More than a decade after How Brands Grow was published, its core message is no longer controversial. Most B2B marketers now accept that brand growth is driven by reaching more buyers, not extracting more loyalty; by being easy to notice, easy to recall, and easy to buy, rather than by persuasion alone.
Yet in our work with B2B organizations globally, a gap remains. The principles are widely known – but they’re still hard to apply well.
That matters, because while the laws of growth haven’t changed, the context in which brands grow has – shaped by AI driven discovery, fragmented attention, and more risk averse buyers.
The Enduring Laws of Growth – Seen Through a B2B Lens
Byron Sharp’s work challenged long held marketing assumptions by grounding brand growth in observed buying behavior rather than opinion. Ehrenberg Bass research showed that across categories:
- Most customers are light buyers
- Loyalty is weaker than marketers often assume
- Brands grow mainly through penetration
- Large brands benefit from double jeopardy
- Buyers typically purchase from multiple brands
While this body of research is largely rooted in consumer markets, its central implication still holds for B2B: growth comes from increasing the number of buyers who are likely to consider a brand, not from trying to deepen loyalty among a small group.
Where B2B needs more care is in how these principles show up when buying cycles are long, decisions are shared, and attention is limited.
Mental Availability in an AI Led Discovery Landscape
One of the clearest themes in our recent 2026 B2B Brand Trends article is that buyers are no longer discovering brands in neat, predictable ways.
Search engines, AI tools, peer recommendations, reviews, communities and influencers all play a role – often long before a buyer engages directly with a supplier.
This doesn’t weaken How Brands Grow. If anything, it makes mental availability more important.
Mental availability today is shaped by:
- how clearly a brand is recognized across third party channels
- how consistently it shows up beyond owned media
- whether buyers – or AI tools – can quickly understand what it stands for
Put simply: brands that are hard to recognize are harder to recall when buyers enter the market.
Distinctive Assets: Recognition Beats Explanation
How Brands Grow argues that advertising works mainly by refreshing memory structures, not by persuading people through detailed arguments.
That insight is particularly relevant in B2B. Buying cycles are long. Attention comes and goes. Buying groups change.
When buyers re enter a category – months or years later – they rely on what they can recognize quickly. Brands with consistent, distinctive assets tend to come to mind more easily. Brands that change frequently or spread themselves too thin often don’t.
In this context, consistency isn’t about playing it safe. It’s about making recognition effortless.
Physical Availability Today: Ease Matters More Than Ever
Physical availability in B2B rarely means distribution in the traditional sense. It’s about how easy a brand is to deal with.
The latest Superpowers Index research shows that brands seen as easier to do business with enjoy clear advantages – winning more often and closing deals faster.
This is physical availability in current B2B terms:
- clarity of offer
- speed of response
- simple, joined up buying experiences
- fewer points of friction
Ease doesn’t replace brand. It strengthens it.
Trust as the Outcome of Familiarity
Trust remains the strongest driver of B2B choice. Buyers want to feel comfortable signing a contract, especially when decisions carry risk.
How Brands Grow helps explain why familiar brands often feel safer. It’s not simply about persuasion. Familiarity itself reduces perceived risk.
For newer or smaller brands, this creates a clear challenge: trust isn’t built through messaging alone, but through consistent presence over time.
Why Brand Evidence Still Matters
Most B2B marketers understand these ideas. The real risk lies elsewhere – applying them without a clear view of how a brand is actually experienced.
To act effectively, organizations need to understand:
- how mentally available their brand really is
- which brand cues are recognized and which are missed
- where buyers experience friction or uncertainty
Without this kind of evidence, teams often fall back on assumption and instinct – even when they intend to be evidence led.
In Summary
How Brands Grow remains a strong foundation for understanding brand growth. The challenge for B2B marketers in 2026 is not learning the theory, but executing it well in a more complex, AI mediated buying environment.
Brand growth today depends less on finding new ideas, and more on applying well established ones with clarity, consistency and evidence.
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A Best Practice Guide to Brand Research in B2B Markets 9 Trends That Will Shape B2B Brands in 2026 The 2025 Superpowers Index B2B Insights Podcast #65: Common Myths and Misconceptions with Brand Research How to Measure Brand Performance with the Brand Health Wheel Brand Measurement and Benchmarking: Laying the Foundations for Building Stronger B2B Brands