Brand is the ultimate B2B growth lever. Leaders are finally waking up to it.

Look around the B2B world and you see the same pattern. Companies pouring money into tools, channels and technology, while quietly starving the one thing that binds it all together. Brand.

2026 looks set to be the year that contradiction becomes impossible to ignore.

A new McKinsey report captures the mood. Senior marketers across Europe are putting brand at the top of their priority list for the next 12 months. Not because it is fashionable, but because volatility is forcing a rethink. When markets tighten, buyers look for clarity, consistency and trust. Brand does that better than anything else.

You see the same story across other research. Gartner’s 2025 CMO Spend Survey shows budgets stuck at 7.7 percent of revenue. The pressure is rising but the resources are not. When marketing becomes a zero-sum game, strong brands win because they make every pound work harder. They convert with less noise. They anchor value. They give sales teams something solid to stand on.

Our own CMO Report earlier this year pointed in the same direction. CMOs told us they were tired of fragmented narratives, inconsistent execution and internal confusion. The brands gaining traction were the ones that had a clear center. A simple idea that shaped product, culture, behavior and communication. They were not louder. They were clearer.

This is the part leaders often miss. A strong B2B brand is not a veneer. It is a force multiplier. It makes decisions faster. It shortens sales cycles. It increases the credibility of your pricing. It stabilizes pipelines in shaky markets. It gives your people a sense of direction when the strategy deck becomes abstract. It creates momentum.

McKinsey’s broader B2B research reinforces this. The companies outpacing their competitors combine disciplined sales, smart use of data and a distinctive brand story that feels consistent at every touch point. The story is not an add-on. It is the binding agent.

There is also a psychological shift happening. Buyers are overwhelmed by automation. They are drowning in identical, AI-generated messaging. In that environment, trust becomes the real differentiator and the most desired prize. Brand Finance’s 2025 review of global B2B brands shows a direct link between perceived reliability and enterprise value. Not aspiration. Reliability. That is the currency B2B buyers trade in.

AI is the wild card in all of this. Yes, it will transform marketing operations. Yes, it will drive efficiency. But only a small minority of companies have the maturity to deploy it well. AI needs a clear brand to scale. Without that clarity, the technology simply generates ineffective, impersonal, impractical noise.

For CEOs and founders, the conclusion seems wonderfully simple. Brand is not a cost. It is the system that makes the rest of the business coherent. Build it with intent and you get resilience and long-term growth. Neglect it and you spend more for diminishing returns.

The B2B firms that grow in this next cycle won’t be the ones with the most tools. They will be the ones with the strongest brands.