Here are 9 impactful B2B branding examples (& why they work)

What makes a great B2B brand?

Some companies are able to shine as strategic examples, showing how branding can help your company become a leader in the industry. Some revolutionized their sectors offering groundbreaking solutions, while others embraced simplicity and a friendly attitude.

But what matters the most in the end is positioning.

This concept is the holy grail of great branding, sitting at the conjunction between what you offer, what the market wants, and how you offer it to them—including competitive advantage, messaging, and visuals.

From redefining transactions to fostering long-lasting customer relationships, let me guide you through some examples of B2B brand storytelling triumphs to draw inspiration from.

Example #1: HubSpot (Software)

Founded in 2005, HubSpot is one of the most successful B2B branding examples on the web. 

Born from the idea that a business can grow in a sustainable and conscious way, HubSpot was able to build a strong market presence thanks to some key factors, including having a clear target audience that ensures HubSpot a very well-defined positioning in the market.

In pursuit of their mission to support the growth of small B2B firms, HubSpot adopted a customer-centric approach to business, as reflected in its famous Flywheel model focusing on the importance of customer satisfaction and engagement.

Committed to providing intuitive tools such as the Hubspot CRM and Marketing Hub, HubSpot helps their customers grow their business and simplify various aspects of marketing, sales and customer service.

The company also creates valuable educational resources like podcasts and short-form videos that break down challenging topics, HubSpot is also known for its terrific Academy, which was one of the first to offer full-length professional courses for free.

Because of all these activities, HubSpot developed a massive B2B brand awareness—probably the largest ever of any company.

Beyond its characteristic orange logo, vibrant colors and approachable voice, the brand’s social media marketing strategies engage with its audience in a humorous and relatable way, making the brand recognizable and its customer base loyal thanks to education that sticks with them.

Just like in the Flywheel model developed to help B2B businesses, HubSpot’s customer-focused approach helped marketers and business owners become highly successful not only at converting prospects into customers, but also at retaining them in the long run.

HubSpot's success is further attributed to its consistent innovation and staying at the forefront of marketing trends. Their unwavering dedication to great product design has fostered a loyal and growing customer base that advocates for the platform, thanks to organic referrals.

With this approach, HubSpot continues to be one a leading force in B2B.

Example #2: DigitalOcean (Infrastructure)

DigitalOcean is a hosting company and cloud service provider focused on offering simple and intuitive cloud infrastructure for businesses and developers.

Developers of all skill levels can access cloud computing through practical tools provided by the brand, such as in-depth tutorials and guides that help customers build applications or optimize service implementations.

By designing a user-friendly platform that’s easy to navigate and focusing on creating content that is highly relevant to their customers, DigitalOcean was able to build trust and credibility among its target audience, which helps in establishing a positive brand reputation.

DigitalOcean also makes sure to offer a wide range of solutions to cater to different types of businesses, ensuring a broad customer base.

The brand also fostered a strong developer community thanks to events, initiatives and conferences, with an inclusive approach that strengthens the brand’s position in the market.

Another important aspect of DigitalOcean’s successful branding strategy is the consistency in the theme and design chosen to represent the brand: the blue and marine-themed visuals and imagery (along with the shark mascotte) are used across all platforms, including for their social.

The aesthetics are not only beautiful and relaxing, but also convey the idea of an original brand, becoming extremely recognizable among its target audience.

Making the most out of these key factors, DigitalOcean is able to stay true to its brand promise by creating infrastructure services that are non-intrusive, allowing its customers to focus on their core tasks and reaching their goals.

Example #3: Boston Consulting Group (Consulting)

Consulting is a “people'' business, and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) knows it. 

The firm understands that their employees are their greatest asset and the importance of people in their business. 

So they strategically shaped their entire B2B brand experience around people-related elements, highlighting the talent that the company’s employees can offer to clients. 

Beginning with their social media platforms and website, BCG often features its employees in its content, focusing on their expertise within specific industries and their contributions in their communities, basically showing that the company's value lies in the talented individuals who work for it, guiding their clients towards achieving specific goals. 

However, BCG's commitment to a people-driven brand extends beyond their internal talent. In shaping their brand identity, the firm also places great emphasis on the significance of their clients and communities. 

By showcasing success stories from their customers, they demonstrate how collaborative partnerships with BCG lead to optimal outcomes.

Boston Consulting Group’s commitment to showcase expert knowledge and the ability to collaborate with their clients puts people at the heart of their B2B brand experience, highlighting the importance of creating lasting and impactful relationships.

Showcasing and celebrating the people that work for your business makes the brand’s image warmer and more approachable, creating relatable content that attracts new clients. 

By adopting this „human“ strategy, BCG sets itself apart from other consulting firms who talk about general topics without much mention of individual strengths within the company. The people-centric approach is a good example of a simple but effective way to distinguish yourself and your firm in a competitive landscape. 

Example #4: LinkedIn (Social Media)

Navigating social media changes can often feel like an insurmountable challenge. 

Finding a dependable platform for meaningful business interactions is hard. 

This is precisely why LinkedIn chose to anchor itself with stability and credibility when establishing its identity as a B2B powerhouse – a winning strategy for the company. 

As the world's premier work-focused social media platform, LinkedIn has solidified its status as a business cornerstone. But truly standing out in social media requires offering customers something distinct, it's not enough to just exist.

In terms of branding, LinkedIn opted to make consistency its trademark. 

The company ensured seamless updates that don't disrupt the user experience on its website and app, setting it apart from competitors that frequently alter their rules, features, and algorithms, often to the detriment of user experience.

LinkedIn also made key acquisitions to provide other tools that have helped the platform build its reputation, such as LinkedIn Learning, offering expert-led educational courses, and job listings that enable recruiters to connect with job seekers. 

Simplifying firms' efforts to optimize their profiles, interact and network with other business professionals, and check the effectiveness of their content and engagement strategies through analytics and insights.

And, one of the oldest cornerstones in the company, Sales Navigator remains a prime place to find B2B leads quickly and effectively. No more hunting people down manually.

All these capabilities contribute to enhancing LinkedIn's value proposition and reinforce its position in social media, making it the go-to platform for professionals and “a gold mine for B2B”, according to Nicole Jackson.

Overall, LinkedIn has effectively positioned itself as a trustworthy and reliable alternative to its competitors, resulting in satisfactory engagement levels among its users.

Example #5: OpenAI (Technology)

In a brief period of time, OpenAI rapidly gained recognition and captured the interest of not just B2B business but also the general public. 

Just a few years back, imagining the widespread capabilities we now have with Artificial Intelligence—thanks to platforms like OpenAI—seemed almost impossible. 

The company is aware of the hype and excitement around its product, and uses it to its advantage, rooting its brand identity with fast-paced innovation and "disruption" while keeping expectations in check with safe wording.

OpenAI’s rapid growth and recognition can easily be compared to other tech giants that came before it, but ChatGPT was the most rapidly-adopted product of all time.

That's not something that every brand can say for themselves.

And that's exactly what makes a great brand: the uniqueness of their story.

The hype generated by the company’s ability to offer new services can have its downside, but it definitely helped the brand succeed in becoming well-known among customers and firms.

Previously, it was just seen as a nerdy startup.

Now it is heralded as the next big thing in tech and life generally.

OpenAI marketing strategy showcases the practical use of its products. The DALL-E web page is a perfect example of this: the generated images show the model's ability to produce original and unique images. By displaying this content, OpenAI provides a demonstration of how far AI technology has come, and its possible contributions to art and design.

A similar approach can be seen on the GPT-4 website, where you can witness real-time text being generated on the screen, a perfect example of AI's ability to produce coherent, innovative and even ironic content on the spot. This user is not even using the product yet, and it’s already interacting with it.

The company’s focus on showcasing product outputs within its marketing materials is an educational tool: by presenting concrete examples of DALL-E's and GPT-4's applications, OpenAI offers a transparent view of the capabilities of its models, informing potential users on the practical integration of its technologies in various fields.

Example #6: Xero (Accounting)

Aligned with its goal of helping small B2B businesses grow without creating obstacles to the customers, Xero decided to make simplicity its core value.

"The accounting software to do your to-do" prioritizes a simple experience for the users, with an approachable design that wants to emphasize how the company’s main goal is supporting the user’s accounting needs in the friendliest way possible.

The user-centric design and accessible navigation sets the brand apart from its competitors that often adopt a more chaotic and complicated approach to promote its services. 

But simplicity is not only found in Xero’s visual design: the written communication with its audience is also approachable and friendly, and the brand voice distances itself from complicated financial terms in favor of a more conversational tone that makes the user feel right at home during the accounting process.

Xero takes its commitment to friendliness and relatability to the next level by making the most out of social media marketing, creating influencer-packed YouTube campaigns; as well as showcasing client success stories and creating simple tutorials narrated with humor that show how easy to use Xero actually is.

The company’s social media platforms are also making the most out of short-form video contents like Instagram Reels, establishing a daily connection with customers.

Overall, Xero is a good B2B branding example that shows how “keeping it simple“ can foster trust among customers in what may seem a complex and intricate industry.

Example #7: Bosch (Engineering)

Bosch's brand identity is so deeply ingrained in people's minds that its name alone evokes a sense of reliability. This global recognition of Bosch as a high-quality brand extends even to its consumer products, and the perception assumes an important role in fortifying the brand's reputation, effectively making the word "Bosch" synonymous with "dependability." 

Beyond its role in the consumer landscape, a significant chunk of Bosch's revenue comes from its B2B portfolio. Within this domain, the company excels in creating specialized solutions for automotive manufacturers and industrial robots. 

This commitment to precision and excellence, while still chasing innovation, gives Bosch a leadership role within the B2B engineering landscape. 

The Bosch brand's promise revolves around delivering lasting, top-tier products, a promise that holds immense significance, particularly within engineering circles. 

This is especially true given the substantial investments companies are willing to make for products that not only deliver peak performance but also stand the test of time. 

The company is able to appear reliable and cutting-edge at the same time with humorous and modern ad campaigns even for B2B products.

Bosch's seamless transition into the B2B industry was facilitated by a reputation that precedes them. Its credibility extends its reach across industries and a diverse spectrum of audiences. 

It's important to note that establishing a brand identity as memorable as Bosch's is not easy to achieve. It literally takes decades of hard work and market presence.

However, Bosch shines as an exemplary B2B brand marketing case study, vividly showing how a well-crafted brand identity can usher in success and how it can ingrain the brand within the general cultural landscape, effectively solidifying its leadership stance.

Example #8: Fiverr (E-commerce)

Fiverr is a good example of a company centering its brand identity around finding a new way of tackling an existing problem. Born in 2010, the website was able to distinguish itself from the norm, making the process of hiring freelancers easy and quick. 

The company was able to simplify the traditional back-and-forth that used to be common in these kinds of business transactions. Fiverr decided to cut all the complex interactions and negotiations with a simple "checkout" process, a revolutionary approach that filled a gap in the market doing something not many have achieved: creating a successful B2B e-commerce.

The value proposition is clear: 

A one-stop destination for hiring professionals with different skills. 

The platform ensures transparency and quality thanks to freelance portfolios showing case studies and reviews, which builds trust among businesses looking for professionals. 

Furthermore, Fiverr was founded just in time to position itself within the growing gig economy, allowing skilled professionals to offer their services on a dedicated platform that helped them find businesses in a quick and easy way, connecting firms and freelancers all over the world in a way no one else did before. 

Along the innovative approach, Fiverr was able to cultivate a consistent brand identity – with a design that‘s dynamic and young, just like its freelancers -- and a strong sense of community among its users, who are very loyal to the company. 

Fiverr was able to offer a reliable access to freelance services valuing simplicity, trust and efficiency when nobody else was doing it, carving itself a hole in the landscape first, and then becoming a leading force of the B2B sector.

Example #9: Wise Business (Financial)

Rebranding from TransferWise to Wise in 2021, the UK-based foreign exchange company has been able to distinguish itself from traditional banking, offering businesses an effective and convenient way to transfer money. 

Since its early days, Wise’s branding has always been dynamic and disruptive thanks to its guerrilla marketing campaigns, and the company has been able to highlight its positioning as a simple solution to a common problem and distinguishing itself from well-established competitors, such as traditional banks. 

 Today, Wise’s positioning it’s well-known among B2B businesses. 

The company provides a way for its B2B and B2C customers to transfer money globally by nearly eliminating foreign currency exchange fees, which actively challenges the status quo of traditional banking, positioning Wise as an innovative alternative to pay foreign talent for B2B businesses. 

Wise's branding also emphasizes its global reach, a fundamental aspect for firms operating on an international scale (which is very common in the 2020's): the platform is accessible and easy to use across various countries and using different currencies. 

Another branding aspect of Wise includes the creation of high-quality educational content regarding the complexities of international money transfers, positioning itself as an educational and reliable resource for customers. 

By positioning itself in the market as a solution to an everyday problem, Wise was able to gain customers' trust through transparent pricing and a clear value proposition. 

The brand’s interface design is accessible, modern, and user-centric, providing customers with an easy-to-use experience online and through their mobile app, making it a preferred choice for global transactions. With its customer-focused approach, Wise has revolutionized cross-border payments for businesses worldwide.

Develop your B2B brand into an impactful experience

These 9 examples highlight the importance of positioning your B2B brand. Whether it's HubSpot's precise targeting, DigitalOcean's user-centric approach, or Bosch's credibility-driven identity—successful businesses understand that positioning is the cornerstone of their success.

Positioning isn't merely about aligning offerings; it's about creating a resonant identity sitting between market demands and presentation.

From fostering trust and credibility to building lasting relationships, these examples showcase that effective positioning isn't just a strategy—it's the heartbeat of a successful B2B brand.

Frequently asked questions

What makes a great B2B brand?

To create a successful B2B brand it’s important to create a distinctive identity that makes you stand out from your competitors, with a clear value proposition that resonates with the audience and that will eventually translate into trust and loyalty among your customers.

What is an example of B2B brand marketing?

HubSpot, known for its CRM platform, has created useful blog posts and educational tools, helping the customers by answering specific questions and showcasing the services offered by the products, while positioning the company as an expert in the industry and gaining the customers’ trust.

How does B2B branding differ from B2C branding?

Both B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to consumer) branding are focused on positioning and on building long-term relations with the customer, but the nature of the two transactions is different: in B2B branding the focus is on conveying expertise and be detailed, giving the impression that the business is an industry leader. In B2C branding, where the marketing is aimed at individuals, the focus of branding is more aligning with the consumers’ lifestyle and preferences, rather than only highlighting trust.