Welcome back to Marketing Qualified! Here’s what we’re talking about this week:

• B2B is asleep on distinctive brand assets. Yet another thing you should shamelessly steal from the B2C world.

• AI overviews are Google’s new “traffic tax”. ChatGPT is not the only thing SEOs need to be worried about.

😴 B2B is asleep on distinctive brand assets.

Coke owns red.

Nike owns the swoosh.

Netflix owns the “ta-dum” sound.

These are called “distinctive brand assets.” They’re creative assets that build memory and make decisions easy.

But, B2B brands using distinctive brand assets? Most don’t even try.

Logos and colors get swapped every few years. Campaigns look like they came from different planets. Tone of voice depends on who was on copywriting duty that week.

And then everyone’s surprised when nothing sticks.

The truth is, when a CFO or Head of Ops has to make a purchase decision under pressure, they’re not going to be flipping through your case studies. They’ll be reaching for the brand they already know.

Some B2B players actually get it:

• Slack’s knock sound effect.

• HubSpot’s orange.

• Salesforce’s cloud mascots.

   

  

These are what distinctive brand assets look like in B2B. But most companies are still totally blank slates.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking brand colors and logos are the only types of distinctive brand assets. There are many different types.

These assets aren’t something B2B marketers should write off. They’re potentially the difference between being the safe purchase choice under pressure… and never even being thought about.

📰  In the news this week.

🛍  How social media became America’s new shopping mall.

🔎 AI search ads explained.

📏  6 steps for better LinkedIn ad measurement.

🔄  When and how to approach a brand refresh.

🧠  16 Facebook statistics to know for 2025.

🤖 AI overviews are Google’s new “traffic tax”

Everyone’s worried about ChatGPT stealing their search clicks. But there might be a bigger threat out there…Google.

A study of 2.3M keywords found AI Overviews now show up in 1 of every 4 searches. If your query is 7+ words, it’s basically a coin flip that Google answers it for the searcher.

When we looked at the data, some interesting patterns jumped out:

#1 - Length hurts:

The longer and more specific the query, the more likely Google answers it with an AI overview.

#2 - Escape hatches exist:

Add a city name or a brand, and AI rates plummet below 10%.

#3 - Intent matters:

“How / why / what is…” searches trigger AI boxes nearly twice as often as transactional searches.

#3 is the most brutal for B2B marketers. Since informational queries are exactly the kind of high-intent, long-tail searches B2B content strategies rely on. The “how to fix X” and “why is Y happening” and “what is the best Z” articles that used to fuel top-of-funnel growth are being swallowed by Google’s AI summaries at a growing rate.

Simply ranking isn’t the name of the game anymore. Citation is becoming increasingly important. If you’re not being pulled into Google’s AI Overviews, you may not get seen at all.

😂 Marketing meme of the week.

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