In 2025, marketing leaders are facing a new reality: artificial intelligence has transformed demand creation. Automated campaigns, predictive analytics, and AI-powered content have leveled the playing field: making it easier than ever to reach prospects but harder than ever to stand out. As a result, an industry-wide conversation is emerging: Is it time to put renewed focus on brand?
Recent studies and leadership insights show that brand is indeed resurging as a strategic imperative. Les Binet and Peter Field (Marketing Week, May 2025) found that “AI-driven demand programs deliver reach and efficiency, but those gains quickly flatten unless supported by persistent brand investment.”
The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute’s B2B Brand Study (April 2025) demonstrated that companies leaning into brand-building increased market share by more than 10%, while their performance-only peers saw declines in customer retention and engagement.
But here’s the critical truth of 2025: Brand alone is not enough—just as category creation alone is not enough.
The Brand/Demand Pendulum Is Obsolete
For years, the conversation centered on “brand versus demand.” Today, this binary thinking falls short.
Jon Miller (Engagio, Marketo), speaking at B2BMX (March 2025), warned:
“AI lets anyone run scalable demand campaigns. The problem is, now everyone’s playbook looks the same. Brand is what sets you apart, but it must be translated into the day-to-day mechanics of growth.”
Carilu Dietrich (SaaS advisor, ex-Atlassian and Oracle), in her SaaS Brand Summit keynote (May 2025), observed:
“Brand brings your story into the market, but unless it is wired into category design and ongoing demand generation, it won’t drive scale or create defensible leadership.”
In B2B and B2C alike, the rise of AI hasn’t simply automated demand generation; it’s exposed how fragile brands become when their identity isn’t tightly connected to category leadership and operational excellence.
Market Engineering: The Protocol for Integration
This is where Market Engineering comes in: a discipline that I originally developed and formalized in my first book “Traversing the Traction Gap.” Rather than choosing between brand, category, or demand, Market Engineering is an integrated, actionable protocol. It starts by defining an audacious point of view and a category frame, then operationalizes that identity through measurable demand programs ensuring everything you do builds up, not diffuses, your market position.
Market Engineering recognizes that:
- Brand is now foundational—it gives AI-powered tactics purpose, uniqueness, and resonance.
- Category design creates strategic context, but is insufficient unless brand and demand are activated within it.
- Demand programs drive growth, but only reach their potential when tightly aligned with category and brand.
A Gartner CMO Survey (January 2025) found that companies using a cross-pillar approach; with brand, category, and operational demand strategies, aligned achieved 18% higher pipeline conversions and 26% lower acquisition cost. Brandwatch’s State of Marketing (March 2025) highlighted that 59% of CMOs now cite “brand indistinguishability” as their top risk in the wave of AI-powered marketing.
A New Playbook: More Than Brand, Beyond Demand
AI will continue to optimize tactics and scale campaigns, but true market leaders will break away from the pack by building a brand backed by category strength and relentless operational execution.
Ehrenberg-Bass’s research (2025) spotlighted Databricks and ServiceNow: their market share grew not just by brand refreshes, but by anchoring campaigns in their category story and integrating AI-driven demand initiatives that reinforced, rather than diluted, their positioning.
Carilu Dietrich’s “brand banking” approach (SaaS Brand Summit, May 2025) offers a roadmap: invest in brand assets, wire them into your category, and deploy coordinated demand programs that reinforce your unique identity.
Three Moves for True Differentiation in the AI Era
- Define and Audit Your Category-Rooted Brand POV
- Integrate Brand, Category, and Demand in Every Campaign
- Use AI to Amplify Uniqueness, Not Uniformity
A Living Protocol: Keep Auditing and Evolving
Market Engineering is a living framework. Assess your split between brand, category, and demand as AI evolves. The goal is not just to keep up—but to build market authority that’s measurable, resilient, and unmistakably your own.
My new book, due out in Q1 2026 and titled, “Market Engineering – Because Markets Don’t Build Themselves“, is a prescriptive guide that shows CEOs and product leaders in companies of all sizes and industries how they can can engineer a market by leveraging tried, tested, and proven methods in this “AI Era”. My firm, Traction Gap Partners, works with teams helping them to navigate this process.
References (2025):
- Binet & Field, “Brand Bravery in a Performance Age,” Marketing Week, May 2025
- Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, B2B Brand Study, April 2025
- Jon Miller, B2BMX Keynote, March 2025 & “Is Brand Back?”, B2BLeadershipHub, July 2025
- Carilu Dietrich, “The New Brand Banking Model,” SaaSBrandSummit, May 2025 & LinkedIn essay, March 2025
- Brandwatch, State of Marketing, March 2025
- Gartner CMO Survey, January 2025