Brand awareness in business markets: When is it related to firm performance?

In Business-to-Business (B2B) environments, many firms focus their branding activities on the dissemination of their brand name and logo without developing a more comprehensive brand identity. Thus, the creation of brand awareness is an important goal in many B2B branding strategies. However, it is still unclear if the great investment necessary to build a high level of brand awareness really pays off in business markets. Therefore, drawing on information economics theory, this paper investigates under which conditions brand awareness is associated with market performance in a B2B context. Results from a cross-industry study of more than 300 B2B firms show that brand awareness significantly drives market performance. This link is moderated by market characteristics (product homogeneity and technological turbulence) and typical characteristics of organizational buyers (buying center heterogeneity and time pressure in the buying process).