Branding just works — so why isn’t  absolutely everyone in B2B on board?

There can be no doubt that branding works. Countless studies over many years, tracking multiple measures, prove again and again how effective a strong brand can be for a company’s market leadership. Annual reports dedicated to evaluating and ranking global corporate brands, B2C and B2B, lend significant proof to brand value. LinkedIn’s B2B Institute, in partnership with the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute of Marketing, brings scientific support to their claim that the 2020s will be the decade of the “great B2B re-branding”.

The Big 4 consultancies are renowned for living their own brands and proving the value of brands for corporate cultures. Strong, robust brands are capable of ushering in change management and helping companies complete successful M&As and IPOs. 

Despite independent, wide-ranging, and mutually supportive proofs of branding’s efficacy and impacts, powerful resistance to branding in B2B remains. Why is this?  What are the real reasons for this enduring, stubborn, “sticky” skepticism to branding among so many B2B companies and players? On the contrary: in the face of the myriad benefits and documented opportunities branding affords, why isn’t there an urgency to embrace branding straightaway? In our examinations, we have found the reasons for resistance to be complicated and multi-layered, spanning everything from legitimate pushbacks to classic battles for “territory” and “turf.” What is clear: understanding the full dimensions of resistance to branding substantially reframes the discussion and debate and suggests that new approaches to dealing with age-old divides, if they are ever to be forded, are necessary. 

  • In Part I of this paper, Branding Just Works, we explore the wide range of proofs for branding’s value.
  • In Part II, Why the pushback? Why the eye rolls? we identify and evaluate the reasons, rational and emotional, for the less than full, universal embrace of branding’s value in B2B.
  • In Part III, So What is This Thing Called a Brand? we address age-old, time-honoured questions: What is a strong, robust brand, anyway? What exactly should we be agreeing to when we refer to brand and branding results? Why should anyone care? Read on, if you do. 

Branding just works

Perhaps a surprise, it was only in the early 1990s that a proper discipline of branding, mostly consumer, began to emerge. David Aaker, called the “(god-) father of modern branding”, published his first book on branding, Managing Brand Equity, in 1991, and Building Strong Brands shortly after. I personally witnessed B2B coming on board by the mid-‘90s among a number of major, international B2B companies. Tearing a page from consumer branding, the first page of many, B2B companies realized that branding provided them, as it did their B2C counterparts, a way to circumvent the tyranny of all things product-driven and price-based; and to differentiate themselves beyond product features and attributes alone. Branding allowed shifts, for example, from cost per unit functionality to customer-focused and value-added; from transactions to unique solutions and applications; from spec sheets to benefits and needs-driven values. Concomitantly, branding helped B2B avoid price reduction as differentiation, never a winning formula.

Over the last 30+ years, however, from reasonably humble beginnings, branding has become a remarkable engine, powering an industry, a discipline, and polyvalent approaches, philosophies and business strategies. So, before diving into some of the more controversial aspects of branding, it is illuminating to take a step back and briefly survey just how broad and rich is the field of branding: what it contributes; how nuanced and evergreen it is; and how ubiquitous and empowering is its impact. We examine four, independent but interrelated, sources of brand influence and impact:

  1. Branding is a fixture in the academy.
  2. Branding has transformed the world of agencies and advertising, and vice versa, and is still working its magic.
  3. LinkedIn’s B2B Institute is B2B marketing and branding’s own, dedicated think-tank.
  4. A vast literature has grown up around branding that supports its variegated, polyvalent values.

Taking a step back:

  1. Branding is a fixture in the academy.

All major business schools around the world have departments, tenured positions and chairs dedicated to branding and offer degrees in the discipline. Scholars have become “stars,” distinguished for their particular kinds of branding expertise. A partial list includes David Aaker (Brand Equity Model,) Kevin Lane Keller (Brand Resonance Pyramid), Marty Neumeier, (The Brand Gap, Zag), Emily Heyward (B2C specialist), Susan Fournier, (Brand Relationship Theory) Matts Urde (Strategic Brand Management), and Jenni Romaniuk (scientific branding). Romaniuk’s affiliation, the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, the University of South Australia, touts itself as the “home of evidence-based marketing,” and is the source of How Brands Grow – for Executives, their international best-seller. Much more can be done with this coterie, including interviews and panels. Exciting times ahead.

  1. Branding has transformed the world of agencies and advertising, and vice versa, and still is working its magic. 

Already from the ‘60s, with the surge of TV and quality print, agencies had begun to develop full-blown brands, steeped in emotion, personality and benefits. Many were captured in what are now iconic campaigns for global brands: think classic campaigns for Coke, IBM, VW; you will add your own memories. The onset of branding as a discipline in the ‘90s provided agencies welcome credibility, purpose and business value that furthered their case; but the relationship was mutual, a win-win, as agencies provided branding theorists a well-developed practice that included campaign implementation and global reach. The relationship couldn’t have been more mutually supportive and symbiotic. Agencies became “agencies of the brand” with distinguishing takes: Saatchi famously offered Lovemarks, Young & Rubicam offered BrandAsset Valuator (BAV), the world’s largest consumer data base for brands, J Walter Thompson produced “Superbrands.” Today, evergreen and vital, the field continues to evolve by connecting classic brand agencies with digital and social partners – e.g., Y&R is now VMLY&R. 

Reflecting growing excitement in B2B overall, and in B2B branding, in particular, major, new B2B agencies are emerging, notably and among many others, Publicis Pro and Wunderman Thompson. The latter is a VML subsidiary, whose Inspired B2B Assessment score, recalls Y&R’s original BAV-consumer brand survey. In WT’s view, B2B brands that inspire outperform their markets: “customers are ultimately human,” says James Irvine, EMEA B2B Practice Lead; “to make truly emotional connections, inspiring and engaging them with warmth, humor and creativity is as important as making a sound business case.”

Enter Cannes with Lions for B2B:

No less an advertising institution than Cannes has entered the picture, offering its first B2B Lions for brand campaigns in 2022. In 2023, Cannes awarded top prizes to Brazil’s B3 Stock Exchange, Intel and Workday, reflecting the growth in digital and B2B overall, but also the abundance and richness that is inherent in branding. including its ready embrace of humor and emotion. 

Cannes 2024 has just awarded top prizes to campaigns from Coca-Cola, Heineken and JC Decaux for their work along the supply chain as well as within the advertising industry itself. There have been some calls for Cannes to reward more classic B2B industries, such as technology, pharma and construction, rather than globally recognized, consumer-facing brands, such as these three who also “do B2B.” “Taking a walk on the B2B wild side,” I confess, my response is:” Show me the money.” 

Cannes has always set the highest standards for every campaign, every category, it rewards. This is not summer-camp, where everybody gets a “most-improved swimmer” award. In fact, classic B2B brands, take Cannes as a wake-up and call-to-action: Go for it! Be brave, reach and stretch, take risks with your campaigns. Create truly memorable, impactful work! (The B2B Marketing Institute will recommend the same.) No time like the present to take a place on the podium alongside classic, consumer-facing advertising brands.

  1. LinkedIn’s B2B Institute is B2B marketing and branding’s own, dedicated think-tank.

Mirabile visu. Mirabile dictu. 

Greater proponents of B2B Marketing – not only as a discipline, a science, and a philosophy, but of B2B marketing as brand-based and brand-driven– would be hard to find. Take time to savor this sentence. For someone who has worked in the B2B world for 30+ years, I well remember when we had no dedicated B2B press, or events, such as B2BMarketing offers, or even the realization that B2B marketing existed to do anything besides fill the salesmen’s kits with brochures, police logo usage, and “party-plan” events.

Today, the B2B Institute brings together some of the best minds in the industry, in one place, to promote the power, and further the excellence, of B2B marketing and branding; their fervor and confidence in their convictions are refreshing. Core to their beliefs, which they proudly acknowledge are contrarian, is the supremacy and centrality of the brand. They have announced that “the future of marketing is bright, the future is brand.” They believe brand reliably, durably delivers six values: short and long-term sales, pricing power, category optionality, talent acquisition, and a competitive “moat.” They have declared the 2020s the “decade of the great B2B re-branding,” as they posit that long-term brand familiarity will surpass the “imaginary efficiencies,” current and widespread, of “hyper-targeting:” i.e., over-dedicating resources to targets already captured. https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/b2b-institute/2030-b2b-trends

They draw deep distinctions between marketing-and-brand and sales

Their unshakable beliefs in brand derive from their “evidence-based, marketing-science research.” In their view, business growth comes from long-term reach and acquisition among customers, who are currently out-market. This is in 180-degree opposition to sales activations and data, which, in their view, are often sub-prime and inherently uncertain; and which apply only to current, in-market customers. The Institute draws huge distinctions between the disciplines of marketing and sales – the former of which, is the domain of the brand while the later, effectively lead and demand gen, is the province of activations. 

  • To brand, they attribute all things emotional and long-term: many : 1, impersonalized, broad in targets, and measured in “memory metrics.” 
  • By activations, they mean all things rational and short-term:  1 : many, personalized, narrow in targets and measured in sales. 
  • It is brand that actually creates demand, in their view, while sales activation captures demand that already exists. 

Although it is still new and contrarian advice for B2B, they counsel (as we have, above) to “go big” with marketing; to take “big bets” in creative on formulaic stories with distinctive styles repeated across every channel. Think like Disney and Salesforce, they advise, when it comes to campaigns, and make sure to support awareness of your brand with specific applications of exactly what you do. To achieve creative success, they are wise to advise: deepen your awareness among people to get on their “radar scopes;” ensure they know what you do in order that they fully remember you for the future.  As for short-term sales, they point out that there is already a massive, focused and dedicated resource — they’re called the sales team. 

https://commercetools.com/resources/whitepaper/pivotal-trends-and-

Partnering with the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for even greater “street cred” 

The B2B Institute has partnered with the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute from the University of Western Australia to publish a series of papers on how B2B brands grow, thus contributing even more to the vast and growing literature in support of brand.  Based on research with the EBI, they use science and data to turn some “truths” on their head – loyalty is a function of penetration, they report, so the only path for sustainable growth is through customer acquisition. More contrariness: they believe that lack of brand awareness is a much bigger problem than active rejection of your brand. This means efforts to reduce rejection levels are likely to have low ROI in sales growth; brands should instead focus marketing efforts on reaching potential B2B buyers to build “mental availability” for when they are in-market. 

https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/b2b-institute/b2b-research/research-studies

As for the great rebranding, they believe in what they call the “flippening” — that the great re-branding is on course and happening now. They point to evidence, such as that from Brand Finance, to suggest investment and increased brand support are paying off. This also supports their view that the death of hyper-targeting is long overdue as its “crimes” continue to include sub-prime data, imaginary efficiencies, dependence on changing buying networks, multi-dimensionality and inherent uncertainty. 

  1. A vast literature has grown up around branding to document its far-ranging value and impact.

A full bibliography of brand value surveys, reports, books and articles could be the subject of its own examination and fill its own library. Formal documentation of countless contributions would be impossible to fully capture or master; especially as this represents only a fraction of the full literature on branding as so much about branding remains proprietary and company-specific. https://maaw.info/BrandReputationBib.htm. If we try to put our arms around this vast trove, however, it is fair to say that, overall, the deep, variegated, and ever-growing literature concerning branding continues to support branding’s myriad and ever-growing impacts and contributions to business growth and competitive success, B2C and B2B. We call out here four of the most notable areas from this literature.

  1. Analysts love brands
  2. Dedicated annual reports
  3. Vertical literature on internal branding
  4. Premium pricing and financial impact

 

(a) Analysts love brands

Arguably one of the wisest adages in business is “No one ever got fired for buying (variant: for hiring), IBM;” it speaks volumes for the value of corporate brands, particularly B2B corporate brands. Financial analysists have long been on board; stock brokers swear by brands and put their professional reputations behind individual brands as well as corporate portfolios that include strong brands. Wall Street values businesses with long-term cash flows, with about 80% of a share price coming from 10-year projections of brand longevity and viability.

Investment Analysis Research from the IPA and Brand Finance in 2023 proves brand tops the list when it comes to analysists’ appraisals. (Adopted from https://www.b2bmarketing.net/propolis-content/five-steps-to-building-a-brand-business-case/.)

A graph of marketing and data  Description automatically generated with medium confidence

(b) Dedicated annual surveys track brand valuations and global corporate rankings.

Three, long-established and highly respected surveys continue to reinforce financial analysts’ trust in brands: Brand Finance’s “Index” (28 years), Interbrand’s “Best Global Brands (24 years), and Kantar’s “BrandZ” (15 years). While they apply different methods and kinds of evaluations, nonetheless, their annual drum-beats of corporate brand rankings routinely identify the “usual suspects” of best performers who always pop-to-the-top. This demonstrates the underlying, financial connections and competitive ramifications of supporting and maintaining a strong corporate brand. 

In its just-released “Index” report of the top 500 most valuable and strongest brands, Brand Finance named Apple as number 1; people report Apple is “expensive, but worth the price, reinforcing a brand’s ability to demand price premiums.” Brand value is up for Microsoft (number 2, and the world’s most valuable B2B brand at $220.42B) and Nvidia (number 30), the world’s fastest growing brand, due to investments in AI. https://brandfinance.com/insights/global-500-2024-report

In 2023, Interbrand released a special report on the “Best B2B Brands,” citing the new excitement in b2b and that the rate of brand growth among enterprise brands exceeded that of consumer brands. Their fastest-growing enterprise brands were Microsoft, Adobe and Siemens, with the value of their top ten enterprise brands, $530B, representing 20% growth YoY and making up 17% of the total value of their “Best Global Brands.” With millennials now representing the great majority of purchasers and decision makers, the report cites opportunities to grow brands with values in Participation, Agility, and Affinity, to reflect Millennials’ values in community, speed to market and emotional connections. https://interbrand.com/newsroom/rate-of-brand-growth-in-enterprise-exceeds-that-of-consumer-according-to-interbrands-best-global-brands-2022/

Kantar BrandZ, the world’s largest (mostly consumer) global brand equity platform (20,000 brands, 50 countries), reported their top 20 most valuable B2B brands in the world, 2017. For a second year running, Microsoft claimed the top spot, with a brand value of $143B, an 18% YoY increase. IBM at $102B retained its number two spot with 18% YoY increase. The world’s top 20 B2B brands increased their combined value by 11%. with technology brands featuring heavily in the top 10. Their Top 100, they reported, is now dominated by the internet giants that deliver value regardless of economic, political or category disruption. https://www.b2bmarketing.net/archive/brandz-ranks-microsoft-as-most-valuable-b2b-brand-b2b-marketing/

(c) Vertical literature documents that internal branding, “living your brand,” linked to a strong external brand, just works.

Vertical literature dedicated to the impact of brand on internal branding, or “living your brand,” is itself vast. Study after study links strong, vibrant branding with strong, vibrant corporate cultures, employee satisfaction, “good place to work” ratings, hiring, attracting and retaining talent, and employer branding. Across studies and surveys, some dating back 25 years or more, one finding stands out: “living your brand” pays off for your company and your staff as much as does external branding reward your customers and partners. There is no better demonstration of this than brands that “take their own medicine” – and “live their own brands” as much as they serve and promote their clients’ brands.

Spotlight: Deloitte, EY and PwC. 

After obvious super-brand performers like Microsoft and Amazon, these are the top three rated companies by Brand Finance’s Index 2023, the Global Most Valuable B2B Brands. Deloitte was rated the strongest B2B Brand with an elite AAA+ rating (Brand Strength Index, BSI 91.3/100), followed by strong performances from “fellow commercial services” brands: EY, the second strongest brand in the B2B ranking, also with and AAA+ rating (BSI 89.9/100) and PwC, with a AAA rating (BSI 88.8/100). Proof-in-the-pudding, they’re all doing something very right. What is this? https://static.brandirectory.com/reports/brand-finance-global-b2b-brands-index-2023-full-report.pdf

Three keys to success involve seamless branding, internally and externally:

  1. Their brands are all based in a powerful positioning and ethic that drives their cultures. A core reason for their all being so successful for upwards of a century and a half: each of these three brands continues to push the limits: for them, there is no finish line in service or in business. They capture this energy and purpose in their brand positionings. EY cites “building a better working world” as its brand positioning, its “North Star”; Deloitte promises to “make impact that matters, every day on everything we do;” PwC strives to “create solutions to solve the world’s most important problems.” Alone, and collectively, they are all on future-forward missions to be proactive and responsive, as if exemplifying the old adage, that the best way to predict the future is to create it.
  2. They take their own medicine when it comes to branding, externally and internally, and with clients. They each demonstrate clear commitments to their brands and to high brand visibility – with obvious results. They each identify their own essential brand elements – brand positionings (as above), brand messaging, and carefully-controlled naming, and re-naming, strategies. Each has taken great care to develop and apply new graphic identities across their global networks. They acknowledge that their graphic identities are strategic drivers that help distinguish them while unifying, defining and strengthening their cultures and purpose: smart, sharp use of graphic identities – that are themselves bold, powerful, creative and progressive — can inspire and galvanize all stakeholders, especially internally. Notably a key service they provide their clients is tracking their clients’ branding impacts in their customer experience and corporate cultures. Branding in a sort of chain of impact upon impact upon impact! 
  3. They truly live their brands, their core values uniting their vast, international networks. Each with over 350-400,000 staff in 150+ countries in hundreds more locations, these three brands have managed to create and sustain businesses that are well-run, well-structured, global, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and not least, “merged and purged” numerous times. They manage to succeed where others fail in far less complicated circumstances, in large part, by creating strong, flexible, energizing corporate cultures that are grounded in their commitments to their people, and to their values-based corporate ethics. So it is that EY values their people with “energy, enthusiasm and courage to lead.” Deloitte is committed to “integrity, inclusion, individual responsibility and impact that pushes the world forward.” PwC aims to “build trust through human-led, tech-powered solutions.” The power of core values that are lived, embraced and respected in daily interchanges cannot be under-estimated.

https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en.html

https://www.ey.com/en_gl

https://www.pwc.com/gx/en.html

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bigfour.asp

(d) A robust body of literature documents branding’s influence on premium pricing, while the body of literature that documents how brands drive business strategy, and deliver business performance, is still nascent. 

Notable among all branding values is branding’s ability to impact business outcomes by commanding price premiums. Simply put, branding and how well a brand story is told is the difference in price that your product can demand over competition. The market bears higher prices for brands that have higher levels of brand equity. Customers are willing to pay more for that brand compared to competitors’ brands because branding adds an emotional level to a purchase: it offers meaning and value to no less than the customer’s image and sense of self.

No less a business light than Warren Buffet has said: “The single most important decision in evaluating a business is pricing power. If you’ve got the power to raise prices without losing business to a competitor, you’ve got a very good business. And if you have a prayer session before raising the price by 10%, then you’ve got a terrible business.” 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354816702_What_Drives_Brand_Equity_A_Comprehensive_Study_of_Price_and_Volume_Premiums

https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JPBM-10-2013-0414/full/html

Newer, far-reaching, business-based benefits:

With case studies of our own work, some of it still proprietary, we have added to the literature documenting branding’s impact on business outcomes. These span everything from change management and business strategy to successfully facilitating M&As and IPOs; and to managing portfolios according to consumer profiles and brand personalities. These are newer, more involved benefits of branding, and depend on a more robust understanding of what a brand is (See below, Part III.) We have written about each of these advanced benefits of branding and include links below as detailed discussion extends beyond the scope of this current piece. In simplest terms, it is our view, pure and simple: A brand is your business, a business is your brand. Branding is pure business strategy.

https://www.warc.com/content/paywall/article/warc-exclusive/echosens-20-brand-as-the-platform-for-innovative-b2b-change-management/en-gb/138111?

In sum: Across multiple sources, common findings and conclusions all point in one direction — branding just works!

No matter which way you cut it, no matter what lens you turn on branding — across multiple disciplines, sources, perspectives, and measures –branding’s values are high, its impacts outstanding. From the academy to agencies to the equivalent of whole libraries devoted to branding, and not least, to B2B branding’s own think-tank in the B2B Institute, branding’s strategic benefits continue to accumulate and multiply: driving corporate value, bolstering reputation, expanding market share, building brand recognition, securing lasting customer loyalty and trust; driving higher advertising effectiveness; driving higher stock values and lower price sensitivity; commanding price premiums; engaging employees, attracting and retaining top applicants; promoting positive WOM; fulfilling bespoke marketing metrics. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-brand-counts-margaret-molloy/

It is worth pointing out, many of these benefits are interrelated and provide joint impact. In the case of internal branding, they often unite Marketing and HR, requiring proactive collaboration and co-creation between two traditionally separate departments. E.g., HR’s employee satisfaction surveys, and “great place to work” scores depend on strong brands that drive strong corporate cultures and core values. Brand makes it clear where everyone in the company is headed and what everyone’s role is in the process. As for communications plans and campaigns, the best ones derive from durable brand elements of promises and personality – they’re what keep the brand vibrant and alive and continue to attract new customers while reinforcing existing customer loyalty. Indeed, customer loyalty, reference and preference depend on strong brands and the intimacy the brand affords them. Brands also have a knock-on effect when it comes to newer, more far-reaching, strategic business benefits: e.g., change management; business strategies; successful M&As and IPOs; unique portfolio management according to consumer profiles and brand personalities. It is worth repeating: A brand is your business; a business is your brand. Branding is pure business strategy.

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