The last few years have led B2B marketing to a dead end. Performance became a religion. Everything had to be measurable. Immediately. Every click, every lead, every conversion - documented, optimized, scaled. The result? Brands that have lost weight. In trust. In impact.
Adweek calls it the "B2B Brand Marketing Shift". Andy Burrell from Nokia speaks of courage - hard-won insight from a man who has spent 25 years in the telecommunications industry. Because the world is not waiting for safe brands. Without a brand, there is no trust. Without trust, there is no meeting. Without a meeting, there is no pipeline.
The truth is uncomfortable: most marketing teams have sold, but never convinced. They have optimized, but never changed anything.
Now the market is shifting. CEOs are asking for impact, not CPMs. Buyers respond to character, not retargeting. Those who only scale campaigns lose relevance. Those who scale persuasion gain market share.
It's not about image. It's about business. And if your funnel falters, it's rarely because of the channel. It's almost always down to courage.
The figures speak for themselves. According to a study by StackAdapt and eMarketer 58% of B2B marketers invest at least half of their budget in lead generation. Search and social dominate. Performance channels that promise fast results. Measurable. Controllable. Safe.
But surely for what?
The same study shows: 63% of marketers see brand building as essential for growth - but measuring ROI remains the biggest challenge. This is the heart of the dilemma. Marketing teams have been trained to justify everything. Every expense. Every campaign. Every euro must be reflected in a dashboard, preferably within 30 days.
This mindset has created a generation of marketers who are brilliant at optimizing clicks - but have forgotten how to build persuasion.
Andy Burrell puts it in a nutshell: "Only a small proportion of your buyers are in the market at any given time. You need to make sure your brand remains relevant and top of mind when they are ready to consider a purchase."
The problem? Most B2B companies have done exactly the opposite in recent years. They have invested in short-term tactics that only appeal to the 5-10% who are now want to buy now. The other 90%? Forgotten. Invisible. Lost to competitors who were braver.
Forrester research shows that trust is the most important factor in B2B purchasing decisions. Not price. Not features. Not even ROI. Trust.
Even more drastic: 43% of B2B buyers admitthat they make defensive purchasing decisions more than 70% of the time. They don't choose the best product. They choose the safest one. The one that won't get them fired if it goes wrong.
This is the reality in which B2B marketing operates today. A world in which buyers are afraid. Afraid of making the wrong decision. Fear of career risks. Fear of the unknown.
And how do most marketing teams react to this? With more retargeting ads. With more aggressive nurturing sequences. With even more "Book a Demo" buttons.
It's like trying to build trust with a megaphone.
Trust is not created through frequency. It comes from consistency. Through competence. Through empathy. Through the feeling that a company understands what is really at stake - not just the next deal, but the long-term partnership.
Forbes sums it up aptlyThe most important question buyers ask is not "What can this product do?" but "Can I trust this company?"
And this is precisely where performance marketing strategies fail. They are not designed to build trust. They are designed to force transactions.
Something fundamental is changing in B2B marketing. After years of performance dogma, a rethink is beginning.
According to the StackAdapt study 40% of marketers plan to increase their brand building budgets in the next year. Almost half admit that they would invest more in branding if the budget allowed it.
That is remarkable. Not because the figures are so high - but because they exist at all. Five years ago, no one would have dared to publicly admit that brand building could be more important than lead generation. Today, it is part of the strategic discussion.
What has changed?
Firstly: The performance channels are saturated. CPCs are rising. Conversion rates are falling. The same tactics that worked three years ago are only delivering marginal results today. Marketing teams realize they are caught in a hamster wheel - more budget, more effort, but no proportional growth.
Secondly: Buyers have changed. They are tired. Tired of generic LinkedIn ads. Tired of pushy sales emails. Tired of companies that all look the same, sound the same and make the same empty promises. They are looking for authenticity. For substance. For companies that really have something to say.
Thirdly: CEOs have gotten the bill. For years, marketing teams have argued with MQLs, SQLs and pipeline velocity. But if the sales figures aren't right at the end of the quarter, the most beautiful dashboard metrics won't help. CEOs are now asking for real impact - and that doesn't just mean short-term leads, but sustainable growth.
As Andy Burrell puts it: "If you can, try to do something new and disruptive. That may seem like a risk, and it's easy to replay the same playbook. But actually, the bigger risk is doing the same thing as everyone else."
This is where it gets interesting. Because courage sounds like a soft factor. Something that can be discussed in workshops but not entered in Excel tables.
But courage is measurable. Not in clicks. Not in impressions. But in market share. In pricing power. In the ability to attract talent. In the loyalty of customers who become advocates.
Burrell gives a concrete example: "Go back to the future and explore physical events. The desire to connect and explore is deeply rooted in human nature. Before people spend money with you, they spend time with you. There's also a lot of room for differentiation: most events follow a traditional format, and vendors spend a lot of money trying to look almost exactly like their competition."
That is courage. Not because events are new - but because they swim against the tide. At a time when everyone is focusing on digital scaling, Burrell says: "Invest in real encounters. In moments that don't appear on a dashboard but make a difference.
Another example of courage: simplicity. Burrell calls it the biggest challenge in his job at Nokia. "It includes the complexity of our portfolio, our organization, the challenges of our customers, the way buying groups come to a decision, and so on. We need to simplify our operations, our offering and our messaging. That's easier said than done."
Simplicity is courage. Because it means saying no. No to features that nobody needs. No to messages that only make sense internally. No to campaigns that satisfy all stakeholders but have no real impact.
The boldest brands are not the loudest. They are the clearest.
If you've read this article up to this point, you're probably asking yourself: "Okay, but what do I actually do now?"
Here are three starting points that don't sound like buzzwords, but like real decisions:
1. stop hiding your brand
Take a look at your last ten LinkedIn ads. Your last five email campaigns. Your website. Honestly: Would you recognize that this comes from your company if the logo was missing?
If the answer is "no", you don't have a performance problem. You have a brand problem.
Your brand is not your logo. It's not your color palette. It's the way you think. The perspective you take. The questions you ask. The beliefs you stand for.
Performance marketing without a brand is like a funnel without water. It works technically - but nothing comes out.
2. invest in what you cannot measure
That sounds like heresy in a data-driven world. But here's the truth: the most important things in B2B marketing are not directly measurable.
Trust? Not measurable. Reputation? Not measurable. The fact that someone thinks of you when they have a problem? Not measurable.
This does not mean that you should invest blindly. It means that you have to accept that not everything will show up in a 30-day attribution window.
According to eMarketer data the biggest challenge in brand building is measuring ROI. But do you know what's even harder to measure? The damage you do when you not build a brand.
3. turn your customers into heroes
Burrell cites customer advocacy as the most overlooked challenge in B2B marketing. "The first question every potential buyer asks is, 'Who's used this before?"
And yet most companies struggle to get customers to approve a press release, case study or video testimonial.
Why? Because they didn't turn their customers into heroes. They turned them into references. Logos on a slide. To numbers in a success story.
The best B2B brands turn their customers into protagonists. They tell their stories. They celebrate their successes. They build platforms where customers can exchange ideas, learn and grow.
This is not a tactic. It is an attitude.
Let's go back to the beginning. B2B has lost its bearings. In clicks. In leads. In security.
The irony? Security is the biggest risk.
Playing safe means doing what everyone does. Using the same channels. Sending the same messages. Optimizing the same metrics.
And in a market where everyone is doing the same thing, nobody wins. Except maybe Google and Meta.
The companies that are winning now are not the ones with the biggest budgets. They are the ones with the clearest conviction. The ones that know what they stand for - and have the courage to show it.
Andy Burrell puts it this way: "The bigger risk is doing the same thing as everyone else."
Or to put it another way: If your funnel falters, it is rarely due to the channel. It's almost always down to courage.
The B2B brand shift is no longer a theory. It is happening. Now. The question is not whether you need to adapt - but how quickly you do it.
At EPOS, we believe that strategic marketing starts with empathy. With a deep understanding of who your customers really are, what drives them and why they should trust you. From this comes positioning. Orientation. And finally: strategy.
No tactics without a foundation. No performance without a brand. No scaling without conviction.
If you're ready to rethink your B2B marketing - not with more budget, but with more clarity - then start here .
Because the world is not waiting for safe brands. It is waiting for courageous ones.
Then get in direct contact with us. We are excited about your plans and projects.
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