During a conversation the other day with an experienced B2B professional the comment was made that the branding craze was ebbing. The situation wasn’t appropriate to engage in a debate. But boy did I want to comment! It is my belief and the belief of Godfrey that branding is perhaps more critical in the B2B world today than ever before.

To support this belief let me share you with some of the results of a recent survey of our B2B clients. When asked about the importance of branding to their management, 78% of respondents considered branding  “very important” or “critical to success” and more than 50% of those that responded we’re using or considering using social media tactics such as RSS feeds, blogs, podcasts in their business-to-business programs. These folks are telling us that branding is important and at the same time they are beginning to use media in which they have the potential to lose control of the brand message. This makes branding absolutely critical.

The new media allows those that experience your brand to be a brand emissary or a brand terrorist. If your company’s brand and messaging are well-aligned with customer needs and perceptions, that relevance with help build preference and affinity. And you will have plenty of brand emissaries. But if you don’t "live the brand" through your actions, you may end up with more than an unhappy customer. You may have an unhappy ‘content provider’ sharing their experiences on industry blogs or other social media. Simply terrorizing your brand. Their entries could appear on search engines where others in the industry learn things about you that you wish they wouldn’t. You have just been bitten by the new media.

So you see the need to define your brand messaging and your brand experience and take on a brand guardianship role is never more critical than now. The need for branding in the B2B world is far from ebbing.