Almost half of B2B brands (47.7%) still do not treat brand as a budget priority, even though 58.4% have increased their focus on brand building over the past year. That gap is the central finding of Marketing Week's new State of Brand in B2B research, presented on a webinar on 30 September.

"For B2B marketers, maybe brand never left the strategy deck, it just left the budget," said Anouschka Elliott, former global head of marketing at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, speaking on the webinar.

"You've got six in 10 marketers saying their business has increased focus on brand in the last year. Sounds like a renaissance. But when you ask whether brand is actually a budget priority, fewer than half are saying yes," Elliott said. "It seems like we have focus without funding. And as we know, brand building needs reach. If the paid budget isn't there, marketers are going to have to work their earned and own channels much harder."

Fewer than one in five respondents lean long term in how they split resources, the research shows. Almost a third (29.7%) mainly chase short-term gains, versus 8.5% who prioritise long-term strategies.

"Performance is winning on explanation, not on effectiveness. It feels like performance is just easier to explain, easier to put in a monthly report, easier to defend in a budget meeting," Elliott said. "The way we're going to need to have these conversations is to win over the CFO. It's to get them on side. It's to really start understanding what levers they're playing with, what language they speak and really understanding how we are contributing to sales – and ideally profit."

She argued looking at data through the funnel and translating it into a conversation about future cash flow is marketers' homework, not the CFO's. Marketing cuts are "easy and defensible" for finance leaders: the revenue impact can be unnoticeable in the near term, but decay sets in over time. Her advice is to install leading indicators throughout the funnel as an early warning system, showing the downstream cost of underinvesting in "customer memory".

Speak the boardroom's language

Jon White, chief customer officer at process engineering provider Flowtech, said marketing is "still on a development curve" in many B2B industries. Budgets are often small from the start, and "bolting on this extra thing called brand" makes the situation harder.

"B2B is relatively immature in understanding that connection between marketing, customer and commercial. We've got to walk very carefully through that to bring people with us to make sure they understand the input and the impact," White said.

One tactic he has used: replace the word brand with customer. "Don't talk our language, talk their language. Because not only will you understand it. It's tangible, it's very real."

White urged marketers to take small steps and resist pushing for the 60/40 brand-to-performance split overnight. "Don't try and go too big, too bold, too quick," he stressed. Elliott agreed, advising marketers to "keep the lights on" while running small test-and-learn projects on specific customer segments, countries or regions, then bringing back the evidence. "Once leaders – and particularly CFOs – see the commercial impact, you will be on the list and it will be recognised that actually an investment in marketing drives X return," she said.

For Elliott, the real question is whether share of voice exceeds share of market. "If it isn't, you're going to be losing ground whether brand is fashionable or not," she said.

Social dominates the channel mix

Social media is the top channel for B2B brand investment at 80.8%, followed by events (63.8%) and PR (62.7%). Fewer than one in 10 B2B marketers use broader reach channels like TV, outdoor and radio.

"With fewer than one in 10 B2B marketers using those channels, being the only brand in the space is worth a lot more sometimes than being the 40th or 50th in a feed," Elliott suggested. She questioned whether social wins on effectiveness or on "familiarity and measurability", noting B2B brands often use it for content output rather than brand building.

White called the social appetite encouraging for full-funnel work: "We have to tell quite complex stories in B2B. The decision-making process, the stakeholder map is complex. So being able to target is critical and you can do that very well on social."

Events still matter, said Elliott, who recalled running 100-plus sponsorships, conferences and proprietary events a year in former roles. The key is running them as a "system": consistent storytelling linked to content strategy, the right people in the room, clear sales briefs and "ruthless tracking of follow-ups". On creators, B2B brands favour employee influencers (19.8%) over high-profile names (6.5%), and Elliott advised firms in regulated industries to involve compliance from the start, not at sign-off.

LLMs are the acid test

AI is reshaping brand strategy. Over half of B2B marketers (56.3%) are prioritising brand visibility within LLMs, and 54% are investing in generative engine optimisation.

For Elliott, being surfaced by LLMs is "the ultimate consistency test", because the way to be cited by machines is to "be really famous amongst humans". "That consistency turns out to be the best GEO strategy there is, because you need to be completely consistent," she said. She cited a firm she consulted with that runs monthly prompt audits, tracking buyer questions in the main models and monitoring how the business shows up.

White warned of "reduction to the mean" if marketers disconnect from distinct positioning. "Loads of advantage can be gained right now, but real caution is needed to make sure you retain your differentiation and positioning while you play and leverage in that space," he said, calling LLMs the "acid test" for distinctiveness and arguing AI shows why brand is more than advertising.

On emotion, 85.8% of B2B marketers believe emotional storytelling is key to effective brand building, second only to strong positioning and differentiation (88%). Elliott framed the goal as "emotional rationalism": "Often the emotion we need to be leaning into is the emotion of decision risk. It's how do you exude confidence? How do you provide reassurance?"

White said brands must first define their "emotional distinctiveness" at the positioning level. "If you let it loose without that discussion and nailing that down, you leave it in execution and that's when it can go horribly wrong." With CFOs armed with test-and-learn evidence and AI raising the premium on consistency, B2B marketers now have concrete arguments to move brand back into the budget, not just the strategy deck.