Why brand is the biggest commercial opportunity in built environment
By Becki Wilson, Founder, The Loft — May 2026
The energy, the connections, the shared knowledge and interesting perspectives along with the drive for change at UKCW / FutureBuild this week was palpable. A room full of industry leaders, innovation and products ready for the future of built environment. It was a privilege to share the stage alongside Kate Perrin, Marketing Director at Barbour ABI.
I took to the Marketing and Procurement stage (the first time marketing has had its own dedicated stage) to speak about the outsized opportunity we have in built environment to drive long-term sustainable growth by investing in Brand.
Kate's session drew on powerful Barbour ABI research revealing just how under-resourced brand building is across the sector. It was the perfect complement to the strategic case we were making together - data meeting direction.
The investment gap
Recent research by Barbour ABI shows us that a third of marketers in this sector are allocating as little as 11% of their overall marketing spend on long-term brand building. This is significantly below the recommendations made by Les Binet and Peter Field in their study 'The Long and Short of It' with the IPA. The study found that for compounding long-term growth, the businesses that are most successful over time are those investing 60% of marketing spend on long-term brand building and 40% on short-term activation.
It is no surprise then that we have such a challenge, but it also highlights the opportunity ahead.
The 95% opportunity
I shared the research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute that shows us, in B2B markets, that at any given moment in time only 5% of our potential buyers are in market and ready to buy today. Meaning we need to invest in building brand awareness, salience, trust and reputation for the buyers of the future.
With 95% of future revenue not searching for product today, by building a strong brand over the long term and becoming the obvious and preferred choice as soon as the buying moment arrives, that is how to win using Brand.
Brand goes deeper than a logo
Brand can so often be reduced to a logo, a colour palette, a new website. Whilst these are critical components of the external brand expression, brand goes much deeper.
I believe Brand is the operating system at the heart of an organisation. Not something that sits only with marketing. But something that leadership should, and can, own collectively. Brand touches every part of a business. It should drive behaviour and guide decisions.
Brand Soul™
We call this Brand Soul™. The thing that makes you unmistakably you. The fire, the thing you stand for, the things you care about deeply, your point of difference and your point of view on the world. It is the reason customers choose you, it is the reason they stay. The reason that employees love to work for you. Some call it DNA, some call it the red thread. We call it Brand Soul™.
Brand Soul™ is built around four pillars:
A free brand audit for built environment
We have designed a Brand Soul audit, built environment edition, working collaboratively with Barbour ABI to combine the power of data and brand to drive commercial value for built environment clients.
If you would like a free brand audit with insights and recommendations to win the buyers of tomorrow, drop us a message and we will be in touch.