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Companies of the exact same size, in the same markets, with similar resources, show a 16x difference in brand investment. Some allocate 80% of their marketing budget to brand, others just 5%.
In our recent report on the State of B2B Brand Marketing, we used Wynter to survey 100 B2B marketing leaders at $50 million + companies.
Our findings reveal a philosophical divide that determines whether companies build lasting value or chase quarterly targets forever.
The numbers tell a story of two completely different philosophies:
Small companies (51-200 employees):
Scaling companies (201-500 employees):
Larger companies (500+ employees):
Picture two identical 100-person SaaS companies. Same market, same revenue, same growth rate. One spends 5% on brand. The other spends 80%. That's a 16x difference in philosophy, not circumstances.
This is about beliefs. And those beliefs shape everything - from hiring decisions to channel selection to competitive positioning.
The research reveals small companies exist at the extremes. They're either brand-first or brand-never. There's almost no middle ground. Here's why:
The 80% investors believe brand is their only sustainable competitive advantage. They can't outspend enterprises on performance marketing. They can't win on features alone - those get copied in months. But they can own a position in buyers' minds that becomes defensible over time.
These companies often share certain characteristics:
One respondent captured this philosophy:
"We need to lead with ideas so prospects know our name before they know our product."
The 5% investors see brand as tomorrow's priorty. They're too busy capturing existing demand to worry about creating new demand. Brand is what they'll do "someday" - after they dominate performance channels.
Their reasoning follows a predictable pattern:
Here's the catch: there is no "after." Performance channels get more expensive. Competition gets fiercer. CAC rises. And suddenly you're a 500-person company trying to build the brand awareness you should have started at 50.
Across all company sizes, the research found a strange gap, almost nobody spends 40-50% on brand. Companies cluster at either end:
This binary thinking creates problems. The under-investors struggle to break through the noise. The over-investors might neglect performance channels that could accelerate growth but nobody experiments in the middle.
Why this gap? Their responses suggests it's about commitment. Either they believe brand drives growth and go all-in, or they see it as overhead and minimize it. Half-measures satisfy nobody - not the board demanding pipeline, not the team building for the future.
The research maps a predictable evolution:
Phase 1 (Under 200 employees): Some bet everything on brand, others nothing. It's leadership's personal beliefs about marketing that determine everything.
One marketing leader at this stage explained:
"Budgets went down from last year. Brand was the first thing to get cut... Brand is a long-term investment. Our company has a short-term horizon for an exit."
Phase 2 (200-500 employees): This is typically where board pressure intensifies. Quarterly targets tighten, the brand budget gets squeezed as companies chase predictable pipeline. The median drops from 35% to 27.5%.
Multiple respondents at this stage shared similar frustrations and barriers:
"BOD expectations on direct lead generation"
"I'm stuck investing in bottom of funnel performance campaigns"
"Expected to deliver a very consistent number of MQLs each month"
Phase 3 (500-1000 employees): Companies find their level (usually around 30%.) The experiments end, everyone converges on "industry standards."
By this stage, brand has momentum. There's some recognition in the market. The pressure shifts from building awareness to maintaining it.
Phase 4 (1000+ employees): The range narrows further (15-50%). Brand becomes just another thing to do. Corporate marketing takes over, brand gets managed like any other function - with KPIs, quarterly reviews, and incremental improvements.
Why don't more companies invest in brand? The research is brutally clear:
48% cite budget constraints and pipeline pressure: Multiple leaders shared variations of the same story:
"Budgets went down from last year. Brand was the first thing to get cut"
"I'm expected to deliver a very consistent number of MQLs each month, and when I try to invest more in brand, MQLs drop"
"We're a small scale-up with limited budget. Every dollar counts"
"My company is very focused on revenue growth, so marketing, in turn, is very focused on pipeline growth"
"Leadership wants short-term, measurable marketing return"
34% can't prove ROI: The attribution challenge creates a sense of paralysis:
"Hard to track, we likely know it works but hard to prove"
"It's being unable to show long or short term ROI"
"Brand marketing is not always quantitative in ROI, so it makes it increasingly difficult to justify adding spend"
10% face leadership resistance: Sometimes the barrier is mindset based:
"Our board doesn't believe in brand"
"CEO not on board; performance first mindset"
"High sensitivity to ROI, ignorance of exec team of value of brand"
"Tired of educating leadership over and over again on how marketing works"
This creates a vicious cycle:
When we asked the 100 marketing leaders what would convince their CFOs to approve bigger brand budgets. Three themes emerged:
Direct pipeline impact (33%): These CFOs want to see "Pipeline and closed won revenue that we could attribute to brand marketing efforts." They're not dismissing brand but they do want attribution.
Specific requests from this group:
"A way to track touchpoints from brand awareness through to closed deal"
"Closed-won deals that mention brand touchpoints in the sales cycle"
The message is clear: help them connect the dots between brand activity and revenue outcomes.
Financial models (27%): CFOs need frameworks they understand:
"Clear financial model showing payback period of brand spend"
"If there was an accurate way to measure ROI on the money spent"
They're asking for timelines, projections, and payback periods - even if imperfect. They need something to defend to the board.
Long-term value creation (14%): The enlightened few who see brand differently:
"The better our brand, the greater market pull and less reliance on marketing push"
"We want more share of voice in key markets"
These leaders understand brand as compound value creation, it's like they're playing an entirely different game.
The gap between the 14% who think strategically and the 86% who need immediate proof explains why brand investment varies so wildly.
The companies succeeding with brand (regardless of size) share key characteristics:
The brand budget paradox isn't really a paradox. It's a reflection of fundamentally different beliefs about how B2B companies win.
Some believe they'll win by optimizing every dollar for immediate return. Others believe they'll win by investing in building mental availability that'll pay off over time. The research shows both philosophies are taken to extremes.
But here's what the data really reveals: company size is a terrible predictor of brand investment. The smallest companies show a 5-80% range. Even the largest vary from 15-50%.
This means brand investment isn't about resources, it's about conviction and what you believe drives growth.
The companies spending 80% on brand aren't radical. They've just decided that in a world where 92% of buyers only purchase from their day-one shortlist, being on that list matters more than optimizing conversion rates for buyers who already know you exist.
The companies spending 5% aren't wrong either. They've decided to maximize efficiency today and figure out awareness tomorrow.
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