What happens when an entire industry decides to play it safe? The same promises. The same language. The same invisible companies fighting for attention.
We surveyed 100 B2B SaaS marketing leaders (from $50 million + companies) to understand why an industry built on innovation has become a factory for forgettable brands. What we discovered wasn't a lack of strategy, budget, or talent. It was something far more interesting, and fixable.
The data revealed everyone knows their brand sounds like everyone else's. They have the budgets and brand strategies to fix it, yet 94% remain trapped in what one CMO called "the sea of sameness."
Why? Because somehow, courage gets replaced by consensus. Bold ideas get watered down to "proven" formulas. And the very leaders hired to make brands distinctive are being asked to tone it down
This report exposes the hidden forces keeping B2B brands boring and more importantly, reveals what the 6% who've escaped are doing differently.
02. A distinctiveness crisis
The sea of sameness
When we asked B2B SaaS marketing leaders to rate the distinctiveness of their company's brand messaging compared to others in their industry, the results painted a clear picture of an industry struggling to differentiate.
The numbers tell the story:
46% claim "somewhat distinctive"
40% admit "only slightly distinctive"
8% are honest: "not at all distinctive (we blend in)"
Only 6% report "very distinctive (our brand clearly stands out)"
If 86% of companies believe they're only somewhat or slightly distinctive, the harsh reality is that none of them are. When all a potential customer sees is a sea of similar promises, they can't tell you apart from your competitors. They see the same promises, same language, same "innovative solutions."
So while this safe messaging feels comfortable to internal stakeholders, it mostly gets ignored by the very buyers you're trying to reach and definitely won’t be remembered when it’s finally their time to buy.
While this safe messaging may reassure internal stakeholders, it's unlikely to capture the attention of target buyers, and worse, it won't stick in their minds when they're ready to make a purchase decision.
The reality check: If you want to be in that 6%, stop writing what sounds professional. Start writing what only you can say. The market doesn't need another "somewhat distinctive" brand. It needs yours to mean something.
Why B2B brands sound alike
To understand this crisis of sameness, we asked leaders to explain why they think so many B2B SaaS brands look and sound identical. Their responses revealed four key issues in B2B SaaS branding.
Fear of risk and herd mentality (36%)
Everyone seems to be running off the same playbook... afraid to branch out and be different. We have to hit numbers so maybe it is better to say we're like everyone else and then let the customer reviews sway people. It's a sad state. But an opportunity.
Companies stick to "proven" messaging formulas rather than risk standing out
Consensus-driven decision making waters down bold ideas
Competitive research leads to copying rather than differentiation
Data-driven optimization pushes everyone toward the same convergence point
One VP of Marketing captured this struggle perfectly:
In terms of looking alike, there is a clear aesthetic that has been developed over many years that not only lends itself to digital channels, but has been tested and optimized to get to the same convergence point. When everything is measurable, everything converges.
— Brian Vice President Marketing, 201-500 employees, SaaS/software
The pressure to conform comes from multiple angles. As another leader noted:
There are both valid and systemic reasons: Valid: - most B2B solutions are purchased by a committee, so companies have to speak to many needs and mindsets so they default to common denominators.. a lot of buyers are still quite safe and don’t want to be first movers or change agents. If you’re playing in a safe category and selling to large enterprises many buyers want to avoid rocking the boat and FOMU (fear of messing up) is very real.
Over a quarter of respondents admitted many B2B SaaS products genuinely lack meaningful differentiation. When the products are similar, the messaging follows suit.
Because most of them don't have any real USP and they are also afraid to communicate in different tone and voice.
Products often do similar things, making unique positioning difficult
Everyone promises the same benefits: efficiency, scalability, ROI
Technical jargon replaces clear differentiation
Companies avoid taking a stand on what makes them unique
As one CMO explained:
At the end of the day, in any given market, there are only a few ways to truly solve the customer problem. So how do you create a message that shows/explains why you are unique? Every customer wants to do more with less, improve scalability, deliver better return on investment, optimize performance, etc etc. So the value that every vendor delivers is relatively the same.
The transparency of digital marketing has created an echo chamber where everyone monitors, mimics or borrows from everyone else.
You can copy someone else immediately, and because so few consumers or buyers actually read much in detail -- impact must be fast, and vendors feel most comfortable copying competitors over researching and testing.
Constant competitive monitoring leading to reactive messaging
Analyst firms like Gartner and Forrester defining category language
AI tools generating similar copy for everyone
Small teams deferring to what industry giants do
One respondent highlighted how analysts contribute:
I think the analyst community (Gartner, Forrester, etc.) feed into this with their categories that define things - which leads to vendors adopting that terminology.
There is a massive push towards becoming agentic companies. This is compounded by the fact that everyone is now using the same AI tools to generate copy. Everyone sounds like they do the same thing.
— Koji, VP Of Marketing, 501-1000 employees, SaaS/software
Underinvestment in brand and creativity (18%)
Nearly a fifth of leaders pointed to chronic underinvestment in brand strategy and creative talent as a root cause of sameness.
Honestly, because they don't invest (financially or in time/resources) in developing a clear, owned brand strategy and aligning that across channel marketing and PR/thought leadership. Brand strategy is often viewed as more visual when it really must be threaded through the organization internally and externally to deliver on its purpose. Brand is undervalued in a lot of firms, because it's not understood.
Here's what most miss: if only 6% of brands truly stand out, the bar for differentiation is surprisingly low. This tells us you don't need to reinvent your category. You just need the courage to sound unique while 94% of your competitors sound like each other.
The companies thriving despite the sameness aren't doing anything revolutionary. They're simply willing to accept that some people won't like their brand - because the ones who do will remember it, choose it, and pay more for it.
03. Brand consistency challenges
Even companies bold enough to stand out face a challenge that defeats most of them: ensuring their distinctive voice doesn't get diluted, distorted, or completely lost as it spreads across their organization.
And that 6% who found their courage? Most still can't keep their story straight.
A buyer's journey through your brand touchpoints should feel like one clear conversation. Instead, our research found it often feels like talking to multiple personalities - each with their own version of who you are.
Brand strategy
When we asked whether organizations have documented brand strategies or guidelines, not one said "we do not have a formal brand strategy".
The breakdown:
44% have a well-documented brand strategy that they actively use
35% have some guidelines, but they are informal or not strictly enforced
19% are currently developing one
2% have had active discussions about it
0% have no formal brand strategy
This tells us 100% of B2B SaaS marketing leaders acknowledge that brand consistency matters enough to create brand documentation. Yet more than half are operating with informal guidelines or works in progress.
Having guidelines and using them are two different things. As we'll see in the next section, even companies with documented strategies struggle to maintain consistency. The 35% with "informal or not strictly enforced" guidelines are essentially admitting their brand standards exist more in theory than practice.
The companies in the 44% who actively use their documented strategies have made a crucial decision: they've moved beyond good intentions to actual implementation. They understand that consistency builds memory, and memory drives choice.
Where consistency breaks down
The gap between intention and execution becomes stark when we examine actual brand consistency across customer touchpoints. We asked leaders how consistent their brand's messaging and voice are across all channels - website, product UI, marketing materials, sales conversations, and customer support.
Here’s what we found:
Only 10% maintain very consistent messaging across all channels
60% are "mostly consistent (minor variations exist)"
29% admit they're "somewhat inconsistent (messaging varies noticeably by channel/team)"
2% acknowledge being "very inconsistent"
When 60% claim "minor variations," those variations might seem minor internally but can feel major to customers. Consider the customer journey: They discover your brand through a LinkedIn campaign, visit your website for more information, talk to a sales rep who positions you differently, then encounter support documentation that sounds like it's from another company entirely.
The 10% who succeed at consistency have made it non-negotiable. They understand that trust compounds with every consistent interaction but can break with just one confusing experience. These companies treat every touchpoint as a promise, knowing that when different teams tell different stories, customers end up not trusting any of them.
The four killers of brand consistency
So why is consistency so hard to maintain? The marketing leaders we surveyed pointed to four specific problems that sabotage even the best intentions.
Cross-team alignment failure (44%)
Nearly half of marketing leaders identified alignment across teams as their biggest challenge.
The quotes paint a clear picture of the struggle:
Our sales people do what they want. I think we're in pretty good control up until the point that the collateral leaves the marketing share point - and thereafter, it's the wild west. I'm sort of ok with that, or at least I've made peace with it.
Its really hard to train all client-facing teams on messaging (generally speaking), and when you add in the speed at which we're releasing features and modifying our value prop, it feels almost impossible to get everyone aligned.
— Monica, VP of Marketing, 201-500 employees, SaaS/software
Our biggest challenge is ensuring teams are sticking to the brand message and not generating their own version.
— Kimberley, VP of Marketing, 201-500 employees, SaaS/software
The alignment breakdown happens in predictable ways:
Sales teams create their own versions of messaging to close deals
Product teams interpret guidelines differently than marketing intended
Customer success develops their own language for client communications
Partners take creative liberties with brand materials
The challenge goes beyond simple non-compliance.
Multiple teams and multiple people across the organization makes it hard to manage. Each of these areas also tends to have different interpretations of these guidelines and what they mean as well as how to bring these to life. Some of it can be subjective as well which makes having guidelines more difficult.
— Matt, VP of Marketing, 201-500 employees, SaaS/software
Too many contributors creating chaos (22%)
The democratization of content creation has become tricky to navigate. When everyone can create, consistency suffers:
Lots of teams have access to channels and there are too many messages at a given time to be monitored for consistency.
— Emi, VP of Marketing, 1001-5000 employees, SaaS/software
They're seeing this problem show up in:
Multiple teams generating content without coordination
AI tools enabling rapid content creation without teams checking it over
People on their team wanting their own unique voice within the company
Different teams creating parallel messaging
One CMO captured the challenge perfectly:
Too many different teams and groups generate content. And now with AI there isn't a brand governance in place to manage all the different messages.
The issue extends to external teams who take matters into their own hands:
The second biggest problem that we have is free-lancing sales reps. People take our slides and content and develop 'custom' messaging for their individual customer/prospect, and as a result what the prospect hears in the sales meeting doesn't match what the website says.
Fast-growing companies face a particular challenge: how to maintain consistency while constantly evolving. One in five leaders said they were currently experiencing this:
We are growing so fast, and our messaging evolves as our product and industry changes. Fast growth also means growing numbers of new revenue team members requiring more sophisticated enablement processes.
New team members not absorbing brand voice quickly enough
Market pressures mean pivots happen rapidly
Innovation and consistency moving at different paces and priorities
As one leader noted:
Constantly evolving to shifting needs while remaining on brand and on message. Being willing to 'forego' some tactics bc our messaging and brand is more important than chasing every 'new term' etc.
— Rita, SVP of Marketing, 501-1000 employees, SaaS/software
Another captured the operational reality of this:
The biggest challenge is the continued growth in content, channels, and other touch points we have in the market and ensuring they all remain current with the latest refinements of our brand voice and message. It is operationally impossible to constantly redo everything entirely.
Without clear ownership and accountability, brand guidelines become suggestions rather than standards as no one is there to make sure teams are actually following suit:
Lack of buy-in and 'policing' within departments makes it hard for Marketing to unify the vision, messaging, etc. and also be the brand police.
Marketing forced into unpopular "brand police" role
Approval processes that slow down communications
Lack of tools to track and maintain consistency
One leader summed up the balancing act:
Making sure every message is in line without having an overly complicated process to approvals. That seems to be the biggest challenge not going too far one way or another.
— Ray VP of Marketing, 201-500 employees, SaaS/software
The path forward
If only 10% of companies maintain true consistency, the opportunity for competitive advantage is huge. While your competitors confuse customers with mixed messages, you could be building the kind of trust that turns buyers into advocates.
The companies succeeding at consistency have made three critical decisions:
They chose alignment over autonomy. Yes, sales wants to customize. Yes, product has opinions. Yes, everyone thinks their version is better. But these companies decided that one consistent story beats ten "optimized" versions every time.
They picked systems over willpower. Instead of hoping teams follow guidelines, they built processes that make consistency easier than chaos. They use tools, templates, and workflows that default to the right choice.
They measure trust, not just compliance. Rather than playing brand police, they track how consistency impacts customer confidence, sales cycles, and win rates. When teams see the business impact, buy-in follows.
The bottom line
A consistent, recognizable voice becomes a signal of reliability in a sea of noise and sameness.
Here's what's ironic: Most companies already have what they need for consistency, the guidelines, tools, and teams are all in place. What's missing is the cross-team discipline to actually use them.
04. Brand measurement blind spots
Flying blind on brand health
Perhaps the most alarming finding from our research concerns brand measurement. When we asked companies whether they regularly track brand health metrics like brand awareness, recall, NPS, or sentiment to understand their performance in the market the results revealed a massive blind spot:
Only 17% track brand metrics frequently (quarterly or more)
31% track occasionally (annually or for specific campaigns)
29% have run occasional tests but haven't made it regular
13% plan to start tracking
10% don't track brand metrics at all
This means 83% of B2B SaaS companies have little to no regular insight into whether their brand efforts are working. They're essentially flying blind, hoping their brand is resonating without any data to confirm it.
The companies in the 17% who track regularly understand something the others don't: brand problems don't announce themselves. You discover them through declining conversion rates, shrinking pipeline, and lost deals, by which time it's late to course correct.
Why this matters: The business impact of brand strength is well-documented:
Brand awareness increases performance marketing conversion rates up to 2.86x
Direct traffic (brand-driven) has the highest conversion rates
Branded search terms deliver 19x higher ROAS than non-branded
Strong brands see lower customer acquisition costs
Yet most companies obsess over bottom-funnel metrics while ignoring the brand awareness that makes those metrics possible. They track every click, conversion, and pipeline stage but have no idea if buyers can recall their name or understand what they do.
This creates a critical gap: companies spend money trying to influence awareness and perception through ads, events, content, and PR, but have no way to prove it's working, making it nearly impossible to justify continued investment to CFOs.
How to take action:
The solution isn't complex, it requires tracking the right metrics at the right cadence. At Wynter, we always recommend companies to measure:
Unaided awareness: Do prospects think of you unprompted when considering solutions?
Aided awareness: When shown your brand, do they recognize you?
Brand preference: How do you rank against competitors in consideration sets?
Brand perception: Do prospects see you the way you want to be seen?
Share of search: Are buyers including you in early research?
Without this data, B2B companies are essentially hoping their brand investments work rather than knowing they do, a gap that's getting harder to ignore
05. Brand tactics to get noticed
How companies are trying to stand out
We asked what changes the marketing leaders made in the past year to make their B2B SaaS brand stand out.
Here’s what they told us:
Focusing on messaging and repositioning (34%)
The largest group of leaders focused on sharpening their differentiation through messaging and positioning work. These teams are moving beyond surface-level changes to fundamental repositioning:
We have rebranded parts of our marketing messaging to focus on some of our core differentiators from immediate competitors. Drilling down into specific backend functionality that sets us apart — instead of the upfront functionality that's effectively the same among all of our competitors.
— Elliott, VP of Marketing, 201-500 employees, SaaS/software
Their key approaches include:
Focusing on unique product capabilities for ownable angles
Removing "fluffy marketing language" in favor of clarity and upfront copy
Testing new narratives with analysts and customers
Leading with differentiators instead of generic benefits
One leader explained their approach:
We are revamping our entire brand strategy and positioning in order to avoid the me too talk and increase our true understanding of what our customers need - and speaking to that directly. Removing the marketing fluffy language.
— Kimberley, VP of Marketing 201-500 employees, SaaS/software
Brand refreshes or full rebrands (24%)
Nearly a quarter of companies invested in visual identity changes, with efforts split between evolutionary and revolutionary approaches:
We went through a full rebrand to create a more differentiated place in the market and to create a stronger brand foundation," shared one leader. Another noted: "We did a complete and total rebrand of our company. We changed our name, our visual identity, our tone of voice, our vision/mission/purpose, and our key messaging/value prop. We built a new website from the ground up, created all new collateral, and completely changed our brand image in the market.
Right now, we are fully redesigning our website to match updates to our brand identity. The identity updates are polish improvement, not an overhaul, they are but cleaner and sophisticated.
— Brian, VP of Marketing, 201-500 employees, SaaS/software
Thought leadership and executive branding (12%)
A growing number of companies are using two key strategies to differentiate: building their executives' public profiles and investing heavily in original content.
Biggest focus has been on thought leadership - really getting our c-level execs that align to our buyer personas to build their social brands as thought leaders (all aided by Marketing). This has tremendously impacted (positively) reach and engagement but need to continue to scale this.
6% went all in on research and they didn’t roll out major brand changes without data backing them.
Interviewing customers, asking them what they are looking for, incorporating their feedback. I try to push my teams to look at what competitors are doing and do something different.
— Ray, VP of Marketing, 501-1000 employees, SaaS/software
New channels:
4% are trying new channels and exploring new avenues for brand visibility.
We’re trying out of home, both earned and paid press, event sponsorship that is more media focused rather than target accounts.
— Andrew, VP of Demand Generation Growth, 201-500 employees, SaaS/software
And the concerning finding of stagnation (10%)
10% of companies made no significant changes to differentiate their brand, as expected, they’re focusing on immediate ROI instead.
We haven't made any significant changes to make our brand standout. Although we realize brand is incredibly important we've been focused on efficiencies and top line funnel and with a reduce budget much less on brand.
Here's what this data really tells us: 90% of leaders are actively trying to differentiate. But most are trying the same things: refreshing messaging, updating visuals, pushing thought leadership.
The real opportunity appears when you combine these approaches strategically. The winning scenario isn’t choosing between messaging or visual identity or thought leadership. It’s orchestrating all three while testing new channels and brand measurement approaches.
06. Brand tactics that fall flat
Remember those 86% of companies who told us they were trapped in sameness? When they finally try to differentiate, many stumble into an even bigger problem: confusion.
We asked leaders to describe moments when their messaging felt "off" to customers. The responses revealed why breaking from the pack is harder than it looks, and the common mistakes that turn differentiation attempts into customer confusion.
Buzzwords and jargon nobody understands (18%)
The most common issue involves using internal terminology or industry buzzwords that mean nothing to customers:
We speak a lot about an 'aligned' model but the market doesn't understand what that is without a lot of explanation. Instead, we have to really talk about transparency, even though we think that it is a less accurate and compelling value proposition, but it's what the market understands.
— Rita, SVP of Marketing, 501-1000 employees, SaaS/software
Real examples from the field:
"Orchestration" being misinterpreted as "automation"
"Native integrations" meaning different things in different contexts
Generic AI terminology that says nothing specific
Product names that reflect internal thinking, not customer needs
Disconnected from customer reality (14%)
Teams fall into the trap of talking about what they build rather than problems they solve:
This continues to be a problem - we have been transition from a PLG to a SLG motion - listening to customer calls, participating at events - we see our teams talking about a specific product and its features - vs talk about customer and their problems. It is fairly easy to spot when you are listening. Only way to correct it is to continuing enablement and reminding team members when it happens.
Feature-focused messaging when customers care about outcomes
Only speaking to investors rather than users
Using positioning that works for analysts but not buyers
Creating messaging in a vacuum without customer input
Brand evolution creating confusion (14%)
As companies grow and expand their offerings, some companies didn’t update their messaging accordingly, which meant their websites were outdated, new features were hidden away and their messaging made little sense.
We evolved from a platform that focused on one core persona/feature set and have slowly been building up/expanding into another that makes us a more comprehensive platform. But because we weren't yet 'fully featured' we hadn't done a big brand messaging and website update to make that visible. We didn't notice how hidden it was until we were sitting with a consultant and they looked at our website and said, I see nothing about this feature set.. do you do it?
— Monica, VP of Marketing, 201-500 employees, SaaS/software
Evolution problems manifest as:
New products sounding identical to old ones
Websites that don't reflect current capabilities
Messaging that hasn't kept pace with product development
Brand architecture that confuses rather than provides clarity
How companies spot and fix messaging problems
18% of leaders explicitly told us they don’t wait for moments of customer confusion to become a crisis. They spot issues early by using these methods:
Direct customer feedback:
We have over 100K customers so if something isn't right, someone will usually write in to tell us and if we see the same themes we will correct it.
— Rachel, VP of Marketing, 501-1000 employees, SaaS/software
Data signals:
People don't reach out to tell you that your brand messaging is confusing. You have to see warning signs in data that you're tracking and then dig into to figure it out. We've seen it in drop-offs in conversions on our site, a brand survey that we did where we asked about what we were known for or whether they knew us, and in cross-sell conversations we hear 'we didn't know you did that.
When our new CRMO started in April, he was confused and/or turned off by the emphasis on AI on our website. We pulled together our top four leaders to discuss the branding and whether this new emphasis was needed and aligned.
— Jocelyn, Vice President of Marketing, 501-1000 employees, SaaS/software
Systematic testing:
We underwent a CRO exercise with one of our websites, and just going through the journey ourselves, we felt it was nebulous. A simple test of the CTA ('get a demo' vs 'Upgrade my EHR') validated that we were being too unclear.
— Ashleigh, VP of Marketing, 501-1000 employees, SaaS/software
Our advice?
The patterns in the data point to a simple truth: Differentiation without clarity is just expensive confusion. The companies succeeding are simply doing the basics exceptionally well.
There are five key moves that matter:
Listen like your growth depends on it- because it does. Your customers are already telling you what works and what doesn't. Most companies just aren't paying attention.
Speak their language, not yours. Every time you use jargon that requires explanation, you lose buyers. If customers don't use the word "orchestration," neither should you.
Solve problems, don't describe products. Customers want their problems solved. Lead with their pain, not your product specs.
Keep your brand promises current. When your website is three product releases behind reality, you're hiding revenue opportunities.
Turn confusion into competitive advantage. Every customer who says "I don't get it" is handing you a real opportunity. They're showing you exactly where your competitors are probably confusing buyers too.
While everyone else chases clever differentiation, you can win by being the brand that simply makes sense.
07. The leadership factor
Executive priorities that kill brands
The relationship between executive team priorities and brand success emerged as one of the most important factors in B2B SaaS brand progress. We asked leaders how executive decisions have hindered their ability to maintain consistent, distinctive brand messaging. The responses revealed systemic challenges that start at the top.
Inconsistent executive support (24%)
The largest group of leaders struggle with executives who champion brand in theory but undermine it in practice:
Many members of the executive team are the biggest culprits of going rogue when it comes to messaging and distributing assets not approved by marketing to sales," shared one frustrated leader.
— Rebecca, VP of Marketing, 501-1000 employees, SaaS/software
The inconsistency shows up as:
CEOs who preach consistency then change messaging and slant on whims
Competing priorities that override brand initiatives
Leadership changes that reset brand strategy
Too many executives wanting input without gauging impact
Our exec team doesn't appreciate the effort it takes to get consistency, so they are willing to decree new positioning or messaging whenever the whim strike.
— Dave, VP of Marketing, 201-500 employees, SaaS/software
The challenge becomes particularly acute during transitions:
Massively! Right now, our product team is unable to ship fully baked products, so we have to create messaging that will guide the product to completion rather than develop a message based on the product. This means that messaging is constantly shifting as we figure out we are and aren't actually building.
— Brian, VP of Marketing, 201-500 employees, SaaS/software
The ROI-first mindset (18%)
Nearly one in five marketing leaders cited executive obsession with immediate ROI as a major hindrance to brand building:
My executive team doesn't understand the impact of brand on customer acquisition. They struggle to see past the ROI of performance marketing.
— Aaron, Vice President of Marketing, 501-1000 employees, SaaS/software
What their leadership wants:
Brand initiatives must show immediate revenue impact
Long-term investments get rejected for short-term gains
Performance marketing gets unlimited budget while brand gets scraps
Boards refuse to fund anything without measurable ROI
I received a one-time investment for doing the rebrand project and associated website build. But the challenge of a new brand is that no one knows who we are. I've asked my board for a brand investment to make people aware of who we are and what we stand for. The board declined to fund the investment because it could not measure the ROI for the brand campaign and thus would prefer to invest in demand generation.
The priority is always on hitting revenue targets and growth projections. And investors and ELT tend to focus on demand gen in that lens. Brand is fine if I go and do it. But I have to cover the rest first. And then it's the CMO, me, trying to push things forward for brand. Investors are either silent or dismissive when brand is brought up. They move past that slide and start asking question on how many MQLs you're generating.
When budgets tighten, brand is often first on the chopping block:
We had to cut back significantly and most was cut from brand activities (webinars, events, speaking sessions, and partnership activities) which impacted our share of voice.
Brand activities seen as "nice to have" not "must have"
Expectation to do more with less because of AI
No budget for brand measurement or research
The executive team wants solid brand work done, but they aren't willing to resource it appropriately. They want something for nothing.
— Ashleigh, VP of Marketing, 501-1000 employees, SaaS/software
Budget decisions and layoffs have really hurt our ability to build an interesting and sexy brand. Those same decisions and a 'do more with less bc of AI' philosophy continue to hurt us.
— Jenna, VP of Marketing, 201-500 employees, SaaS/software
Structural and resource gaps (12%)
Even when executives support brand conceptually, structural issues prevent execution:
Our product and revenue functions are quite siloed, which make it really difficult to define and evolve our brand messaging as we're not looking at it holistically as an exec team.
— Monica VP of Marketing, 201-500 employees, SaaS/software
Problems include:
No dedicated brand ownership or resources
Siloed teams working at cross purposes
Lack of synchronization between functions
Inability to enforce consistency across the organization
They hired an employer brand manager to help build a brand for employees, but unfortunately there was no synchronization with brand marketing team, so the messaging was inconsistent with the brand messaging.
Success stories: When leadership gets it right (26%)
The good news? Just over a quarter of companies report strong executive support for brand marketing:
I'm lucky in that I have a CEO who is a big advocate for brand work. He understands it's a long-term investment and doesn't mind spending on it provided our short and medium term objectives for lead gen and pipeline are being met.
We recently hired a VP of Brand marketing and have subsequently moved budget over to them. We don't expect a direct correlation to leads/pipeline/revenue, but are comfortable with the long term investment.
— Andrew, VP of Demand Generation Growth, 201-500 employees, SaaS/software
Our executive team has made investments into our budget so we have been able to scale our marketing programs. They also let us invest in a rebrand that will enable us to keep brand messaging consistent and impactful.
— Rita, SVP of Marketing, 501-1000 employees, SaaS/software
08. What marketers really need
The 26% with strong executive support for brand is refreshing to hear, but it’s clear they're the exception. So, to understand what the other 74% really need, we removed all constraints and asked if budget wasn't a concern, if you could do one thing to differentiate your brand today, what would it be?
The awareness play (26%)
Over a quarter of leaders said they would invest in major awareness campaigns:
Be able to run a large national advertising campaign across multiple channels and mediums, ensuring widespread awareness.
— Grace, VP of Marketing, 201-500 employees, SaaS/software
But dig deeper, and these requests reveal specific gaps:
Need for multi-channel presence to build authority
Desire for thought leadership and expert content
Investment in video and emotional storytelling
Focus on AI/LLM visibility for future discovery
One leader spelled out the vision:
I would run a large brand campaign to make the market aware of our new company name and our new positioning statement. There would not be a hard ROI measurement on the campaign beyond traditional brand metrics: awareness, unaided awareness, purchase consideration.
A significant group didn't ask for more advertising - they asked for courage:
Take really bold risks and see if they stick. Bold messaging, bold executions. Today we have to be very methodical about how we invest because we are constantly trying to tie our investment to ROI so it gives us very little opportunity to take bold risks.
— Rita, SVP of Marketing, 501-1000 employees, SaaS/software
The desire for boldness includes:
Freedom from ROI requirements on every initiative
Ability to test unconventional creative
Permission to stand out visually and verbally
Space to build distinctive brand elements
I would love to take huge risks creatively. And with more budget i would definitely want to take over time square and other big spectaculars.
— Liseanne, VP of Marketing, 201-500 employees, SaaS/software
Amplifying customer voices (18%)
Nearly one in five leaders would focus on customer storytelling:
Create more customer case studies, customer stories across multiple formats. Let our customers tell the story, that is most powerful.
— Mark, VP of Marketing, 501-1000 employees, SaaS/software
The customer-centric approaches include:
Building communities and user events
Creating customer advisory programs
Developing proof points and success metrics
Focusing on emotional connections over features
I would launch a customer-centric content and experience platform, becoming the most valuable, go-to resource in our industry.
— Kristie, Vice President of Marketing, 501-1000 employees, SaaS/software
Internal alignment first (14%)
Many leaders recognize that unlimited budget won't fix internal chaos:
Consolidate everything under a single GTM message that the entire company is bought in around.
— Emi, VP of Marketing, 1001-5000 employees, SaaS/software
Their alignment needs include:
Single source of truth for messaging
Dedicated brand management resources
Clear guidelines everyone actually follows
Technology to maintain consistency at scale
I would hire a dedicated brand manager or brand agency to assess and standardize our brand messaging, create a core set of guidelines that we consider our 'source of truth,' communicate those guidelines to stakeholders, and ensure they are being upheld.
— Elliott, VP of Marketing, 201-500 employees, SaaS/software
The real revelation
When given an unlimited budget, 68% of marketers didn't ask for bigger campaigns or more advertising. They asked for:
Permission to take risks
Alignment across their organization
Authentic customer storytelling
Freedom from immediate ROI pressure
Resources to build something meaningful
These aren't necessarily budget problems. They're courage, organizational and leadership problems.
It’s clear marketing leaders know exactly what would help differentiate their brands. They have the strategies. They have the ideas. What they lack is an executive team that understands the real value of brand and who treat it as an investment, not an expense.
09. Conclusion
The data points to an uncomfortable truth: B2B SaaS companies are choosing to be forgettable.
Not explicitly, of course. But through a build up of small decisions: to follow the competitor's playbook, to water down bold ideas, to prioritize this quarter's pipeline over next year's brand equity. Teams are building companies that customers can't distinguish or remember.
The marketing leaders we surveyed aren't lacking ideas or expertise. They told us exactly what would work for them. What they're lacking is company-wide commitment.
The 6% of companies with truly distinctive brands have simply made different choices. They've decided that brand consistency matters as much as product quality. That long-term memory beats short-term metrics. That standing out is less risky than blending in.
For the 94% of companies who told us they sound identical, differentiation doesn't require innovation, it requires decision. The competitive advantage is in doing what you already know works, consistently and courageously.
The opportunity has never been clearer. While competitors chase the same playbook, standing out requires just three things: distinctive messaging, consistent execution, and actual brand measurement. Nothing revolutionary.
The tools are there. The strategies are proven. The only question is whether you'll use them.
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