This is the second in a 3-part series on brand, co-authored by Ledger Bennett (Michelle Nagelberg, Chief Strategy Officer) and TRIPTK (Matthew Sim, Head of Strategy), who are part of the Havas Network.
Ledger Bennett is a B2B marketing agency with expertise across the funnel, including big brand media thinking, customer experience, strategy, digital PR, and SEO.
TRIPTK is a global brand strategy and innovation partner helping leaders navigate their brand and business challenges with conviction.
It’s time for B2B marketers to stop gazing admiringly at the brand campaigns of their B2C counterparts.
In our first blog in this brand series, we challenged the notion that B2B marketers should solely focus their efforts on demand-gen gains. In fact, we pointed out that research shows that B2B buyers rely on emotion and memory just as much in their business lives as they do in their consumer lives.
So, investing in a memorable, trustworthy brand identity is as important for selling software and services as it is sneakers and snack foods.
We also noted that our clients who are getting brand right are learning from successful B2C brand tactics. Now it’s time to take a deeper dive. First, we’ll debunk B2B versus B2C assumptions; then, we’ll explore three lessons B2Bs can take from B2Cs.
Myth-busting Top B2B Misconceptions
B2B buyers care only about features and facts. Even the most rational buyer is a human being at the end of the day. So, fear and pride and trust and risk are all relevant when we market to them. And since B2B decisions are made by committee, this also means group dynamics and consensus come into play. LinkedIn research about the buying committee has demonstrated that, “Being a well-known brand is more consequential than being a better product, being a cheaper product or being a product that is championed by a passionate few — even when those champions happen to be experts.”
It’s ‘easier’ for B2Cs to do brand work because they have personal stakes. The reality is that most people expect brands to deliver not just on practical needs, but also on emotional benefits, purpose-driven activities and innovation, as revealed in the Meaningful Brands™ 2025 Global Report. This values-based decision-making doesn’t turn off when the purchase is for a professional need.
B2B and B2C are completely different disciplines. Just like work and life have become intertwined for individuals, organizations are now operating across blurred, interconnected spaces rather than fixed lanes. Think about the big brands, such as Amazon or Google, that span across B2B and B2C. Or consider services such as banking, cybersecurity, insurance, or project management that people have to use at work and at home. In light of these blurred lines, B2B brands are increasingly crossing over to reach their buyers in out-of-home, streaming services, and even Super Bowl ads.
So, what should B2Bs Take from B2C Brand Marketing?
A recent interview with Kelly Hopping, CMO at 6Sense asserted that since 81% of the buyer’s journey happens before sales gets involved, “Strong brand is the only way to shorten the long B2B sales cycle.” Here are three ways B2Bs can build strong brands by learning from what’s engrained in B2C.
#1 Taking risks is less risky than blending in and becoming forgettable. As researcher and author Brené Brown has written, “You can choose courage or you can choose comfort, but you cannot have both.” As B2B marketers, we may take comfort in facts and figures and predictable outcomes, but a bland brand doesn’t provoke the emotions and actions we need from customers.
B2C marketers are less afraid to push proverbial boundaries and learn from the result because their markets move faster and often require less buy-in. B2B could adopt this mentality with a more agile approach to testing and learning. With data tracking, AI and automation tools, it’s possible to increase brand availability and test versions earlier in the decision journey to build memory centers and increase trust. Then we can use those findings to continue experimenting and adapting.
#2 Brand is not just a beginning; it’s a long game. That B2B inclination to set goals can mean brand is treated as an early strategic exercise and then forgotten about.
Meanwhile, B2Cs tend to stay hungrier about their brand, keeping tabs on performance, competitors’ brand campaigns, and consumers’ changing affinity. Our Meaningful Brands research showed that people’s attachment to the most dynamic brands is 2.3x as strong as it is for the least dynamic. While many brands operate with a static, fixed definition of their audience focused on transactions and behaviors, dynamic brands have a different relationship with people that shifts to meet and get ahead of people’s needs.
How does that work for B2B where trust, stability and purpose need to have endurance? You root your brand in the mission, vision and values of your business. As culture changes, as the tastes of clients change, as your business strategy adapts, you have the flexibility to change the messaging, but not the intent, which is locked up in those roots.
#3 Get personal and appeal to your buyers’ emotions. We hear it time and again, yet making it real is another story.
The deep audience insights and the programmatic tools at our disposal have allowed B2B to build highly personalized and targeted lead gen campaigns. But personalization without emotion doesn’t create connection. A message can be perfectly tailored to where a buyer is in their journey, where they physically are with geolocation, and what they’re interested in, but it still doesn’t feel trustworthy or credible. Over time, B2B marketers have let brand become background noise, behind the ‘real work’ of demand, when in reality, brand is what makes those demand efforts really work.
The most effective brands are using consumer psychology to create deeper, emotional connections. Finding the interior motivation of buyers and crafting a brand proposition based on that helps build something we call Forever Customers.
How we can help
B2C excels at consistent, emotional and differentiated storytelling across paid, owned, and earned. But there’s no reason to let them have all the glory.
At Ledger Bennett, we help B2B companies tap into those personal motivations that create meaningful brand engagement. Then we use performance, audience needs and market shifts to adapt dynamic campaigns.
Our proprietary platform Converged is one way we do that. Combining LinkedIn data with your first-party data (optional), Converged provides invaluable audience and market insights that can inform every aspect of a campaign — and ultimately, increase its effectiveness.
Ready to get started? Let’s chat.