Because B2B brands have to stand out.
The worst thing that can happen to a B2B brand isn’t getting cancelled, it’s being forgotten. And the quickest way to fade into the background is to focus primarily on your campaigns at the expense of your greatest intangible asset, which is your brand.
Chasing campaign metrics has become the default of marketing KPIs, and by extension, the focal point of most martech stacks. Indeed, only 16% of marketers even list brand awareness as an objective, even though brand equity acts as both proof of value and insurance against fickle headwinds and evolving trends.
Furthermore, it overlooks the fact that lack of awareness is a far greater obstacle to growth than rejection or active dislike. Around 95% of B2B buyers are out of market at any given time, so it’s imperative to be top of mind when they are. Yes, well-run campaigns create attention spikes, but a brand’s presence brings a depth and dimension that persist beyond deployments.
If this wasn’t sufficiently convincing, buyers, clients and prospects are interacting with brands across a minimum of ten channels now. Designing and continuously optimising functional cross-channel campaigns for that many threads demands a herculean, sprawling effort that even large marketing teams would have difficulty implementing. Having an established and credible brand mitigates this pressure considerably.
Now that we’re aware we need our brands to stand in their own right, we need to explore how to do that effectively.
Don’t Get Stuck in Memphis
What distinguishes tokenistic tweaks from meaningful market differentiators? The answer is not giving your logo a barely discernible annual spruce-up or nudging your colour palette toward the category norm. Looking sideways for spot fixes and following the crowd buys you a one-way ticket to Corporate Memphis, and the price of this entrenched interchangeability is steep. You’ll have to reintroduce yourself in every interaction, driving up the cost of media and sales across every incremental point of awareness.
The true kingmakers are building physical and mental availability. Mental availability is how easily your brand comes to mind in buying situations. It’s built by distinctive, consistent cues that buyers recognise across campaigns, products, sales, and service. Physical availability is how easy your offering is to buy when the urge hits, requiring coverage across channels, formats, regions, partners, pricing and procurement pathways.
Becoming the architect of a self-sustaining brand machine requires building around three major pillars:
- Effective outreach: cast the net as far and wide as possible, because future buyers are the majority.
- Omnichannel ecosystems: hit multiple entry points to maximise on the when/why/with whom/where/how I feel moments that trigger purchases.
- Codified Brand Assets: Build the colours, shapes, characters, sonic, and syntax required to enable three-second recognition across product, sales decks, events, and ads.
The next time you get the itch to tinker with cosmetic updates, take a long, hard look in the mirror and then run a differentiation audit instead.
The Anatomy of a Differentiation Audit
Running an effective audit blends existential questions and operational discipline.
- Where are we playing safe? Lay your visual, verbal and behavioural cues on the table, like logos, colours, shapes, phrases, UI micro-patterns and deck templates, then line them up against the category. Keep the elements buyers reliably recognise as yours and discard the rest.
- What is making you money? Track the most lucrative flashpoints on your customer journey and cater to them. Think why: to get promoted, when: end of financial year, while: in a meeting, how I feel: pride or pressure, with/for whom: board approval, where: working remotely, and with what tools: privacy software. Build creative and sales collateral that leverages these moments and then track linkage.
- How can you best design for three-second recall? Codify an asset differentiator system and deploy it so the brand introduces itself before the copy does. Three-second recall isn’t a design flourish; it’s the mechanism that makes all media and sales activity work harder by activating existing memory structures.
- Are you cultivating the silent 95%? Engineer for long purchase cycles: most buyers aren’t shopping now (many categories renew on multi-year cadences), so let activations harvest today’s 5% while your brand captivates the rest. Spreading investment to stay present across buying windows is how you’ll be remembered when new opportunities crop up.
Brands that refuse to play it safe reap the benefits of recall, relevance and reach, even when it seems like no one is looking. If you think your organisation isn’t quite there, it might be time to consult with the experts.
Chesamel’s Approach
Chesamel is more than a consultancy; we’re your partner in transformation.
We start by diagnosing where your brand is hiding in plain sight: mapping awareness gaps, competitive overlap, and under-performing assets across your customer journey.
Our strategists and creatives work side-by-side to build scalable differentiators, turning fragmented channels into an integrated ecosystem that captures the 5% buying today, and deepening equity amongst the 95% of tomorrow.
If you’re unsure if you’re playing it safe and want to explore your options, we should talk.
