Boost your SaaS pipeline: learn how brand fame, attention science, and distinctive assets turn shortlist into sales.
The Problem Hiding in Plain Sight
Most SaaS leaders chase growth through ever-bigger demand-gen targets, yet the harsh reality is that 92 % of B2B buyers purchase from a vendor already on the shortlist they wrote down before anyone filled in a form or booked a demo. Even worse, 86 % start that list with just three brands, and the odds of being added later are slim to none.
That means the pipeline battle is won or lost long before an SDR hits “dial.” Your real competition isn’t the 20 peers on G2; it’s obscurity.
Meet Kate
Kate Newstead, Marketing Science Lead at LinkedIn’s B2B Institute, spends her days turning biometric data, buying-committee research and Ehrenberg-Bass models into practical playbooks. Her recent Saasiest keynote distilled 15 years of evidence and hundreds of client experiments into three growth levers every scale-up can pull, without million-euro brand budgets or celebrity ads.
3. The “F.A.M.E.” Framework
| Lever | Objective | What It Means in Practice |
| F – Fix the Hippocampus | Grab attention that sticks. | Apply six creative rules proven to lift recall. |
| A – Assets that Distinguish | Be recognisable at a glance. | Codify distinctive colours, sounds, words, and shapes. |
| M – Marshmallow Discipline | Play the long game. | Resist re-brands and budget cuts that erode memory. |
| E – Embed in Every Touch | Reach the whole committee. | Push consistent assets across channels and personas. |
Below, each lever comes with data, questions to ask, and first steps you can take this quarter.
F – Fix the Hippocampus
A joint LinkedIn × MediaScience neuro-eye-tracking study of 109 real B2B video ads found that 81 % failed to register both attention and brand recall. Six factors separated winners from wasters:
- Low cognitive load: one idea per frame, plain language.
- Clarity at any entry point: story makes sense even if the viewer joins at second 2 or 8.
- Brand is the hero: logo or asset dominates, not product shots.
- Brand early & often: no such thing as over-branding.
- Short beats long: 10-second edits outperformed 30s and 60s.
- Strategic sound: captions first, audio as bonus; if they un-mute, reward them.
A – Assets that Distinguish
Walk any SaaS expo aisle and you’ll drown in gradients of the same corporate blue. When everything looks familiar, ad spend builds category norms, not your brand.
Ehrenberg-Bass calls these cues “distinctive brand assets.” The goal is not beauty, but instant, error-free recognition. Newstead’s quiz showed that even iconic Nordic enterprises with decades of spend were indistinguishable once their logos disappeared. In Monday.com’s category test only 6 % tagged its rainbow correctly, while 24 % gifted the equity to a rival (internal B2B Institute data).
Asset Checklist
| Asset | Litmus Test | Quick Win |
| Colour palette | Does a competitor own the same hue? | Introduce a secondary accent you can own 100 %. |
| Typeface | Could ChatGPT guess it? | Commission a semi-custom cut or variable font. |
| Tagline | Could it fit any vendor? | Anchor it in a specific, provocative benefit. |
| Sonic cue / “sting” | Would your team hum it in karaoke? | Build a three-note mnemonic and add it to pre-rolls. |
| Mascot or icon | Could a child draw it from memory? | Simplify to a single-stroke shape. |
Questions to ask internally
- If we removed the logo, would buyers still know it’s us?
- Which cue travels best across a mute, scroll-first world?
- How will we measure asset attribution quarterly, not annually?
M – Marshmallow Discipline
The “second marshmallow” study teaches delayed gratification. In marketing, the temptation is a re-brand or budget raid to boost short-term metrics. Yet brands that pause advertising for a single year see sales drop 16 %, and 25 % after two — declines that take years (and cash) to recover.
Playbook
- Set a “brand-minimum” budget floor—Newstead suggests 40 % of working media for companies under €50 M ARR; 60 % if you’re closing in on €200 M.
- Create a “continuity calendar.” Plot at least one broad-reach flight per quarter, even in Q4 squeeze.
- Govern asset changes like code releases. Any colour, logo, or tagline tweak needs a business case and two-quarter test window.
E – Embed in Every Touch
Buying committees now average 17 stakeholders and 40 touchpoints. Mental availability must span functions, channels, and time.
Practical sequencing for a €2-50 M ARR scale-up
- Month 0-3 – Coverage
- Map the committee: user champion, economic buyer, security gatekeeper, finance.
- Deploy always-on brand video to LinkedIn broad groups (function × region).
- Map the committee: user champion, economic buyer, security gatekeeper, finance.
- Month 4-6 – Depth
- Layer retargeted case-story ads that double-click on your core claim.
- Equip AEs with deck templates that mirror campaign assets (colour, tagline, icon).
- Layer retargeted case-story ads that double-click on your core claim.
- Month 7-12 – Memory
- Sponsor a neutral analyst report so your asset stack shows up in category graphics.
- Run a light-touch brand-lift study; adjust creative based on delta to target awareness.
- Sponsor a neutral analyst report so your asset stack shows up in category graphics.
What Success Looks Like
- Pipeline Velocity: Clients who warmed audiences with brand storytelling before outreach saw 2 – 3× lift in SDR connect-to-demo rates (LinkedIn internal analysis).
- CAC Efficiency: Consistent asset use typically shaves 10-15 % off paid social CPMs within six months because algorithms learn your distinctive cues faster.
- Valuation Multiple: PE investors we surveyed report paying up to 1.3× higher ARR multiples for companies with “obvious, defendable brand codes” baked in.
5. Final Takeaway
In a world where obscurity, not rejection, kills 90 % of SaaS deals, your north star is simple: get famous to the right few, before the buying journey begins. Fix the hippocampus, build assets only you can own, wait for the second marshmallow, and embed the result across every touch. The sooner your brand earns that “Day-One” rose, the sooner the rest of growth feels inevitable.
Watch Kate’s keynote from SaaSiest 2025 here
