Open-access Reports
Occasionally the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute will provide public access to a research report. This report has also been released to Ehrenberg-Bass Sponsors.
Ehrenberg-Bass Sponsors have exclusive access to hundreds of reports like this, as well as videos, marketing commentary, access to Q&A with our researchers and many other resources.
If you would like to learn more about the benefits of being an Ehrenberg-Bass Sponsor please contact us.
Institute Reports
What happens when brands stop advertising?
2018
Adam Gelzinis, Rachel Kennedy, Virginia Beal, Nicole Hartnett and Byron Sharp
Advertising spend can be cut for many reasons. In a recession or other times of financial pressure — e.g., when resources are urgently required in other areas of the business — advertising may seem like a discretionary activity or a dispensable luxury. Because the advertising budget is typically non-fixed, it can be diverted quickly at short notice. In some cases, poor budget planning or extra spending due to seasonality (or certain high reaching events) may run the budget dry for some time until the brand’s next allocation of funds. So regardless of why brands stop advertising, it is important that we understand what happens when they do. How are sales affected? How big might the consequences be?
Brand Purpose...Are consumers aware to care?
2025
Victoria Tait, Dr Virginia Beal, Prof John Dawes and Prof Byron Sharp
Brand purpose is presented as giving consumers an altruistic reason to buy, and is credited with potentially delivering a range of business benefits — from increased sales and stronger loyalty to brand differentiation and premium pricing. Yet for any of these benefits to occur, consumers must first be aware of the brand’s altruistic purpose. To explore this consumer awareness, we conducted surveys across three countries—the US, the UK and Australia—focusing on 14 brands widely regarded within the marketing community as exemplars of purpose-led strategies.
B2B Reports
Easy to Find: Being Where B2B Buying Happens
November 2025
Magda Nenycz-Thiel & Jenni Romaniuk
A wealth of empirical evidence shows B2B brands grow by expanding the size of their customer base.This means a growing B2B brand attracts many more buyers who buy slightly more often (the famous Double Jeopardy pattern). From this body of research, we get two growth levers: Mental Availability, which is about the brand being easily thought of in buying situations; and Physical Availability, which is about the brand being easy to find and buy.
Buyer says no? The rejection of Generative AI brands in B2B
August 2025
Jenni Romaniuk & Lara Stocchi
Brand rejection is a refusal to buy/use the brand or company. Different from non-buying rejection is an active objection, which can become a barrier to purchase. In the Generative AI space developing a wide customer base is crucial to stimulate further investment. Company rejection hurts current sales and can create a barrier to trialing any new iterations. This can stifle customer-base growth, even if the company’s future technology leapfrogs over competitors.
How B2B Brands Grow
November 2023
Jenni Romaniuk, Byron Sharp, John Dawes and Sahar Faghidno
Bringing Ehrenberg-Bass Institute’s ideas and scientifically proven insights to the B2B marketing world in a comprehensive way, with specific B2B data. An introduction to the How B2B Brands Grow report from the LinkedIn B2B Institute Team: Afiya Addison, Jann Schwarz, Jennifer Shaw-Sweet, Jon Lombardo, Peter Weinberg, Rachel Abbe and Ty Heath.
Why you need to advertise: the best product doesn’t win
February 2023
John Dawes
Many managers are convinced their product is the best in the market, so they think its quality should do most of the marketing. Other managers worry their product isn’t the best in the market, so they don’t want to launch it yet, or advertise it. Sound familiar? In either case, you need to start advertising to grow your business! Why? One, because no-one actually knows what the best product is. Two, they have neither enough time nor energy to find out. So, the main success factor is that your product or brand gets known and thought of.
Category Entry Points in a Business-to-Business (B2B) World
July 2022
Jenni Romaniuk
In B2B, as B2C, the evidence suggests the path to company growth requires building mental and physical availability . Mental Availability is about being easily thought of in buying situations, while Physical Availability is about being easy to buy. Category Entry Points (CEPs) are the cues that category buyers use to access their memories when faced with a buying situation and can include any internal cues (e.g., motives, emotions) and external cues (e.g., location, time of day) that affect any buying situation. While each category buyer and each buying situation is unique, there are common recurring themes which we call CEPs.
This paper explains why CEPs are important, as well as how to identify, prioritise and build CEPs. This paper also shows how to turn CEPs into Mental Availability Metrics to measure effectiveness over time.
Brand Rejection in B2B: Incidence, Reasons and Implications
May 2021
Jenni Romaniuk
The Laws of Growth, such as Double Jeopardy, show us acquisition of new customers is essential to growing a B2B business. The next question is how does a B2B company acquire new customers? This paper investigates the extent to which the negative attitudes to buying a B2B brand (referred to as brand rejection) hamper B2B customer acquisition.
The Double Jeopardy Law in B2B shows the way to grow
May 2021
Jenni Romaniuk, John Dawes, and Sahar Faghidno
In this Ehrenberg-Bass Institute report we provide evidence of Double Jeopardy in a wide range of B2B categories across different countries, category types, and loyalty metrics. We give you simple methods to test for Double Jeopardy in your own category. Then we highlight what this means for B2B marketers – what to do more of, and what to stop worrying about/wasting time on.
Advertising effectiveness and the 95-5 rule: most B2B buyers are not in the market right now
May 2021
John Dawes
It might surprise you to learn that up to 95% of business clients are not in the market for many goods and services at any one time. This is a deceptively simple fact, but it has a profound implication for advertising. It means that advertising mostly hits B2B buyers who aren’t going to buy anytime soon. And in turn, that tells us about how advertising works: it mainly works by building and refreshing memory links to the brand. These memory links activate when buyers do come into the market. So, if your advertising is better at building brand-relevant memories, your brand becomes more competitive. The question to ask is – does our advertising do that?
How do B2B brands compete?
May 2021
Jenni Romaniuk
This report looks at how customers buy across brands in B2B categories, and what this means for company growth. It shows how competition in B2B categories is largely defined by competitor share, which is known as the Duplication of Purchase (DoP) Law.
B2B Report Chinese Translations
B2B环境中的品类切入点: 将购买情境与品牌销售相关联
(Chinese Translation of Category Entry Points in a Business-to-Business (B2B) world)
July 2022
Jenni Romaniuk
有证据显示，B2B与B2C（企业对消费者）业务一样，要想实现业务增长，公司需要构建品牌的“心理易及性”和“购买便利性”（请参阅前一篇报告“双重危机定律为B2B业务增长指明道路”）。“心理易及性”是指品牌在购买情境中容易被消费者“想得起”，而“购买便利性”则指品牌容易被消费者“买得到”。
品类切入点（CEPs）是指品类购买者在面对某个购买情境时，用来触发其记忆的线索，分为可能影响购买情境的内部线索（例如，动机、情绪）和外部线索（例如，地点、一天中的时间点）。虽然每个品类购买者和每个购买情境都有其独特性，但却存在一些重复出现的共同主题，我们称之为CEP。CEP会影响决策者最初想到哪些品牌，这些品牌就会成为他们的“首选”。了解CEP有助于在品牌与品类的核心购买情境之间建立有用的联想。因此，当消费者进入该品类时，品牌被想起的概率就会变大，这是被购买的第一步。
本文解释了CEP之所以重要的原因，介绍了识别、确定优先级和构建CEP的方式。文中还介绍了如何将CEP转化为“心理易及性指标”，以衡量构建CEP的成效。为保持一致性，我们用“决策者”一词来指代我们想要影响其记忆的购买者。
广告效果与95-5 定律: 大多数 B2B 买家没有当前购买意愿
(Chinese Translation of Advertising effectiveness and the 95-5 rule: most B2B buyers are not in the market right now)
July 2024
John Dawes
你也许会感到惊讶:就许多产品和服务而言，在任何一个时间都有多达 95% 的企业 客户是没有购买意愿的。这是一个看似简单的事实，却对广告有着深远的影响。这 意味着广告所触及的B2B买家往往在短期内并无购买意愿。我们也由此了解到广告 的运作方式:主要通过构建和刷新与品牌相关的记忆关联来发挥作用——当买家真 有购买意愿时，这些记忆关联就会被激活。因此，如果你的广告在构建品牌相关记 忆方面做得更好，你的品牌就会更具竞争力。问题是:我们的广告是否做到了这一 点?
双重危机定律为B2B业务增长指明道路
(Chinese Translation of The Double Jeopardy Law in B2B shows the way to grow)
July 2024
Jenni Romaniuk, John Dawes, and Sahar Faghidno
双重危机定律在B2B领域同样适用，具体而言：
B2B业务的增长策略主要在于通过获取新客户来扩大客群规模
客户忠诚度易于预测，有助于设定关键绩效指标（KPI）
双重危机定律的偏离情况易于识别，对其调查便可找出业务增长阻碍因素
因此，重点在于构建心理易及性和购买便利性，让非客户更易想起你的公司/品牌，找到你的产品，进而购买你的产品。与其执着于客户忠诚度，不如关注如何消除障碍以吸引更多客户，这是实现增长的最快方式。
B2B品牌如何竞争？
(Chinese Translation of How do B2B brands compete?)
July 2024
Jenni Romaniuk
本报告探讨了B2B领域客户的跨品牌购买行为及其对公司增长的意义，揭示了B2B品类竞争在很大程度上由竞争对手的市场份额决定，即众所周知的客户重合（DoP）定律。