Insight
Be famous for something or invisible for everything.
Somewhere right now, a buyer (your perfect ICP) is asking Claude, Chatty G, Gemini or whatever:
Who are the best partners for this?
No tabs. No google links. No polite little journey from awareness to consideration.
Just a question… and an answer.
And in that moment, the rules change.
You’re not competing to rank anymore.
You’re competing to be named.
The curiosity game & the guest list
Like many of you, my curiosity and learning levels have gone into turbo mode over the last few years. The mantra of learn, unlearn, relearn has never been truer.
As a great believer in brand, I’ve been trying to put myself on the front line of the Ai revolution and re-train my brain to re-think (lots of re's) what brand means to B2B organisations in this most modern of eras.
The old way had us building marketing like a production line. Brand fills the top. Performance empties the bottom. Jobs a good’un.
Except… that’s not how decisions are being made anymore.
Because the funnel hasn’t disappeared. It’s just been…folded. Awareness. Consideration. Evaluation. All compressed into one sci-fi interaction. A question in. A shortlist out.
Now here’s where people get twitchy. “Isn’t this just SEO all over again?”
Not quite.
SEO was a standard list. Think of GEO as a guest list.
You’re either on it… or you’re stood outside wondering why no one’s picking up your calls.
The big brands will always win in this new era, right?
Not quite. Size and muscle matter. And yes, the usual suspects show up a lot.
Big brands. Big budgets. Big presence. They’re playing ten games at once. Like decathletes. Pretty good at everything. But here’s what most people miss. This isn’t one simple leaderboard. It’s thousands of them.
Every question creates a new room. Change the prompt, change the outcome.
“Best CRM platforms?” The big names pop up.
“Best CRM for mid-sized SaaS with messy sales cycles in Europe?” Different story. Different winners
So the question isn’t:
“How do we become the biggest?”
It’s: “What do we want to be famous for?”
Because this new game runs on association. Who gets talked about. Who gets linked to a problem. Who keeps showing up in the right conversations.
Not who shouts the loudest.
This is where most B2B companies make the same mistake. They reach for more performance. More spend. More optimisation. More “capture demand.”
Which is great… if you’re already in the answer. But performance doesn’t get you named. It just helps you get picked once you are.
Why investing in your brand really does matter.
Brand is what gets you in the room. Not the fluffy version. The useful version.
The one that makes:
- people mention you
- content reference you
- buyers recognise you
- the system keep seeing you in the same context
Don't think of brand as a logo or a channel, think of it more like signals and patterns. And here’s the bit no one likes admitting in B2B. Most companies sound bloody identical.
“Leading.” “Innovative.” “AI-powered.” - the usual stuff (yawn).
You could swap the logos and no one would notice. So when the shortlist appears, what happens? Buyers don’t analyse. They gravitate.
“I’ve heard of them.” “They seem right.” “That name again…”
That’s brand. Doing its thing. Familiarity wins. We know this!
Now before this turns into “just do brand”… don’t.
You still need to earn it.
The fundamentals of business are more vital than ever. Clear positioning. A great product/service. Decent SEO. Customers who rave about you. Content that actually says something. Employees who care.
And for all the smaller companies out there, have faith, because a small and mighty company with clear patterns, can absolutely beat a bigger one.
Because as soon as the question gets specific…fit beats size. Generalists get mentioned. Specialists get chosen.
So what’s the move Cashy?
Well it's not “Let’s be known for loads of things.”
That’s how you disappear.
The move is: pick something… and own it properly.
A problem. An audience. A point of view.
Something you can be repeatedly, unmistakably associated with.
Here at Rooster Punk. My top 4 signals are:
- Humanizing B2B - helping brands and leaders win by being more human in how they show up, at a corporate, employee and leadership level.
- B2B Storytelling - helping B2B brands and leaders find and tell their story in a meaningful way.
- Brand-led growth in B2B - helping companies figure out how brand translates into commercial impact and growth.
- B2B Creativity - helping companies be relevant, interesting, admired, talked about and famous by using creativity as a way to move minds and be remembered.
I'm really passionate about these 4 things, but more than that, I believe in them and I'm consistent in talking about them.
Try it yourself.
Jump into your fav LLM and try searching: B2B <creative agency> or <storytelling agency> and see if we show up. I would love to know, what comes back.
The new truth
Ih this Ai first world, you don’t need to be everywhere. You need to show up where it matters… and feel inevitable when you do.
That’s the shift.
You’re not just driving traffic anymore. You’re shaping what the market says about you when you’re not in the room. And increasingly…that’s what the LLM machines listens to.
So no, brand isn’t just top of funnel. It's the whole funnel. It’s the thing that gets you named…trusted…and picked.
Because now, more than ever: