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Beyond trust: what C-Suite buyers want now from business brands

New research by Man Bites Dog shows that in a high-stakes B2B environment, decision-grade confidence comes from Intelligent Brands®. 

  • B2B has become high-stakes: 89% of C-Suite leaders in multi-billion-dollar organisations view their supplier relationships as transformational , not transactional. And 85% report that their organisation is making more high‑stakes buying decisions than two years ago.
  • High stakes mean high scrutiny : 87% of leaders say more of their organisation’s buying decisions now require direct involvement and sign-off from the C-Suite or Board, compared with two years ago.
  • Decisions are stalling:  76% of leaders say their organisation is experiencing more delays, postponements and decision-paralysis of high-stakes buying decisions, compared with two years ago. 
  • Trust is not enough:  89% of leaders say trust doesn’t give them confidence to make high-stakes buying decisions. Just 2% say trust or brand awareness does. 
  • The era of Intelligent Brands ®: 97% of leaders say, above all else, confidence comes from a partner’s visible intelligence advantage (their demonstrably superior ideas, experts, data and technology).

 

A new study amongst C-Suite executives in multi-billion-dollar global organisations has found that the rules of B2B growth have changed, and that companies must change with it in order to unstick the buying process. The traditional growth levers of trust, brand awareness and personal relationships no longer give C-Suite buyers the confidence they need to commit.

The Intelligent Brands  study, from B2B business and marketing consultancy Man Bites Dog, finds that nine in ten C-Suite executives now require decision ‑grade confidence  to move a major deal forward. 

 

Intelligent Brands ®: the new growth playbook

The study reveals that 97% of leaders say buying confidence comes from a partner’s visible intelligence advantage : superior ideas, experts, data and technology show they understand what’s coming and how to help their customers win.

Claire Mason, Founder and CEO of Man Bites Dog, says: “The challenge for high-stakes B2B marketing is no longer to make brands feel trusted. It’s to make buyers feel confident enough to act. Intelligent Brands are the organisations that consistently make their expertise, insight and capability visible to the market through brand, marketing and thought leadership, giving C-Suite buyers decisive confidence in high-stakes B2B decisions.”

Intelligent Brands win on every metric. Not only do they provide the C-Suite with decision-grade confidence, they also speed up the decision-making process. 91% of leaders say Intelligent Brands make it easier for them to back larger deal sizes and longer-term contracts because they reduce perceived risk.

 

The Intelligent Brands system: six dimensions for growth

Man Bites Dog’s proprietary Intelligent Brands system helps companies unlock C-Suite buying decisions in a high-stakes, high-scrutiny environment. The system defines six interlocking capabilities that enable organisations to translate their intelligence into buyer confidence. 

Key findings: 

  • Foresight Intelligence: 88% of leaders say that by working with suppliers that see “what’s next” sooner, they improve the quality of their own strategy and decision making. 
  • Idea Intelligence: 91% of leaders believe that high-quality, insight-driven thought leadership is one of the main ways a supplier can demonstrate its intelligence advantage.
  • Customer Intelligence:  91% of leaders prefer suppliers that bring joined‑up, integrated solutions – combining people, methods, technology and data – rather than siloed products or services.
  • Human Intelligence:  90% of leaders believe that in a world of AI‑generated content, demonstrating an organisation’s human expertise and credibility is more important than ever.
  • Augmented Intelligence: 94% prefer partners who can show clearly how their operational use of AI improves the quality of their ideas, insights and recommendations, not just their efficiency.
  • C-Suite Intelligence: 95% of leaders say they have greatest confidence in partners who have experts who can talk at business and board level, not only at technical and functional depth.

 

The Intelligent Brand gap

While many organisations have deep expertise, buyers aren’t consistently seeing it. The study compared importance (the expectation that organisations in each sector are seen as Intelligent Brands when buyers make high‑stakes decisions) with perception  (which organisations leaders currently regard as Intelligent Brands). The distance between these two scores is the Intelligent Brand® gap.

On average, only 38% of organisations in key sectors achieve Intelligent Brand status, with the lowest performing sector, the legal profession, facing a more than 9x expectation-perception gap. In private equity and private credit we see a 6x expectation-perception gap, and asset and wealth management firms face a 4.4x gap.

“As B2B has moved from transactional deals to transformational partnerships, and from technical buyers to the C‑Suite, closing the Intelligent Brand gap must become a strategic priority for marketing and sales leaders,”  Claire Mason adds. “The brands that will win the next wave of high‑stakes growth are those that make their intelligence advantage impossible to miss.”

 
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