You’re Not Nike, and That’s the Point
Why mentions of “brand building” are down 79%.
Rocksalt released a report last month analyzing 7,000 LinkedIn posts. The finding that caught my attention: mentions of “brand building” are down 79%.
I was surprised. In my bubble on Twitter, everybody talks about brand, brand, brand. The LinkedIn B2B Institute has built an entire content machine around it. Every conference has at least three sessions on “building brand in B2B.” So a 79% drop? It didn’t match what I was seeing at all.
But Anita from Rocksalt had a different read on it. “They’re not calling it brand building,” she said. “The audience is engaging more with content that’s practical and applicable rather than theoretical brand-building discussion, which some people like to pontificate on.”
That word. Pontificate. It captures exactly what’s wrong with most brand conversations in B2B.
The Nike Problem
Here’s my beef with how we talk about brand in this industry: somebody will be waxing on about Nike, and how they’ve built this massive business on brand. Look at the emotional connection. Look at the cultural resonance. Look at Just Do It.
And I’m sitting there thinking: yeah, but they’re Nike. You’re not Nike. You’re a pre-seed startup with 50 people. Nobody knows who you are or what you do. You don’t have cash in the bank. You’re running on runway.
I see this constantly. Someone will point to Salesforce as the example of why brand matters. And I’m like, yeah, but you’re not Salesforce. You’re a startup that needs to find customers.
The brand conversation in B2B has become disconnected from the reality of building a business. We’ve borrowed frameworks from consumer packaged goods (CPG) and Fortune 500 companies and applied them to Series A startups burning cash. It doesn’t work.
Two Shampoos, Same Factory
Let me go back to where this started for me. I worked at Procter & Gamble in Pakistan. Second day of orientation, they sat us down with two bottles of shampoo. Same size. Same type. One branded one way, the other branded differently.
The trainer asked us: “What is the fundamental difference between these two?” We started listing things: packaging, color, price point, positioning.
“No,” he said. “It’s basically the same thing. We just have different branding for them because they’re geared towards different segments.”
That’s when it clicked for me. Commodity products need to differentiate on brand because there’s nothing else to differentiate on. The job of brand is to create that preference when the underlying product is interchangeable.
Technology isn’t soap. At least, that’s what I used to think.
The Differentiation Illusion
My original thesis was simple: technology creates fundamentally differentiated products. What Salesforce does is different on a technological level from what HubSpot does.
But then Anita told me a story that complicated this. She was in cybersecurity. Second week on the job, the CEO comes to her and says: “Anita, what do we do? We came out with this thought leadership thing... and in two weeks, all our competitors are saying the same thing. They just copied it.”
In a way, B2B tech has become commoditized too. When I started in tech, products were genuinely differentiated. Now? Everyone ships features within weeks of each other. AI accelerated this. The gap between “innovative” and “table stakes” has collapsed.
The Brand That Gets Remembered
Anita cited Preston Rutherford: “The brand that’s remembered is the brand that gets bought.”
She also brought up research from Gary at Insight Partners and 6th Sense. One slide stuck with me: on day one of a buyer planning to purchase software, they already know 4.5 out of the 5 vendors they’ll consider.
Key Insight: Buyers know who they’re going to evaluate before they even start evaluating.
How do they know? Brand. Mental availability. The names that come to mind when someone thinks “I need a CRM” or “I need a sales engagement tool.” In an environment where everyone sounds the same, being remembered is a competitive advantage.
Small “b” vs. Big “B”
Let me explain how I actually think about brand now. I call it small b brand.
FeatureBig “B” Brand (Traditional)Small “b” Brand (Practical)FocusHigh-level awareness, “Vision”Tactical execution, being helpfulChannelsTV, Billboards, Generic AdsNewsletter sponsorships, CommunitiesMetricBrand Lift, ImpressionsProximity to the right audienceGoalEmotional resonanceMental availability & Trust
I treat newsletter sponsorships as brand. I don’t care if they click or convert immediately. The primary goal is being in front of the right people consistently. It’s only “mind-blowing” if you’re stuck in traditional categories. If you think brand means big fluffy campaigns and performance means direct response tracking, you’re missing the point. The reality is messier.
The Halo Effect
I was an engineer originally. Analytical. When I got into marketing, I went deep on attribution—Bizible, U-shaped models, W-shaped models.
Then I discovered the halo effect. When you run ads, other things go up. You run ads and your direct organic traffic increases. My attribution software wasn’t tracking the person who saw my ad, didn’t click, but remembered my name and typed it into their browser two weeks later.
The ads work because of everything else. They see you on LinkedIn, they don’t click, but they check you out elsewhere. If you have all the other bits (content, profile, website), the ad succeeds. Performance and organic are two sides of the same coin.
Why I Bought Rippling
We bought Rippling for our payroll and HR. We bought it off a cold email.
Sounds like a direct response win, right? But here is the truth: I had seen Parker Conrad (the founder) in news articles and on podcasts. I had built familiarity with him over time.
Random cold email? Who are you? Delete.
Cold email from a company I’ve seen everywhere? Yeah, sure, I’ll take the call.
I knew his story. I knew he’d built Zenefits, had a public flame-out, and came back. I respected that. That’s not rational product evaluation. That’s brand.
The Problem With Marketers
A lot of marketing people don’t get business. They are deep in their “marketing thing”—campaigns, metrics, creative. They are disconnected from the rest of the organization.
Sales is hard: Looking someone in the eye and asking for $200K takes balls of steel.
Marketing is safe: You can hide behind metrics or blame the algorithm.
A business can survive without marketing for 12 months. It cannot survive without sales. If marketers don’t speak the language of the business, they’ll always be seen as a cost center rather than a growth engine.
Reddit: SEO for the AI Era
Arjun has a thesis: “If you want to influence customers, you get them before they get to AI (LinkedIn), or you get them when they’re in the AI.”
AI weights Reddit content heavily because humans prefer Reddit for “real” answers. One company drives 10% of their revenue ($10M) just from Reddit by having a team member answer questions and solve problems without being a “shill.”
Reddit is SEO for the AI era.
Conclusion: Stop the Brand Theater
The 79% decline in “brand building” talk doesn’t mean brand matters less. It means the pontificating matters less. The theoretical, aspirational conversations are dying because they never connected to reality.
The Real Question:
Are you building familiarity with the people who might buy from you? Are you being memorable? Are you being useful in the places where your buyers spend time?
That’s brand. Small b. Practical. Tied to business outcomes. ---
Report reference: RockSalt Analysis 2026
Would you like me to help you draft a “Small b” brand strategy for your specific niche or target audience?
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