August 14, 2026
The influence of branding is largely accepted and practiced when marketing to consumers. For B2Bs however, it’s often argued pricing, availability and quality are the main decision factors. Less focus is put on building a brand identity—which is a costly mistake. After all, emotional variables affect buyers, regardless of what they're buying.
As more offerings crowd B2B marketplaces and competition increases, a memorable brand identity could be the difference between your next sale or missed opportunity.
Building familiarity and clearly establishing why you’re the better choice sets you apart. It won’t only improve sales and customer loyalty but will help you build trust with stakeholders—from shareholders and employees to partners and distributors.
It all starts with good branding. And successful branding starts with developing a strong brand identity prism.
What is a Brand Prism and why is it important?
Jean-Noel Kapferer created the Brand Identity Prism in 1986, defining six elements of any brand that shape its overall perception. The idea is that these six aspects are intertwined, and when aligned correctly, work together to establish and strengthen your brand image. Each one is crucial for projecting a consistent, genuine brand image to prospects and customers. The six sides of the brand prism lay the groundwork for your branding efforts, resulting in effective communications that build customer trust and loyalty.
Here are recommendations and best practices for building a brand prism. These are based on our process, helping clients uncover each aspect of their brand and strengthen their total brand identity.
Start with research
Research is the key first step, no matter how well you might know your brand.
Through input meetings, competitive analysis, and target audience evaluation you can uncover valuable insights and get everyone on the same page.
Evaluate your company and brand with input meetings.
Get the right people involved. They lead the culture internally. They live and breathe your brand to customers. And they know your origins, where you're headed—and why. This is essential, especially if you’re working with an agency, and it’s a great way to see if your team is in sync.
Include members from different functional areas. This will help ensure a variety of perspectives and a balanced analysis of the brand.
Brainstorm face-to-face. This enables you to dig deep into your team’s insights and understand different views and ideas that could lead to new or overlooked messaging opportunities.
Prepare questions in advance. Guide the discussion and encourage team members to go with their gut and share first thoughts. You’ll get the best results when everyone involved allows for open conversation.
Here are examples of questions to start a good brand identity discussion:
- What’s the current impression of your brand?
- Do people recognize your brand, talk about it, have a reason to remember it?
- Why does your brand exist? What purpose does it serve? How has its purpose evolved, due to business opportunities and/or market condition changes?
- What are the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (S.W.O.T.)?
- Are there challenges or negative perceptions that need to be overcome?
- Do your associates understand your customers’ businesses and pain points?
- What do you look for in employees? What are “must-have” qualities?
- What are your marketplace goals?
Analyze your competitors’ branding and marketing.
You likely have already evaluated your competitors' offerings and where they're winning over customers, but go a step further and pay attention to their branding.
Analyze each competitor's website. How is their brand communicated visually? Look closely at their logo, color palette, images and the design of their website and communications.
Listen to how they speak. Verbally, what tone and manner are they using to shape their brand personality? For example, is it friendly, informative, technical or proud?
Compare SEO metrics. What keywords do they rank for, what ads are they running and how do you compare to them? How do their main messages and selling propositions differ from yours?
Note the general impression of each competitors' website, ads and social content. Don't be afraid of subjective generalizations—your customers are certainly making them.
Don't try to brand in a bubble. Spend time understanding your competitors, so you carve out your unique niche.
Develop your buyer personas based on new findings.
Customer interviews and surveys are great tools for this. Add the research you’ve gathered through meetings and the competitive analysis to further develop your personas.
Ensure you understand your customer's needs, pain points, and goals accurately so your communications present your solution in the most effective way possible. This is a critical step to determine your "go-to" customer and how your brand helps them achieve their ideal self (the Reflection and Self-Image aspects of a brand prism).
Some important things to consider when building out your personas include:
- What are customers getting from you—what’s most important to them?
- Is your product/service high value or commodity?
- How do you help customers reach their ideals?
- Why do prospects agree to meet with you?
- What objections do prospects have?
The Six Elements of the Brand Prism
Brand Personality
Think of personality traits you would use to describe your brand. Perhaps that's Dreamer, Joker, Rebel, Hero, Leader, Nurturer, or Confidant.
Think about your customer personality traits as well. What type of personality are they looking for from a brand that’s offering your solution? This may require using focus groups or other research methods.
When you determine your brand personality it will lead to the tone and manner of your brand verbally and visually throughout all communications—and should be reflected by your company from the inside out.
Example: Ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s set itself apart with a very bold and fun brand personality. With crazy flavors, cartoonish product packaging and whimsical descriptions, its brand personality is evident at every touchpoint.
Brand Culture
Great branding only goes as far as the people behind the brand. Anyone can talk the talk, but do you walk the walk?
How you treat your employees may not be immediately apparent to your customers, but how your employees treat your customers will. Customer service is a strong indicator of company culture. This is increasingly important as customer experience is becoming the lead differentiator in B2B markets.
Ask yourself: What are our core values? How do they relate to our mission, vision, and purpose? Get the team involved. Internal alignment is crucial. How are your values the same as your target audience?
If your company is or intends to go international, it’s important to remember the values or attributes displayed in your country may conflict with others, and require different marketing approaches.
Example: Google promotes a flexible and creative working environment, with many unique employee perks—such as free meals, nap pods, swimming pools, and diner booths instead of conference rooms. The collaborative and fun Google culture has become crucial to its success in developing creative solutions and retaining employees in a competitive environment.
Customer Self-Image
How does your company help customers reach their ideal self? Think of this in terms of needs, paint points and goals—this is where your brand interacts with your customers emotions.
Having well-developed, accurate personas are critical at this step.
For example, perhaps you’re a software company targeting CEOs who are striving to innovate in their company and leave behind a legacy. If you can show them how your software will have a demonstrable impact on their company—consequently making them look good to the board—you’ll be the brand that resonates with them.
For customers who come over from your competitors, evaluate why they weren’t satisfied there. How did that competitor fail to meet their needs and wants? What does your company need to do differently to fulfill their expectations and build that emotional connection to your brand?
Brand loyalty is built by companies that continually help customers solve their problems and reach their goals.
Example: Dove promotes itself as the brand of “real beauty,” stating: “Beauty is not defined by shape, size or color – it’s feeling like the best version of yourself. Authentic. Unique. Real.” Dove strives to take the judgement out of beauty and boost customer's self-esteem to help them reach their ideal self-image.
Customer Reflection
Not to be confused with your customer’s self-image, reflection is how your brand portrays and connects with its primary target audience.
While most companies have numerous buyer personas, their “go-to” stereotypical customer is who they depict in promotional content such as social posts and paid ads.
Does your company accurately present what your customer looks like and the connection customers have to your brand? This includes any visuals of your “customer” on your website and communications as well.
How does your brand reflect the same values of your audience? Accurate reflection requires determining the key, core message of your brand regardless of different personas.
Example: Apple sells to everyone, but associates its brand with adventurous and energetic people in advertisements. Apple's advanced products are always depicted as simple to use, no matter the user.
Brand Relationships
The relationship between your brand and customers can be examined just like other social relationships.
For example, a ridesharing service, such as Uber, would have the typical brand relationship of driver/passenger. However, Lyft attempted to redefine that relationship to friend/friend, with their original tagline “your friend with a car.” Lyft passengers are encouraged to sit in the front seat and the driver often has water and gum available and a choice of playlists ready, treating you like a friend.
Think of the generalized relationship roles in your industry, and how you might redefine those to bring more value to a customer. What is the customer getting beyond your product or service? How does your brand personality influence this relationship?
The relationship your brand has with your customers should be considered at every touchpoint: your website, digital and print communications, phone calls, emails, and in-person experiences.
Example: Harley-Davidson forms deep customer relationships, becoming a lifestyle choice for many. It created a community between employees and customers—the “brotherhood” of riders.
Physique
Overall, how do you want people to describe the appearance of your branding—and why? The physique of your brand is images that come to mind when people think of it, such as colors, shapes, logos and fonts.
These physical elements should reflect your brand personality and give a unique visual image to not only the tangible but intangible benefits of your solution.
There are many aspects that create this physique, from traditional to contemporary fonts, organic or geometric shapes, and bold or subtle colors.
Is your current color palette limiting you? Use a color study to broaden it. Look around your industry to see if there are common colors. Would it be valuable for your brand to have colors that stand out or conform?
Identify photography styles and graphic treatments that reinforce your brand. Stock photography is ubiquitous and, most often, less than inspiring. Work with your creative team to photograph your own people, technology and work environment. Develop interesting and unique photo treatments to complement your brand image.
Example: Coca-Cola’s iconic bold color and scripted font reflects the brand’s happy and playful personality. From product packaging to online advertising its brand physique is consistent in all communications.
A brand identity is taking your story—who you are in your market, the expertise you offer, why you're unique, the value you bring—and externalizing it. A brand prism exercise is a very helpful tool for identifying the key factors of that story and bringing them together to form a cohesive, consistent, and genuine brand image.
Defining and developing these six elements sets a foundation for communicating a consistent, strong brand to prospects, customers, and shareholders—at every touchpoint. It's what will set you apart as competition grows, and prove value beyond price or quality.
