“But it gets our name out there,” your PR agency will insist. “It establishes us as industry leaders.” But what have we really established? Only that our company exists in Industry X. Well, so do companies A,B,C,D, and E. We’ve done nothing to differentiate ourselves. Once again, we’ve merely asserted our “realness.” And unless our company is so tiny that it’s grateful for any evidence whatsoever of industry legitimacy, we’ve gained nothing worthwhile. True industry leaders aren’t leaders because they’re written about. It’s vice versa.

So forget this marketing strategy, even if your company is dominant enough to reach for 50% of the market. The “too big for branding” identity isn’t nearly as sustainable as you might think. Just ask Microsoft.

Worse, your company might end up being impeached.

Consumer Retorts

Perhaps you’re wondering: How did this happen? Why did B2B brands become so much worse than their B2C counterparts? The answer, I think, may be Darwinism.

As companies fight for survival, they necessarily establish varying sales protocols. Over time, B2B companies developed something frightening and transformational that commercial companies never did—the sales guy.

Admittedly, most people don’t like sales guys. Imagine trying to buy an iPod, but before you could get to the iPod, you had to go through some annoying guy in a suit. Then, later, annoying suit guy starts calling you and asking for more business, or drowning you in a tide of junk correspondence.

Now this may not sound like such a great strategy, but companies trust their sales guys much more than they trust their marketing guys. It’s because, annoying or not, sales guys make their numbers. Seriously. They make their numbers as if their salaries depended on it, which incidentally they do.

More to the point, sales guys don’t like meaningful brands. Meaningful brands create the illusion that everyone at a company is essentially uniform, whereas sales guys survive by elevating themselves above the rest of the team. Jim the sales guy doesn’t care if his company makes a sale; he only cares if Jim makes a sale. Furthermore, he doesn’t ever want a sale to walk out the door, no matter how ill suited his company is for the job. In essence, Jim is battling every ounce of differentiation and segmentation that his company carefully implements.

Usually, in the B2B world, the sales guys win the day. And the marketers, humbled and contrite, are then ordered to produce a brand so inoffensive and nondescript, that Jim can mold it into anything that suits his needs on a given afternoon. Strong branding, in this viewpoint, is not only unimportant; it’s detrimental.

But sales guys and strong brands can work in harmony. A strong brand not only sets the stage for a sale, it encourages likely prospects to actively self-select. Strong sales feed the company and promulgate the brand (if faithfully adopted) to more clients and broader audiences. One hand washes the other, if you can get them to shake.

The same is true in B2G, only lobbyists and proposal writers are your “sales guys.” Even the lowest-bidder, past performance-obsessed government buyers aren’t immune to a strong identity. Most government contracting offices, to this day, are still staffed by humans.

Be The Brand You Want to See In The World

One of the problems inherent with B2B branding is that it’s usually done after the fact, and thus tends to be more aspirational than emblematic.

Preferably, your brand should be based in some degree of reality. And if not, like a jilted lover, you need at least be willing to change. But change to what? What competitive advantage does your company actually possess? In your industry, is your company most economical? Most luxurious? Most historical? Most cutting-edge? Most simplified? Most complex? Most intelligent? Most honest? Most clever? Most interactive? Most durable? Most versatile? Most conservative? Most progressive? Notice that many of these attributes are diametric opposites. Which means no matter how hard you try, you can’t ever (credibly) be all things to all people.

Notice also that these are superlatives, not mere descriptors. It doesn’t matter if you’re one of seventeen progressive IT consultants. Brand requires ownership.

I hesitate at this juncture to begin tossing in data points and research study conclusions because, as they say, you can use statistics to prove anything that’s even remotely true (68% of all people know that). But I conducted a study several years ago that attempted to identify the three universal attributes of transformative brands:

1. Clear ownership of a single, distinct position.

2. Demonstrative application of said position.

3. Position as central business organizing principle.

Now let’s test some of B2B’s greatest hits against these governing attributes.

Booz Allen Hamilton – Ready for What’s Next

Message: A leading consulting firm that works with clients to deliver results that endure.

First of all, where’s the distinct position? Readiness is a given, no? What’s next could mean just about anything. Results that endure, as opposed to results that dissipate? Is this a substantive argument?

Raytheon – Customer Success Is Our Mission.

Message: Aspiring to be the most admired defense and aerospace systems supplier through world-class people and technology.

Are Raytheon’s competitors not interested in the success of their customers? Aspiring to be the most admired? By whom, other companies? What does that have to do with customer success? What are “world-class” people? Are they classier than domestic people?

CSC – We Are a Global leader in Providing Technology Enabled Business Solutions and Services.

Message: Our purpose is clear: Deliver innovative business and technology solutions that help our commercial and government customers worldwide achieve what they want most — Results.

These are becoming frighteningly one-note, aren’t they? Again, an abstract notion of mission accomplishment. Makes more sense on the deck of the U.S.S. Lincoln.

Rather than continue in this vein, let’s take a quick look at a B2B company that actually gets more right than wrong:

GE – Imagination at Work

Message: It isn’t enough to think big. Imagination must be practiced within boundaries of ethics, compliance and integrity. Far from limiting creativity, GE’s high standards have instead drawn a unique workforce.

First, special kudos for successfully transitioning from “We Bring Good Things to Life,” retaining the spirit of the brand while redirecting the emphasis. Imagination is the differentiator here, specifically imagination bolstered by integrity (a distinctly American construction, right?). What is GE—the most imaginative (creative, playful, driven by the spirit of our ancestral inventors, moral). What GE is not—conservative, disciplined, inexpensive, empathetic, highly technical, highly focused. It’s quid pro quo, as it need be. That’s reality. That’s credibility. That’s brand.

One mustn’t accept the specious reasoning that lauds CSC, Raytheon, and Booz as well-branded companies, simply because they’re successful. Indeed, these are strong brands today. But they’ve been built through longevity, not identity. Besides success, stability, and professionalism, these brands stand for nothing significant. Raytheon and General Dynamics are more or less interchangeable. Both strong. Neither distinct.

It doesn’t have to be so. Large or small, a B2B brand can stand up. It can seize real ground in an industry, not just peaceably subsist.

So proclaim it from the mountaintop, if you dare. We stand for something. Something corporeal and defined. We’re not just like the others. We stand for X instead of Y. Some won’t want anything to do with us. But some will insist on us. And that’s the idea after all. Real differentiation. Real segmentation. Real identity.

Maybe I had it right all along: Real companies rule.