Why B2B Storytelling is Far More Effective Than B2C Branding... And Five Ideas To Make It Even Better

B2B brands perform a lot stronger than B2C when it comes to revenue increases through green, diverse and sustainable marketing outreach. The results are both significantly more efficient (lower marketing costs) and effective (higher visibility and trust). When added up, they create an entirely new thought-leadership concept: emphasize emotional B2B storytelling... combined with B2C performance marketing functionality. Fireworks ahead!

Off course, Michael knew all along

Where it starts...

My first resource for this piece - apart from other sources I'll link to - is a Havas Media report from a year or so ago called 'Decoding B2B's Brand Boom'. In the report they measure the differences in brand strength between B2B brands and B2C according to their Meaningful Brands study, which is a 100-point measuring system on the perceived 'meaningfulness' (emotional and functional relevance and trust) of brands, based on global studies in 144 countries, with a hundred thousands participants (or more) each year. As such, it's big and statistically reliable.

Across all measured KPIs in their global Meaningful Brands Study, B2B brands score significantly higher than B2C. And when I say 'significantly' I don't mean the usual 5% threshold... With differences ranging between 28 to 42 percentage points (details below), we can see that the B2B sector vastly outperforms on brand strength compared to B2C. This translates to high chances of success when applying content marketing and storytelling in B2B markets, alongside a high ROI on standard advertising. And of course, much lower costs to grab and hold attention.

Let's explore further what's at play here, and see how storytelling comes into the picture when we draw our conclusions.

B2B far more meaningful... and more effective per buck

The B2B brands were measured against the same KPI attributes as the B2C brands are in the world (they keep track of around 2200 of the biggest global brands in the study). The results are striking: B2B brands prove to be — by tens of percentage points — better regarded than in B2C markets.

In the normal Meaningful Brands study focused on the B2C side of things, year after year they draw the conclusion that around 4 out of 5 of the measured B2C brands (which again, are the biggest and most famous brands in the world) would not be missed if they were to 'disappear tomorrow'.

This means that the difference between B2B and B2C is the result of two opposing forces: on the one hand B2B over-performs, while B2C under-performs on brand trust. This might explain why the gaps I'm about to show you are so big.

ESG Goals Within Reach

In the comparison between B2C and B2B, we see that the latter scores better on overall impression (+28%), repurchase intent (+36%), willingness to recommend the brand to others (advocacy +31%), brand trust (+32%), brand attachment (+36%), and quality of life improvement (+42%) respectively.

On every possible KPI-metric, the significance of B2B brands is greater than in B2C. This means that every euro spent on storytelling in B2B — whether that's publicity, advertising, personal leadership stories or content marketing — yields a much higher conversion rate and ROI than the average consumer brand reaches (again, with exceptions of course).

And here's the kicker... what the report additionally shows is that the B2B sector is perceived as much better positioned to achieve ESG goals than the average consumer brand. In fact, it out-performs almost all institutions. Simply because it is trusted.

Why the chasm? Sustainability and Diversity behind the numbers

One of the primary reasons the chasms measure 20, 30 and even 40 percentage point gaps is that B2B brands rely on relationships between many different people, spread across a long, intricate value chain. Consumer brands however, largely rely only on one relationship: between the brand and the buyer.

Of course, to deliver the consumer product there is a value chain of shops online and offline and distributors, suppliers, cargo... you name it. Just like in B2B. However, the final buying decision is based on just that one relationship: the brand and the receiver of the brand's message. While the buying decision in B2B is often made based on relationship factors that are deeper and longer-lasting.

What we know about this B2C relationship (in broad strokes), is that every year marketing spending increases (see for instance Statista data) while the brand relationship with consumers decreases. That means that every year in the B2C marketplace, every dollar spend on advertising becomes less and less effective.

The culprit for this is also widely known: a lack of trust in the diverse, inclusive and sustainable practices of B2C companies (with again, exceptions). In short, they are generally seen as damaging to the future of Earth's ecology and mankind, often with numbers in the 60's, 70's and even 80 percentages displaying a lack of trust on issues such as leadership, ecology and social benefits or awareness.

The exceptions usually come with an emphasis on deeper marketing efforts with social branded content initiatives creating and restoring the bonds between B2C brand and receiver. Yet now, despite these efforts, with the advent of artificial intelligence, the final remnants of trust are also under great pressure.

B2B is leading the charge... the revenue... and the recruitment

It's a strange practice really. The numbers across the board, almost everywhere, show clear revenue boosts to those companies that do go full sustainable and diverse (check the numbers and insights in these two articles here on how storytelling on diversity drives double digit revenue and the new green story). Despite what the news cycles might suggest on anti-woke movements (or whatever they are called this time around...), the digits go double every time. Green and social revenue simply is the name of the revenue and profit-boosting game.

That's not necessarily because of some new-found morality. B2B brands especially, are meant to perform well in the value-creation practices. They need to add value across the entire chain and not just for themselves, in order to survive and thrive. Put together, this becomes a solid foundation for innovation across the board.

In a competitive landscape on recruitment too, the most diverse company not only earns more revenue but also enjoys an advantage on recruitment marketing (follow this link for growth tips with storytelling for recruitment), since they don't feel obligated to strike diversity practices under political pressure.

Of course, there are exceptions to these rules too. But the general gist is that B2B companies just have more to gain if they innovate and create value across a long chain of international businesses and people. They see the benefits of greener practices reflected in their lower energy bills, their social friendliness reflected in better government relations in an age of complexity, and better recruitment practices because of a more inclusive mindset. Add all of this up, and you get that one, crucial thing that every brand needs the most: trust.

Trust, trust and even more trust

A lot of people and businesses, next to all kinds of regulations and policies, governmental and environmental organizations, plus educational ties, are all part of this B2B value chain. To build a strong B2B brand, one must connect across the board, with all kinds of stakeholders, as much as one can. Thus, the moment the brand is in the spotlight somehow and somewhere, a huge number of people are already okay with it. In a way, it has been 'vetted' and approved, often even before a sale is made.

When you read between the lines, that means that every dollar spend in B2B storytelling will pay off quite handsomely. Since so much trust is already established, just pushing a little on awareness will reap benefits.

As mentioned, the other reason for the chasm is on that B2C side: consumer brands are on their lowest trust ever, in the many decades we have been surveying them. There are plenty of sources that cover this trend, yet probably the best and most prominent source for trust-measurement is Edelmans Trustbarometer, who has been tracking trust onward for 25 years or so now.

The mistrust in B2C brands is part of an even larger trend: trust in all five major institutions on Earth are hitting record lows. These five institutions are the business world, government, media, non-governmental institutions (charities / global organizations) and education, each of which has seen a general trust downshift in the past decades. The reasons for this varies, but they can also be summarized by a general phrase: a lack of humanity, compassion, sustainability and diversity, culminating in the perceived lack of overall leadership.

Most of the research on these subjects is done worldwide. This means we can identify regional differences. While the numbers are down across the globe, the numbers are lowest in the western world of North-America, Australasia and Europe, to the point of significantly dragging the mean-numbers down. Trust in brands - both B2C and B2B - Asia-wide, as well as pan-Africa, Oceania and South America is low, but still quite a bit higher (as in statistically significant). One can conclude it is a global trust problem, yet the biggest problems of distrust are found in the West.

The biggest gains are on the side of trusted stories

Put this in the blender together, and we are left with the conclusion that although there is still much to gain, and the numbers in comparisons are always a little skewed... B2B brands overall are in the best possible position compared to almost all other brands and institutions, to make relevant and meaningful changes to the world, while also making relevant and meaningful positive changes to their profits.

That's the main narrative: B2B brands are better positioned to be better for the world, which in turn is better received and better trusted, leading to better practices, better working cultures and better revenue.

It should not come as a surprise that these monetary gains are linked to sustainability practices, most notably because of energy efficiency gains (for my article 'Energy Democracy' on how civilizations become dominant due to energy innovations, follow the link here). The other insight I'd like to put on the table here today however, is that the gains of sustainability are also on the emotional - brand storytelling - side: sustainability and trust are directly linked.

In most reports, less than half of the sustainable claims of B2C consumer brands are trusted. In some reports this number dives to around 20% even. This is nothing new. But when you look closely, and as we've noted above, the brand trust numbers are similar to the perceived lack of sustainability, diversity and inclusiveness. They are intimately linked.

In other words: in a world desperate for more humane and natural practices, sustainability, diversity and inclusiveness are the most important keys to brand trust. And thus, to higher revenue.

AI has only modest gains... and is conditional

And yes, to address the new elephant in the room: AI is making this link even stronger - and the trust numbers in consumer brands, products and services even worse. B2B however largely escapes the (often god-awful) perceptions of AI because in their business world, it is understood by the general populace that specialized AI practices (such as predictive AI, more on storytelling with data in this link) can bring modest productivity gains.

Of course, the expectations are still sky-high on this issue. That's why I'll add a personal note: I'm not on board with that hype. I feel the gains will spread over the coming decades, mostly on the predictive side of things, as outlined in the larger article on the 11 Shifts for Storytelling because of artificial intelligence.

Short term however, I believe a counter-revolution will follow.

First off, I believe the productivity gains are too few in the generative AI lane and that generative AI is vastly overpriced. This will result in a coming market crash for these investments (which I call the 'Illusion of Control').

Secondly, I believe many companies - mostly on the B2C entertainment and services side - will rue the day of their greatest lay-offs in the coming five years, as they will have created a huge amount of fast and furious competitors from all the artists and creators out for their blood... as common folk will always prefer human output.

And thirdly, I predict more revolt-like situations coming from the general populace then we have already seen in Serbia, Tibet and other places, against the practices of governments and tech-billionaires.

But I digress. My opinions aside, the overall picture is that AI is seen as a modest productivity-bringer in B2B, but disruptive for productivity in B2C. One only has to look at the major gaming media for instance - the biggest entertainment industry in the world - and the loathing of hundreds of millions of gamers against AI is on full display, with thousands upon thousands of recent articles bashing it to utter pulp.

Which is brings us to our last point: if B2B is so much more trusted than B2C, even on tech, how can B2B brands capitalize even better on all these developments together?

How B2B brands can get even further ahead

How consumer brands can fix their self-induced trust-mess? I don't know. And that's not the point of this article. The point is that B2B brands have already fixed it (by and large) and outperform both consumer brands and almost all other institutions on brand trust. They are best positioned to expand on this and bring us all forward.

That leaves one final question open: how can we improve and capitalize on this even more? Here are my personal ideas - based on research - for B2B brands to become even stronger and gain even more revenue.

1. Emotional Innovation - Embrace complexity instead of fighting it - One of the three key principles of storytelling is not to avoid frictions. For the simple reasons that they are both remembered better by the human mind, and that you are trusted more when you are honest about them. It is, one could argue, the very point of storytelling in the first place: share information in a compelling manner to overcome our difficulties in life.

2. Shared Innovation - Double down on partnerships in the value chain - The key difference between B2B and B2C brands is the moment of the buying decision. In B2C this moment needs to be repeated over and over again, with ever-growing marketing budgets, since consumer brands are of such low trust. With B2B brands however, the buying decisions are made across the entire chain, and are often already made before purchase, simply because of trust and better relationships. Innovating the chain even further will therefore make these buying decisions even easier... and even further ahead of time, guaranteeing years of revenue.

   
   

3. The Abundance Mindset - Show a 'can do attitude' - In a world with many negative brand-connotations, the brands that do show leadership on the subjects that matter most - humanity, sustainability, diversity - will gain a large competitive advantage. Don't let the news cycles blind you into thinking otherwise: all the numbers still show double digit revenue gains when you do 'good' (check this one by McKinsey for instance). And remember... in the land of the blind, the one-eyed-man is king. Plus, it'll do wonders for your recruitment.

   
   

4. Use B2C Marketing Tools - Capitalize on the efficiency struggle - Because of the low brand trust in B2C consumer branding, and a general unwillingness to address that issue (with exceptions) consumer brands are forced to compete on functional marketing efficiency instead of emotional branding effectiveness. In other words... they've build great tools. And you can use them too. This leads to some convergence between the two practices, which is arguably more beneficial for the B2B side of things than the other way around.

   
   

5. Go Public - Show your leadership and embrace challenges - The last tip is that when you roughly follow all of the above, the best and most cost effective way of showing your brand in the right light, is to embrace personal storytelling, leadership narratives, content marketing and general free publicity and PR. It's people sharing the narratives of other people, which is always interesting to everybody else who is building an enterprise. Especially in your value chain.

   
   

Emotional Innovation is the main driver of profit

I will finish with a quote from Les Binet and Peter Field, the two greatest data-gurus of our age: "Emotion drives profit." It is a paradoxical quote coming from these two innovators on the functional side. Yet it is the right insight nonetheless: we humans are a social species, driven by emotion, however much we'd like to think otherwise. That's true in B2B as much as anywhere else.

That means that also in the B2B markets pushing the right storytelling buttons is still your greatest guarantee for success. For those on the B2B side of things, this should come as no surprise. Which means I can cross the finish line of this article by saying:

Just. Double. Down.

Love, as always,

Rogier

And if you want to triple down... check out my book The Whole Story - The Ultimate Guide to Storytelling!

Some extra sources and more interesting reading on the subject:

• IE Insights (IE University): The Strength of a B2B Is in Its Brand

• ResearchGate: B2B Branding in the Business-to-Business Context 

• Springer Professional: B2C Versus B2B Branding 

• ResearchGate: Stakeholder Engagement for Corporate Sustainability: A Comparative Analysis of B2C and B2B Companies

• Marketing Week: Superpowers 2025: Why trust, brand and AI are reshaping B2B