2B, we have the leeway to use somewhat longer content to build mental availability because most business people believe that keeping current on industry trends and innovative business practices is important for their career progression. Therefore, many business people will be willing to invest more time and effort to consume content if it's relevant to their work or career objectives.
The Bottom Line
If you want to drive revenue growth, you need to get your company into the initial consideration sets of more potential buyers. To accomplish this goal, you must boost your company's mental availability with potential buyers, and that requires the right kind of marketing messaging and content.
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*Research has shown that between 40% and 60% of prospective B2B deals do not result in a purchase. (Dixon and McKenna, 2022) Research has also found that about 80% of B2B buyers have a set of prospective vendors in mind before they do any research. And 90% of those buyers ultimately buy from a vendor in their initial consideration set. (Bain & Co. and Google, 2022)
Let's be optimistic and say that only 40% of prospective deals do not result in a purchase. Of the 60% that do result in a purchase, 48% of the prospects will create an initial consideration set (60% x 80%), and 43% will ultimately buy from a company in the initial consideration set (48% x 90%). That leaves only 17% of prospects that will buy from a company that was not in the initial consideration set. (60% - 43%).
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Image courtesy of Affen Ajlfe (www.modup.net) via Flickr (PD).
This is the second in a short series of posts discussing some of the basic principles of B2B brand management. In Part 1, I described the ongoing debate in B2B marketing between the advocates of brand building and the proponents of demand generation marketing, and I observed that B2B brand building seems to be making a comeback.
I also noted that Proctor & Gamble invented the business function we now call brand management and that most of what we know about building and managing strong brands originated in B2C companies. As a result, many B2B marketers don't have extensive experience with brand management.
The purpose of these posts is to entice B2B marketers to learn more about a skill set that is increasingly vital for B2B marketing success.
Let's start with three basic questions.
What Is a Brand?
The members of most professions share a common view of the core elements of their trade. If you ask 20 accountants what "net profit" means, you're likely to get 20 similar answers.
That's not true for many aspects of marketing. If you ask 20 marketers what "brand" means, you'll probably receive a wide range of definitions.
The American Marketing Association defines "brand" fairly narrowly: "A brand is any distinctive feature like a name, term, design, or symbol that identifies goods or services."
Philip Kotler, who is often described as the "father of modern marketing," offers a similar definition: "A name, term, symbol or design (or a combination of them) which is intended to signify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of the competitors."
Seth Godin - "A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer's decision to choose one product or service over another."
Ann Handley - "Brand is the image people have of your company or product. It's who people think you are. Or quoting Ze Frank, it's the 'emotional aftertaste' that comes after an experience (even a second-hand one) with a product, service or company."
David Ogilvy - "The intangible sum of a product's attributes: its name, packaging, and price, its history, its reputation, and the way it's advertised."
Al Ries - "A brand is a singular idea or concept that you own inside the mind of a prospect."
Strictly speaking, the AMA and Kotler definitions are more accurate. Most marketing academics would argue that the thought leader definitions conflate "brand" with other concepts such as brand image and brand preference. However, those definitions are likely to be more meaningful to many brand managers.
Which brings us to the second question.
What Is the Goal of Brand Management?
The prime directive of brand management, whether B2C or B2B, is to create, build, and sustain brands that win in the marketplace. "Winning in the marketplace" is typically measured using some combination of high-level performance metrics such as revenue growth, unit sales growth, market share growth, and profitability.
In some large consumer package goods companies with a substantial number of sizeable brands and mature brand management functions, brands are often treated almost like independent businesses. This approach shapes the role of the brand manager, and that's the subject of our third question.
What Are the Responsibilities of a Brand Manager?
Brand managers are sometimes described as "mini CEOs." While that description is an exaggeration, it does capture the broad scope of a brand manager's responsibilities, particularly in companies that view their brands as distinct businesses.
In these companies, the brand manager is responsible for developing the brand's business strategy. This strategy includes (among other things) how the brand will be positioned in the marketplace, how the brand will be marketed, and how the brand's products will be priced and distributed. Brand managers are also deeply involved in managing brand innovation, including product improvements and new product launches.
The specific responsibilities of brand managers will obviously vary across companies, but there are common themes. I recently pulled a few brand manager job descriptions from actual online job postings. Here's a mashup of some of the important brand manager responsibilities contained in those job descriptions.
Formulates and executes annual marketing plans for the brand, ensuring alignment with the objectives of maximizing brand growth and profitability.
Manages the brand's marketing budget to maximize short-term and long-term business growth.
Oversees the design and quality of the brand's products to consistently meet brand standards and fulfill the brand promise.
Analyzes relevant data to anticipate trends, assess strategic implications, and drive new product development.
Collaborates with the Company's finance department and other relevant business leaders to review sales and financial data to identify customer issues and opportunities while monitoring overall business health.
Fosters strong relationships with business management and sales teams by preparing impactful sales presentations, participating in sales calls, and facilitating open communication for effective problem-solving.
Even this partial list shows that a brand manager is often tasked with broad job responsibilities that require both marketing and general business expertise.
The next post in this series will discuss what is probably the single most important concept in brand management - positioning.
The 2024 update was based on interviews with 3,528 business buyers. Dentsu provided the interviewed buyers 30 decision drivers and asked them to rate the drivers based on how much influence each driver had on their buying decisions.
The three most influential decision drivers identified by the buyers were all characterized by Dentsu as personal drivers, and the firm noted that 2024 was the first time personal decision drivers outweighed functional drivers in overall importance. This finding led Dentsu to assert, "Brand has never been more important in B2B."
Other recent studies have also highlighted the importance of having a strong B2B brand. For example, Bain & Co. and Google surveyed 1,208 business buyers at U.S. companies in 2022. From 80% to 90% of the respondents said they had a set of vendors in mind before they did any research, and 90% of those respondents said they ultimately chose a vendor on their day-one list.
Therese Parkes with Google wrote that this behavior "means brand building and remaining top of mind during this process is essential."
The Great Debate
The relative importance of brand building vs. demand generation (a/k/a "performance marketing") has been the subject of a long-running debate in the B2B marketing community.
For nearly two decades, most B2B marketers have been primarily focused on improving the performance of their demand generation programs., and most of the B2B marketing literature published during that period was also focused on demand gen marketing technologies and techniques.
But despite this lopsided focus, interest in brand building has recently been increasing. Over the past couple of years, I've noticed a growing number of articles, blog/LinkedIn posts, and other forms of content addressing the importance of having a strong brand in B2B.
This increased interest has been fueled by several factors. A growing number of B2B marketers have recognized that business buying decisions are usually driven as much by emotional and psychological factors as by rational thinking processes.
B2B marketers are also recognizing that a strong brand can improve the performance of demand generation marketing programs, reduce the price sensitivity of business buyers, and strengthen customer loyalty.
The Birth of Brand Management
Most of what we've learned about building strong brands originated in B2C companies. In the 1930s, Proctor & Gamble invented the business function that would come to be called brand management, and by the late 1950s, brand management practices had been widely adopted by U.S. consumer package goods (CPG) companies.
In 1974, the Association of National Advertisers estimated that 85% of U.S. CPG companies (and 93% of those with annual advertising expenditures of more than $10 million) had implemented brand management functions and practices. ("Lessons from nearly a century of the brand management system")
Marketing is a recognized academic discipline that's been widely taught at the university level for decades. However, Professor Kimberly A. Whitler at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business argues that there's a "theory-doing gap" in marketing education.
"Most undergraduate courses tend to be theory or concept based, with few using tools or workshops to teach students how to create, build, or construct successful brands. Consequently, the vast majority of marketers discover what marketing is, and how to create marketing strategies and plans, from their employers on the job."
In her research, Professor Whitler found that almost all of the companies that excel at developing C-level marketing leaders were from the CPG or retailing industry. She offered an explanation for this finding in Positioning for Advantage:
"What do these developers of C-level marketing talent have in common? They all have systematic and science-based systems, processes, and approaches to building superior brands . . . The marketers in these firms are typically profit and loss (P&L) leaders in their firms and play an upstream role, often being expected to lead the development of the strategic plans that will drive growth. This differs from the nearly 50 percent of companies that treat marketing as only a sales activity existing just to commercialize the products that other firm leaders create."
Brand Management for B2B
Given the B2C origin and evolution of brand management, it's not surprising that many B2B marketers don't have extensive experience with the discipline. However, it's clear that brand building is becoming an increasingly vital aspect of B2B marketing success.
I'm planning to publish a short series of posts discussing a few of the basic concepts and principles of brand management. These posts will barely scratch the surface of a complex topic, but I hope they will encourage B2B marketers to learn more.
The quest to understand how people make buying decisions has probably consumed more brainpower than any other topic in marketing and sales. In B2B, we've also devoted a lot of time and energy to diagnosing why some potential customers fail to make any purchase after conducting a thorough buying process.
Such outcomes are usually called no decisions, and several studies have shown that B2B companies lose more sales to no decisions than to competitors. In the research for their 2022 book, The JOLT Effect, Matthew Dixon and Ted McKenna found that between 40% and 60% of prospective sales result in no decisions.
Rational vs. Non-Rational No Decisions
Some no decisions are entirely rational. For example, a potential customer may decide not to buy because their current solution is superior or equivalent to the proposed alternatives. In such cases, the alternatives don't provide enough additional value to justify a change.
However, many no decisions can't be explained on a rational basis. These are situations where the potential customer has recognized the existence of an issue or challenge that needs to be addressed, the fit and business case for the proposed solution are strong, and the price of the proposed solution is affordable. But despite these circumstances, the potential customer decides not to buy.
Such "non-rational" no decisions point to the role of human emotion and psychology in B2B buying. An impressive body of research has shown that many B2B buying decisions are driven more by emotional and psychological factors than by logic.
So, how do emotions and psychological factors drive no decisions? To answer this question, the starting point is understanding the power and prevalence of fear in B2B buying.
How Fear Drives No Decisions
More than a decade ago, Enquiro conducted a landmark study of the B2B buying process. The research used several methods to gather data from almost 4,000 individuals involved in B2B buying. A core finding of the study was that B2B buying is not a rational process, but rather an "emotional, heuristic process" in which fear plays a leading role.
Gord Hotchkiss, the CEO of Enquiro, discussed the results of the study in The Buyersphere Project, where he described the role of fear in B2B buying in unequivocal terms. He wrote:
"B2B buying decisions are usually driven by one emotion - fear. Specifically, B2B buying is all about minimizing fear by eliminating risk. And in that, there are two distinct types of risk. There is organizational risk, typically formalized and dealt with in various procurement processes and then there is personal risk, which is unstated but remains a huge influencing factor in organizational buying."
The personal risk that is present at some level in every B2B buying situation is the risk that the decision-maker will be blamed if the purchase doesn't deliver the promised benefits. So, fear of blame is a hidden force in every B2B buying situation.
Personal risk often causes business buyers to practice what psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer has called defensive decision-making.*
Defensive decision-making occurs when a business buyer doesn't choose the option that would probably produce the most benefits for his or her company, but instead chooses the option that will protect him or her in case something goes wrong.
Defensive decision-making can easily lead business buyers to view their status quo as the safest option, and that results in a no decision.
A Strong Brand Reduces No Decisions
You will never completely eliminate no decisions. As I noted earlier, some no decisions are completely rational. Sometimes, your offering won't be significantly better than what your prospect is already using or doing. Your objective should be to identify these situations early in the sales process so that you don't waste time pursuing a deal you are unlikely to win.
Reducing the number of non-rational no decisions is challenging because, by definition, you are dealing with emotional and psychological factors that are difficult to identify and usually differ for every buyer.
In The JOLT Effect, Dixon and McKenna lay out a four-pronged approach that sales reps can use to reduce no decisions. The authors argue that high-performing reps look for ways to "take risk off the table" (the "T" in JOLT). Examples of these tactics include free trials, opt-out clauses in contracts, and performance guarantees.
One of the most effective ways to reduce non-rational no decisions is to build and sustain a strong brand presence in the relevant market. A strong brand reduces the level of personal risk associated with choosing your company.
If your company/brand is well-known by the decision-maker's superiors and colleagues, the perceived risk is even lower. This explains the rationale of the quote: "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."
"A decision to appoint a respected brand is much less reputationally risky than the appointment of an unknown. If you appoint a well-known company to a task and things go wrong, your colleagues are likely to blame the supplier. If you appoint someone obscure, they may blame you."
Advocates of brand marketing often assert that building a strong brand will improve the performance of demand generation programs, make buyers more willing to pay a premium price, and increase customer loyalty. Unfortunately, it's not usually clear why a strong brand delivers these benefits. One likely reason is that buyers are apt to view a strong brand as the safest choice.
*Gerd Gigerenzer is director emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, and director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy at the University of Potsdam. For a more in-depth discussion of defensive decision-making, see his book, Risk Savvy: How to Make Good Decisions.
Dentsu, the global provider of marketing and agency services, recently published the 2024 update to its Superpowers Index study. Dentsu has conducted this research annually since 2021, and the firm says it now constitutes the "largest ever systematic study of B2B buying behavior globally."
The 2024 update was based on interviews with 3,528 B2B buyers covering 6,539 buying experiences. Over the four years of the study, Dentsu has interviewed over 14,000 B2B buyers about over 25,000 buying experiences.
The Dentsu research had three primary objectives. It sought to identify:
The drivers behind B2B buying decisions
Who is involved in the buying process and what makes a difference to buyers at each stage
How improving the buying experience impacts commercial outcomes
The Resurgence of Brand
One of the most notable findings from the 2024 research is that "personal" decision drivers have become more important to B2B buyers. This led Dentsu to assert that "Brand has never been more important in B2B."
Dentsu provided the interviewed buyers 30 decision drivers and asked them to rank the drivers based on how much influence each driver had on their buying decision. The following table shows the ten most influential decision drivers identified by buyers in 2024 and where each of those drivers ranked in the 2023 research.
As this table shows, "I feel safe signing a contract with them" was the most influential decision driver in both 2024 and 2023.
In 2024, the second and third most influential drivers were "Is known as being a good employer" and "Active thought leaders in their category/sector." Dentsu characterized both of these as "personal" drivers, and both were ranked significantly higher in 2024 than in 2023.
In the paper describing the 2024 research, Dentsu observed that ". . . for the first time since we started Superpowers, we see 'personal' decision drivers outweigh the more functional drivers in their overall importance in the B2B buyer journey."
The resurgence of brand is also reflected in the attitudes of B2B marketers. In the 2024 research, B2B marketers ranked "raising brand awareness/top of funnel performance" as the most important objective for future strategy, up from fifth place in 2023. Meanwhile, "demand generation/driving and converting leads" fell to seventh place in 2024, down from fourth place in 2023.
My Take
The relative importance of brand marketing vs. demand generation marketing (a/k/a "performance marketing") has been the topic of a long-standing debate in the B2B marketing community. A few years ago, Samuel Scott described this divide in marketing as a "cold war." Until recently, the proponents of demand generation marketing were clearly winning the war.
For nearly two decades, most B2B marketers have been primarily focused on using data and technology to improve the performance of their demand generation programs. Not surprisingly, most of the B2B marketing research published over the past two decades has also been focused on demand gen marketing technologies and techniques.
But despite the widespread focus on demand generation marketing, brand building never completely disappeared from the conversation. Throughout this period, a cadre of respected marketing thought leaders continued to stress the importance of brand marketing in B2B, and these thought leaders' views have been consistently supported by credible research.
Here are two other research studies that provide persuasive evidence for the importance and value of B2B brand marketing.
The Bain & Co./Google Survey
In 2022, Bain & Co. and Google surveyed 1,208 people at U.S. companies who were involved in buying several kinds of business products and services. From 80% to 90% of the survey respondents said they had a set of vendors in mind before they did any research. And, 90% of those respondents said they ultimately chose a vendor that was on their day-one list.
In an article about the survey for WSJ/Business, Therese Parkes with Google wrote that this behavior "means brand building and remaining top of mind during this process is essential."
The WSJ Intelligence/B2B International Survey
In a 2021 survey of 1,601 business decision-makers by WSJ Intelligence and B2B International, researchers asked participants to think about a recent purchase and reflect on the vendor that was ultimately selected (the winning vendor) and on a vendor that was considered but not selected (the losing vendor).
The survey found that the mental impressions buyers have about potential vendors before they begin an active buyer process have a significant impact on purchase decisions. Specifically:
Survey respondents were more than twice as likely (79% vs 37%) to say they were very familiar with the winning vendor versus the losing vendor before their active buying process began.
Respondents also said they had a higher level of trust (57% vs 37%) and confidence (52% vs. 37%) in the winning vendor versus the losing vendor before they started their buying process.
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So, is B2B brand marketing making a comeback? I think the answer to this question is "Yes," but its too soon to tell how much of a comeback.
Les Binet and Peter Field have argued that B2B companies should spend 46% of their marketing budget on long-term brand-building programs. I suspect few, if any, B2B companies are spending at that level, but I don't doubt that astute B2B marketers are increasing their investment in brand marketing.
(This month's Research Round-Up discusses some of the major findings found in the Spring 2024 edition of "The CMO Survey" and a set of interesting perspectives from the "2024 Annual Marketing Report" by Nielsen.)
A survey of 292 marketing leaders at U.S. for-profit companies
94% of the respondents were VP-level or above
62% of the respondents were with B2B companies
Survey was in the field February 6 - March 5, 2024
"The CMO Survey" is a semi-annual survey of senior marketing leaders that has been conducted since 2008. The survey is directed by Dr. Christine Moorman and is sponsored by Deloitte LLP, Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, and the American Marketing Association.
For several years, each edition of the survey has asked participants about overall economic conditions, current marketing spending patterns, and future spending expectations. Here are some of the major findings on those topics from the Spring 2024 survey.
Economic Outlook
The survey asked participants to rate their optimism regarding the overall U.S. economy on a 100-point scale, with "0" being the least optimistic and "100" being the most optimistic. The mean rating given by respondents was 67, up from 58.3 in the March 2023 survey edition.
The survey also asked if participants were more or less optimistic about the U.S. economy compared to the previous quarter, and 43.7% of the respondents reported being more optimistic. That was up from 30.1% in the March 2023 edition of the survey.
Marketing Spending
Respondents reported that marketing spending represented 10.1% of total company revenue, which was down slightly from 10.9% in the March 2023 survey.
Respondents also said that marketing spending increased 2.5% during the 12 months preceding the survey, and they expect marketing spending will increase 4.7% during the 12 months following the survey. In the March 2023 survey, respondents expected marketing spending to grow 5.7% during the following 12 months, which shows that forward-looking expectations aren't always accurate.
The relative change in spending on digital marketing vs. traditional advertising remains significant. In the Spring 2024 survey, respondents reported that spending on digital marketing grew 8.9% over the 12 months preceding the survey. In contrast, respondents said they expect spending on traditional advertising to decrease by 2.1% over the 12 months following the survey.
Use of Marketing Technology
The Spring 2024 survey included several questions relating to marketing technology. One of these questions produced a result that is difficult to understand or explain. Nearly a fourth (24.7%) of the respondents said their company is not using marketing technology systems.
Scott Brinker (a/k/a chiefmartec) wrote that when he saw this result, "I fell out of my chair." He went on to write: "So this is obviously false. If you have a website, you use marketing technology. If you have a database of your customers . . . you use marketing technology. If you create essentially any kind of content on a computer, you use marketing technology."
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"The CMO Survey" consistently provides a wealth of valuable insights for B2B marketers, and I encourage you to read the full report.
Based on a survey of 1,514 global marketing professionals
Respondents were brand marketers at or above manager level
Respondents worked with annual marketing budgets of $1 million or more
Survey was conducted December 5 - 21, 2023
This report takes an interesting approach. It describes the survey results, but the report's authors also point out several issues with the prevailing sentiments expressed by the survey respondents.
The report identifies four major themes based on the survey findings.
Advertising Spending
Seventy-four percent (74%) of the respondents expect their ad budget to increase this year, and on average, they expect to allocate more than 63% of their budget to digital channels. The survey results also show that a majority of the respondents perceive that digital channels are extremely or very effective.
The report's authors note that the effectiveness of any given channel varies significantly across brands. Therefore, what's effective for one brand might not work as well for another.
Marketing Misalignment
Seventy percent (70%) of the respondents said they plan to increase spending on performance marketing and decrease spending on brand building.
The report's authors note that marketers' most important KPIs are long-term ROI and full-funnel ROI and that a shift toward performance marketing (and away from brand building) won't fully support those goals.
Media Balance
The third theme in the report addresses the performance marketing vs. brand building issue from a media selection perspective. The report's authors note that globally, only 36% of marketing channels perform above average for delivering both sales and brand building. They also contend that using multiple, diverse channels improves campaign reach.
Measuring Performance
On average, 84% of the survey respondents said they are either extremely or very confident in their ROI measurement capabilities, but only 38% said they evaluate the ROI of their marketing efforts holistically by measuring traditional and digital media spending together.
The report's authors argue that holistic measures of marketing ROI are necessary to avoid blind spots that can result in an inaccurate picture of the true impact of a brand's total marketing efforts.
If you've ever bought or sold a house, you're probably familiar with the concept of curb appeal. Curb appeal is the visual attractiveness of a house as seen from the street, and it's what creates a potential buyer's first impression of the house. Real estate professionals know curb appeal plays a big role in determining how quickly a house will sell and what the selling price will be.
Good first impressions are also important for successful B2B marketing. Today, most potential buyers will form their first impression of your company based on the content you produce. If your content doesn't create a good first impression, potential buyers will quickly turn elsewhere, and you may not get another chance to connect with those buyers.
In the words attributed to Will Rogers, "You never get a second chance to make a first impression."
When your content creates a good first impression, potential buyers are more likely to come back for more, and they will be more inclined to view the rest of your content - and your company - favorably.
Enter the Halo Effect
This inclination results from a cognitive phenomenon known as the halo effect. The American Psychological Association defines a halo effect as, "a rating bias in which a general evaluation (usually positive) of a person, or an evaluation of a person on a specific dimension, influences judgments of that person on other specific dimensions."
Put more plainly, a halo effect exists when we transfer our perceptions about one attribute of a person or an organization to other attributes of that person or organization without having a rational basis for the transfer. In other words, if we perceive that a company is good at "A," we will tend to think the company is also good at "B," even though we actually know nothing about the company's capabilities at "B."
The halo effect was first identified by psychologist Edward Thorndike in 1920, and it's been widely studied since that time. Although the halo effect was first applied to the evaluation of people, we now know that halo effects influence how we evaluate inanimate objects including products, services, brands, and companies.
The most important thing to remember about the halo effect is that it magnifies the influence of first impressions beyond what would be justified on a purely rational basis.
Halos Are Everywhere
The halo effect can be found in a wide range of human judgments. For example:
If I meet a likable person, I will be inclined to believe he or she is also generous and ethical, even though I know nothing about the person's generosity or ethics.
If I have a good experience with a Honda automobile, I'll be inclined to believe I will also be happy with a Honda lawnmower, even though I know nothing about the quality of Honda lawnmowers.
If I find one of your company's white papers to be valuable, I'll be inclined to believe other content produced by your company is likely to be valuable. I'll also be inclined to believe your company is probably good at what it does even if I know little about your company.
Halo Effect's Evil Twin
The halo effect is most frequently discussed in the context of irrational positive evaluations, but the same cognitive mechanism can also produce irrational negative judgments.
If I attend a webinar hosted by your company and find the content to be poor, I'll be inclined to think the other content produced by your company probably isn't very good. In addition, my webinar experience may lead me to form a negative overall impression of your company.
This negative manifestation of the halo effect is called, appropriately, the horn effect.
Implications for Marketing
As a B2B marketer, it's important to recognize that almost every content resource you publish has the potential to trigger (or contribute to) a halo effect or a horn effect. Therefore, one obvious lesson is that you can benefit from halo effects (and avoid horn effects) if you consistently produce content that will create a good first impression with potential buyers.
I would also argue that the potential benefits of halo effects should influence how you think about content distribution. Marketers have been debating the use of gated vs. ungated content for the past several years. While opinions vary, the conventional view is that it's appropriate to gate very-high-value content resources, while keeping other resources ungated.
I contend this is the wrong approach. Suppose you have created a content resource that is truly outstanding, one that is likely to make a good impression on potential buyers. In that case, you should want that resource to reach (and be consumed by) as many potential buyers as possible. The last thing you want is to put any hurdles between your content resource and your target audience.
If a potential buyer is impressed with your content, he or she is likely to seek out other content you've produced. And when the potential buyer is ready to begin an active buying process, your company will likely be included in his or her initial consideration set of potential vendors.
The benefits of halo effects aren't always immediate, but they can be powerful.
I've been advising and supporting B2B companies for over twenty-five years. I work with clients to evaluate major strategic issues and initiatives, develop effective business and marketing strategies, and implement operational improvement programs.
In the B2B marketing space, my primary focus areas are strategy development, content development, marketing process improvement, and marketing performance measurement.
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