From hidden gem to shining star: the journey to build a brilliant B2B brand

While every brief that lands in our inbox looks different, there are some phrases that feel familiar. 

Our brand is a "rough diamond.”

“A hidden gem.”

It's the classic B2B trap.

Buried at the back of this year's FutureBrand Index are some of the biggest brands you may never have heard of.

Why?

Because they haven't connected their brand perceptions to their business performance. 

Lilly. Linde. Tencent.

All heavy hitters when it comes to financial value, but businesses whose brands don't necessarily carry the same strength and impact.

Your business isn’t static. It’s constantly evolving and adapting to meet market, operation and customer dynamics. So it’s only logical that your brand must evolve and adapt in sync with it. 

Too often, business leaders make the mistake of managing their brand as nothing more than a signifier. The sign on the door, the name in the ASX directory, the logo on a business card. Lacking more depth and dimension, your brand can only do so much for your business.

If you’re looking to drive long-term competitive advantage, you need to invest in your brand in the same way you do your business. So that you can build a brand that is strategically and operationally fit-for-purpose. And when you do, you’ll transform your brand from a simplistic signifier to a strategic asset that gives you the platform to drive more people to want to work for or buy from your business. 

So where do you start?

Consistency is everything

If you're a business leader who doesn't know how to manage your brand, you'll struggle to grow your business.

We don’t just believe in this. We know it to be true. A decade of data via the FutureBrand Index shows the pivotal importance of driving Consistency, its prominence having grown over the past 10 years from 25% to 36%.

In other words, that means your brand can’t simply hide away in the marketing department. Put it in the hands of your people. Give it a seat in the boardroom. Drive it through your daily decisions and interactions.

The best brands don’t succeed thanks to a stroke of luck. Rather, it’s testament to a deeper understanding of the role and value of a brand at every level of an organisation. Because when you build a brand for your whole business with consistency, you'll be all the better for it.

Clarity means building brilliance for all to see 

If your brand is a “rough diamond” or “hidden gem”, then chances are you're missing opportunities to help your business grow. By strengthening your brand, you give your business a measurable competitive advantage.

To move forward, you also need to look back. Because an opportunity to evolve your brand shouldn’t mean losing sight of who you are. More often than not, it’s your past that will give you the clues to understand your future. 

From the past decade of data, we’ve seen the brands that thrive are those that harness their heritage and use it to enable their future. So take the most genuine parts that make you, you – think your mission, your values – and connect them to how you’re innovating towards a clear vision for the future. Because brilliance comes from the strategic clarity of knowing what makes your business and brand truly distinctive, and surfacing that in salient ways for all to see. 

We’ve seen this pay off for leading B2B brands that over-index on Mission and Individuality, which have correlated with their ability to credibly stand apart as some of the Top 20 companies people would like to ‘work for’. 

Transforming strategy into reality 

Your brand is real, but only if you make it so. It has to be more than an idea in PowerPoint, it needs to be experienced in practice, in the real world. 

There’s no question that leading B2B brands are created with a clear sense of purpose, with every driver for the sector – Mission, Authenticity, Innovation and Thought Leadership – falling on the ’Purpose’ side of the FutureBrand Index equation. What this reveals is a gap (or indeed an opportunity) to make sure your brand isn’t just talking the talk, but walking the walk too. Because brands are made of moments, and it’s your actions and decisions every day, that make them all the more memorable. 

Ultimately, it’s the brands that strike the right balance between Purpose and Experience that will stand up both in principle and in practice, delivering measurable competitive advantage that translates into long-term business benefits.

This article was written by Emma Waterman, Strategy Director, and originally published by Mumbrella on 24 October 2024.