The conversation kept coming back to one idea. Buyers, human or otherwise, choose the brands they already know.
Switching suppliers is an emotional decision
B2B buying is often framed as a rational exercise: specs, pricing, capability, proof points. But the room agreed that the biggest barrier to winning new business usually isn't a gap in features. It's fear.
Switching supplier is a risk. If it goes wrong, someone's name is attached to the decision. That fear is emotional, and rational benefits alone won't overcome it. A better spec sheet doesn't make a nervous buyer feel safe.
There's always an element of relationship in B2B. Buyers need to feel that you're the good guys, that you'll be straightforward to work with and that you'll be there when things get difficult. Rational proof helps them justify the choice, but it's emotional confidence that gets them to make it.
Prove brand's value through its secondary effects
If brand matters this much, why is it still so hard to secure investment for it? Part of the answer is measurement. Brand doesn't show up neatly in last-click attribution, so its value gets underestimated.
The group's view was that the way to unlock investment is to measure brand's secondary effects. A stronger brand shows up in price elasticity, with customers less sensitive to price rises, in retention, and in other commercial outcomes the business already cares about. Tracking those effects captures value that short-term metrics miss.
Models that link share of search to share of market help too. They give leadership a way to see brand strength as a leading indicator of commercial performance rather than a soft measure.
These conversations matter beyond budgets. They move marketing away from being seen as the colouring-in department and position it as a driver of business growth.
AI is now part of the buying group
Inevitably, the discussion turned to AI, and to a shift that's already here. AI now sits in the decision-making unit. Buyers are using it to help build the day-one list of suppliers they'll consider and to get recommendations on who to talk to.
So how do you get found by AI? The room's answer was reassuringly familiar. It's the same way you get onto the day-one list in a human buyer's mind: by being famous.
That means doing marketing that creates advocates and gets your brand talked about, particularly in earned media. Brands that are widely discussed, recommended and written about are the ones that show up when buyers, or the tools they use, go looking.
With the pace of change, it's tempting to chase every new tactic, whether that's a sudden push on Reddit or the latest optimisation trick. The advice was to keep your head above the tactics and focus on the lasting principles that make a brand famous.
The bottom line
Emotion and reason work together in B2B buying, and the brands that win are the ones buyers already trust before the shortlist is drawn up. That's always been true. What's new is that the shortlist may now be partly drawn up by AI, and AI favours the same thing people do: brands that are known and talked about.
For marketers, the job is to build that fame and to prove its value in terms the business recognises, through retention, pricing power and share of market.
What's your view? Is your organisation measuring the commercial effects of brand, or still judging it on short-term metrics?
If you're marketing to Enterprise audiences and would like to attend our next roundtable event, do get in touch with us.
