Assume no-one cares

The 95:5 rule and why you should be building ‘mental availability’ to put your brand top of mind and steal a march in the Built Environment.

What Is the 95:5 Rule?

To any marketeer, brand owner or product manager, it’s an unsettling thought; roughly, only 5% of your target audience are actively looking to buy at any given time.

The other 95%? They’re out of market. Not ready. Not interested, they just don't care. Not yet. But they will. Eventually.

And when they are ready, you want your brand to be right there. In their memory. Top of mind. Ready to buy.

The concept was originally developed by Professor John Dawes at the Ehrenberg Bass Institute, popularised by LinkedIn’s B2B Institute and its implications are huge, especially for brands in the Built Environment, where purchase cycles are long and infrequent, and the buying process is often complex with big-ticket items.

This uncomfortable realisation that (almost) no-one cares can actually be the turning point for a brand, the catalyst for a fundamental shift in strategy. A signal to begin proactively building brand recognition and trust before the buying window opens.

Yet marketers fall into the same trap, chasing and focusing solely on short-term sales with marketing that’s geared for monthly sales figures.

Chasing the 5%

Most marketing in the Built Environment is geared toward short-term wins; lead gen, promotions, conversion-focused campaigns.

It’s understandable. Revenue targets loom. Quarterly reports demand results. But focusing solely on the 5% who are ready to buy is like fishing in a puddle when there’s an ocean nearby.

The real opportunity lies in the 95% who will need your product or service someday. The challenge? Making sure they think of you when they do.

Pursuing purely short-term gains is expensive, not to mention exhausting and the longer term opportunities are often overlooked by the Built Environment sector.

Where is everybody?

The truth is that most of your future revenue comes from buyers who might not be ready today or tomorrow.

In sectors like construction, engineering, or materials supply there are numerous stakeholders, lenders and tenders, with buying decisions made across a swathe of disciplines; architects, contractors, installers, surveyors and procurement, all with very different priorities. And crucially, different timelines.

The competition for attention is fierce. If you’re not already on the mental shortlist when they're looking to buy, you’re already playing catch-up.

Building Mental Availability

Coined by Professor Byron Sharp and Jenni Romaniuk at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, mental availability isn’t just about awareness. It’s about being the first name that comes to mind in a buying situation. It’s the difference between being considered and being overlooked.

Building mental availability takes time, patience and tenacity, so we’ve pulled together some key principles that can provide the cornerstones of your brand's future potential.

Read the Room

Differentiation is a critical component in building mental availability; standing for something so distinct that your brand becomes impossible to ignore or forget, even in a crowded marketplace.

This isn’t just about being different for the sake of it or even about being unique. It’s about being meaningfully different - owning an idea, a tone, or a perspective that resonates with your audience.

To get this right, remove the 'brand manager blinkers' to see the world through the eyes of your customer. What do they see and why should you matter to them. This is usually an uncomfortable yet brand-defining moment that pays dividends in the long term. Understanding market orientation will tell you everything you need to know about your brand’s opportunities.

Explore Deeper Connections

Another underutilised tool in the built environment is the power of emotion. Marketers in the sector are often distracted and consumed by the complex and technical nature of their products but the reality is that emotional connections tend to linger long after the rational arguments fade. A campaign that makes someone laugh, nod in agreement, or feel a spark of inspiration is far more likely to embed itself in the memory than a spreadsheet of product specs.

Creativity that connects on an emotional level gets remembered. Brand campaigns that evoke strong emotions (humour, pride, warmth, surprise) are more likely to be stored in long-term memory.

Emotional brand building is more durable than rational product ads. When people ‘feel’ something, they remember it. B2B doesn’t have to be dry. In fact, it should never be.

It’s no coincidence that the brands that refuse to play it safe are the brands that break through, command premium pricing and top-of-mind recall.

Build Fluency

Call it fluency, distinctiveness, brand codification, iconicity…these are the distinct brand assets and signals you put in place to ensure your brand comes readily to mind when your customer is ready to buy. A strong logo, a distinct typeface, a recognisable colour palette, an endline that sticks, a distinctive product shape, a memorable jingle… These aren’t vanity projects, they’re critical mental shortcuts. It’s the - ‘do they know it’s me?’ litmus test.

Think of golden arches or a meerkat, even the ‘da-dum’ sonic device when you load Netflix. They don’t explain the product; they trigger instant recognition. Tools that help build mental availability in a consumer world are massively underestimated and therefore underutilised in B2B.

In an industry where buyers are juggling a dozen competing priorities, across complex buying processes, being instantly identifiable will give you a significant advantage.

Learn to Play the Long Game

Consistency builds memory. Repetition isn’t boring, it’s a strategy. When you hear a strapline for the thousandth time, it’s reinforcing a neural pathway in your brain.

In the Built Environment, that might mean hammering home a single and simple message e.g. durability, innovation, sustainability, until it becomes synonymous with your brand.

Mental availability isn’t built overnight. It takes reach, repetition and a willingness to play the long game. But the payoff is undeniable: when buyers finally enter the market, your brand is already there, waiting in their subconscious.

Physical availability matters too, of course. Being easy to find, easy to buy, easy to specify. But without mental availability, you’re just another option.

Find Balance - the Long AND Short of it

The Built Environment is notoriously conservative when it comes to brand investment. Budgets get diverted to short-term lead generation. But there’s a balance.

You can’t afford to ‘choose’ between brand building and sales activation. You need both to capture both immediate and future demand, and grow in a sustainable way. You'll find all the evidence you need in Les Binet & Peter Field's seminal report, 'The Long & the Short of it'.

Focus only on short-term conversions and you fall off the radar of the majority. Obsess solely over the ‘brand’, and you’ll miss your buyers ready to act right now.

Brands that grow consistently in this sector, master both. They establish pathways for tomorrow while seizing today’s opportunities. They stay memorable enough to be chosen later, and visible enough to be bought now.

Take a fresh look at your brand. Assume no-one cares. How would you build a brand that lasts?