In recent years, B2B marketing has led into a dead end. Performance became the religion. Everything had to be measurable. Immediately. Every click, every lead, every conversion – documented, optimized, scaled. The result? Brands that have lost weight. Lost trust. Lost impact.
Adweek calls it the „B2B Brand Marketing Shift“. Andy Burrell of Nokia speaks of courage – a 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, no meeting. Without meeting, 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 conviction gain market share.
It's not about image. It's about business. And if your funnel is stalling, it's rarely the channel. Almost always, it's the courage.
The numbers speak a clear language. 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 quick results. Measurable. Controllable. Safe.
But sure, for what?
The same study shows: 63% of marketers see brand building as essential for growth – yet measuring ROI remains the biggest challenge. That is the core of the dilemma. Marketing teams have been trained to justify everything. Every expense. Every campaign. Every euro must be reflected in a dashboard, ideally within 30 days.
This mindset has produced a generation of marketers who are brilliant at optimizing clicks – but have forgotten how to build convictions.
Andy Burrell puts it succinctly: “Only a small portion of your buyers are in the market at any given time. You need to ensure 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 want to buy now . The other 90%? Forgotten. Invisible. Lost to competitors who were braver.
Forrester 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 admit that they make defensive purchasing decisions in more than 70% of cases. They don't choose the best product. They choose the safest. The one where they won't get fired if it goes wrong.
That is the reality in which B2B marketing operates today. A world where buyers are afraid. Afraid of making wrong decisions. Afraid of career risks. Afraid 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.
That's like trying to build trust with a megaphone.
Trust is not built through frequency. It is built through consistency. Through competence. Through empathy. Through the feeling that a company understands what it is really about – not just the next deal, but the long-term partnership.
Forbes sums it up aptly: The most important question buyers ask is not “What can this product do?” but “Can I trust this company?”
And this is exactly 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 right now. After years of the performance dogma, a shift in thinking is beginning.
According to the StackAdapt study , 40% of marketers plan to increase their brand-building budgets in the coming year. Nearly half admit they would invest more in brand if the budget allowed.
This is remarkable. Not because the numbers 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?
First: Performance channels are saturated. CPCs are rising. Conversion rates are falling. The same tactics that worked three years ago now only deliver marginal results. Marketing teams realize they are trapped in a hamster wheel – more budget, more effort, but no proportional growth.
Second: Buyers have changed. They are tired. Tired of generic LinkedIn ads. Tired of intrusive 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 truly have something to say.
Thirdly: The CEOs have gotten the bill. For years, marketing teams have argued with MQLs, SQLs, and pipeline velocity. But when the revenue figures don't add up at the end of the quarter, the most beautiful dashboard metric doesn't help. CEOs are now asking for real impact – and that means not just short-term leads, but sustainable growth.
Andy Burrell puts it this way: “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 in fact, 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 you discuss in workshops but can't enter into Excel spreadsheets.
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 cites 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 is also plenty of room for differentiation: Most events follow a traditional format, and providers spend a lot of money to look almost exactly like their competitors.“
That is courage. Not because events are new – but because they swim against the current. In a time when everyone is focused on digital scaling, Burrell says: Invest in real encounters. In moments that don't show up in a dashboard, but make all the difference.
Another example of courage: simplification. Burrell calls it the biggest challenge in his job at Nokia. “It encompasses the complexity of our portfolio, our organization, our customers' challenges, the way buying groups arrive at a decision, and so on. We need to simplify our operations, our offering, and our messages. That is easier said than done.“
Simplification is courage. Because it means saying no. No to features that no one needs. No to messages that only make sense internally. No to campaigns that satisfy all stakeholders but have no real impact.
The bravest brands are not the loudest. They are the clearest.
If you have read this article up to this point, you are probably asking yourself: "Okay, but what exactly do I do now?"
Here are three starting points that don't sound like buzzwords, but like real decisions:
1. Stop hiding your brand
Look at your last ten LinkedIn ads. Your last five email campaigns. Your website. Honestly: Would you recognize that it comes from your company if the logo were 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 is not your color palette. It is 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 must accept that not everything appears within a 30-day attribution window.
According to eMarketer data , the biggest challenge in brand building is measuring ROI. But do you know what is even harder to measure? The damage you cause when you don't build a brand.
3. Make your customers the heroes
Burrell cites customer advocacy as the most overlooked challenge in B2B marketing. "The first question every potential buyer asks is: 'Who has already used this?’“"
And yet most companies struggle to get customers to approve a press release, a case study, or a video testimonial.
Why? Because they didn't make their customers heroes. They made them references. Into logos on a slide. Into numbers in a success story.
The best B2B brands make their customers the 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. This is an attitude.
Let's go back to the beginning. B2B has lost its way. In clicks. In leads. In certainty.
The irony? Safety is the biggest risk.
Playing it safe means doing what everyone else does. Using the same channels. Sending the same messages. Optimizing the same metrics.
And in a market where everyone does the same thing, no one wins. Except perhaps Google and Meta.
The companies that win now are not those with the biggest budgets. They are those with the clearest conviction. Those who 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.“
In other words: If your funnel is stalling, it's rarely the channel. Almost always, it's about courage.
The B2B Brand Shift is no longer a theory. It's happening. Now. The question is not whether you need to adapt – but how quickly you do it.
At EPOS , we believe that strategic marketing begins with empathy. With a deep understanding of who your customers really are, what drives them, and why they should trust you. From this emerges positioning. Orientation. And ultimately: strategy.
No tactics without a foundation. No performance without a brand. No scaling without conviction.
Because the world is not waiting for safe brands. It is waiting for brave ones.
Stefan is Co-Founder of EPOS and has been involved in B2B marketing and communications for more than 20 years.
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