Top 12 Brand Marketing Examples You Can Learn From

Brand marketing is a good way to know how clearly people understand who you are and what you stand for. But if you’re unsure of how to bring your brand to life, looking at how others have done it can be a great place to start.

In this guide, we’ll explore 12 companies that built strong, recognizable brands in the market and take a closer look at how exactly they did it. You’ll walk away with strategies and inspiration to fuel your own brand marketing efforts.

What is brand marketing?

Brand marketing is a strategic process of shaping how people perceive your company. It includes your positioning, tone of voice, design identity, storytelling, content, and customer experience.

For companies, brand marketing helps to lower the customer acquisition costs, increase lifetime value, and drive organic referrals. The strongest brands in the market have a goal beyond simply attracting consumer attention; they aim to attract the right kind of attention, from the right audience, at the right time.

12 brand marketing examples to learn from

A great way to build your brand marketing strategy is by learning from what others have done. So without further ado, let’s dive right into 12 brand marketing examples that you can learn from:

1. HubSpot

When HubSpot started its marketing activities, it focused on carrying out inbound marketing activities. Instead of pushing their message through cold calls and emails, the company decided to pull people in by being genuinely useful. In practice, this is what the brand’s approach looks like:

• Using content to attract users: They used blog and SEO strategies to make sure users chose HubSpot as the first stop for learning inbound marketing. HubSpot Academy also helped turned users into certified advocates, making it a go-to learning platform.
• Ensuring the product reflects the brand: From UI to help docs, HubSpot created resources that felt approachable, helpful, and modern to their users.
• Building a community: The INBOUND conference brought their philosophy to life, building a loyal, engaged community around shared values.

By aligning product, content, and messaging around a shared belief, HubSpot turned its brand into a category-defining asset.

2. Intercom

Intercom wanted to change the way businesses talk to customers. Instead of ticketing systems and form-based interactions, they envisioned a future where support felt more like a friendly chat, and this is what they focused their entire brand strategy on.

Intercom broke through the crowded SaaS market by binding 3 key elements:

• Product experience: Their interface felt intuitive and conversational to their users, which helped customers choose this platform. It also included illustrations that replaced sterile dashboards, and microcopy that sounded human, not robotic.
• Thought leadership: Intercom’s content consistently challenged the status quo, advocating for a more human approach to support and sales.
• Brand consistency: Every touchpoint, from messaging to design, reinforced their belief in better, more personal customer communication.
• Outdoor advertising: The company also used outdoor advertising strategically by running billboard campaigns in San Francisco with simple, confident lines like “We Chat With Customers Too.”

However, they didn’t just stop at the aesthetics. Intercom invested in writing books like Intercom on Customer Support and Intercom on Starting Up, which served as thoughtful, long-form brand assets that demonstrated both expertise and values.

3. Mailchimp

Mailchimp built a brand that felt nothing like traditional enterprise software. From the beginning, they focused on helping small businesses grow, and they communicated that with warmth, personality, and creative experimentation. They created a strong brand in the market by:

• Creating a brand that has both personality and design: Their mascot Freddie, quirky microcopy, and playful UI made the product feel fun and approachable.
• Using storytelling as strategy: The “Did You Mean Mailchimp?” campaign (MailShrimp, FailChips, etc.) used humor and surrealism to drive brand recall, earning awards and cultural conversation.
• Creating emotional stickiness among users: Even without talking about email, they made the brand memorable, pairing creative marketing with a reliable product to win user trust.

While the above may seem like it had little to do with email, it had everything to do with creating a brand that people would talk about, laugh about, and most importantly, not forget. This bold approach wouldn’t have worked without the underlying product quality, but together, they created a brand that didn’t need to shout. It simply stuck.

4. Notion

Notion positioned itself as the all-in-one workspace for modern teams, but it didn’t rely on feature comparisons to stand out. Instead, it built a brand rooted in elegance, clarity, and community.

Notion stood out in the following ways:

• Minimalist aesthetic: The product, website, and even release notes were stripped down, black, white, focused, projecting clarity and intention.
• Creating a strong community: Users shared templates, tutorials, and workflows. Notion amplified this organic momentum with a public gallery and ambassador program.
• Creating a strong buzz: They did this by limiting early access created buzz and demand while reinforcing its brand of quality over hype.

Notion managed to become not just a tool that users could use, but a community they could be part of. With millions of users, global brand recognition, and a strong user base, they turned calm design and community trust into their biggest growth engine.

5. Slack

When Slack entered the market, workplace communication tools were clunky and impersonal. Slack changed that by making its product feel like something you actually wanted to use. In these following ways, Slack reshaped how teams think about workplace tools by making its product feel human, joyful, and intuitive:

• Human-centered UI: Emojis, vibrant colors, and friendly copy made everyday interactions feel warm and conversational.
• Consistent brand voice: From product videos to error messages, Slack maintained a witty, helpful tone that stood out in B2B.
• Community-driven growth: Early fans shared it widely, and Slack leaned into that word-of-mouth, without relying on aggressive marketing.

6. Salesforce

Although people may know Salesforce as a CRM software, the company promoted the idea that software should live in the cloud. They integrated this into their branding. When Salesforce launched in the early 2000s, it used the following branding tactics:

• Make sure their branding was big and bold: The “No Software” logo was a clear statement that helped customers rethink their approach.
• Used Dreamforce as experience: Their annual event wasn’t just a conference, it was a full-blown cultural touchpoint that brought the brand’s vision to life.
• Visibility and leadership: From Formula 1 sponsorships to data reports like the State of Sales, Salesforce marketed trust, scale, and innovation.

These marketing strategies helped the company position itself as a thought leader, not just a vendor.

7. LinkedIn

While other social platforms focused on lifestyle or entertainment, LinkedIn was deliberate about positioning itself as the network for business. Its product features include profile endorsements to “Your profile was viewed” notifications which helped to reinforce the idea that career visibility mattered.

On the brand marketing front, LinkedIn invested in campaigns that highlighted shared ambition and career growth, often through real user stories. The ways in which LinkedIn did this were:

• Aspirational storytelling: Campaigns like “In It Together” showcased real professionals navigating real challenges, making the brand feel inclusive and motivating to users.
• Empowering creators: Features like newsletters and Creator Mode encouraged users to build their personal brands, which in turn helped Linkedin expand its reach organically.

8. Apple

When we talk about brand marketing examples, we can’t help but think of Apple. Apple follows a few brand-building strategies that include:

• Consistency and restraint: The brand ensures that every ad, website landing page, or keynote sticks to the same visual and tonal rules: minimal, aspirational, product-focused. Even their typography and white space become part of the signature.
• Emotional storytelling: Campaigns like Shot on iPhone helped the brand shift the focus from technical specs to human creativity and possibility, making the product feel inspiring and personal.
• Experience as branding: From keynote launches to unboxing moments, every interaction that Apple created was designed to reflect simplicity, elegance, and a sense of control for the user.
• Avoiding technical jargon: Apple avoids using technical jargon in its messaging, and instead chooses to focus on what the product enables you to do as a user.

What makes Apple’s brand so effective isn’t just the polish but the discipline because they company rarely breaks character, making it easy for people to recognize and trust.

9. Tesla

Tesla built its brand not through traditional media buys or polished ad campaigns, but through mission-driven storytelling and product performance. The company’s promise - accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable energy was central from day one and this was reflected in its brand marketing in the following ways:

• Using founder visibility to create brand outreach: Elon Musk’s public persona amplified the brand’s edge, while product launches kept it in constant media rotation.
• Community evangelism: Owners of Tesla became ambassadors of the brand as they by posting videos, sharing data, and making delivery day a celebration.

This combination of clarity, product excellence, and social proof turned Tesla into a cultural signal beyond just being an automotive company.

10. IBM

IBM’s brand evolution is a masterclass in staying relevant without losing heritage. For decades, IBM has been known as a hardware giant. As it witnessed customer preferences evolve, it decided to shift perspective toward providing enterprise services and AI, by using its brand strategically.

Here’s how IBM modernized its brand:

• Strategic repositioning: Campaigns like Let’s Put Smart to Work reframed IBM as a partner in digital transformation.
• Building credibility through content: IBM made use of long-form reports and real-time AI demos at events like Wimbledon. This helped to build the company’s credibility even among users who were not its direct target audience.
• Design that signals trust: Timeless typography, muted colors, and structured layouts kept the brand grounded in professionalism.
• Sponsoring events to create more awareness: Sponsorships with gaming giants like Wimbledon and the U.S. Open allowed IBM to showcase its AI capabilities in high-stakes, real environments, without losing its buttoned-up image.

These activities have helped the brand transition from old tech to new relevance without ever feeling like it was trying to be trendy.

11. Airbnb

Airbnb is a great example of strong brand marketing. Instead of just promoting its listings, Airbnb focuses on the overall customer experience.. They have undertaken many branding activities over the years like, including:

• Creating a feeling of ‘belonging’ as a brand idea: The Bélo symbol and tagline “Belong Anywhere” reframed Airbnb as a movement, not just a marketplace.
• Storytelling over specs: The company’s campaigns are centered on human stories, local hosts, and travelers creating memories, and not simply as amenities or listings provided by the company.
• Using their UX as trust-builder: Verified profiles, safety features, and policy partnerships reinforced legitimacy and brand values.
• Partnering with cities and governments: Partnering with cities and governments instead of just realtors and hosts helped Airbnb legitimize their model. This helped to reinforce the brand’s long-term viability and credibility.
• Being relevant: Their COVID-era campaign Go Near adapted this brand promise to domestic travel, showing agility without losing emotional depth.

12. Mailmodo

Mailmodo entered the email marketing space with a clear point of differentiation: AMP-powered interactive emails. But because AMP was unfamiliar to many, the brand needed to earn trust and educate the market from early on. Here is what that looked like:

• Branding through helpful content: Teardowns, use cases, and playbooks have all helped Mailmodo help users discover AMP emails, while the company uses these resources to build on its thought leadership.
• Community credibility: Mailmodo used webinars and partnerships to build trust with growth experts, especially in a market that is still learning SaaS storytelling.
• Creating a unified product and brand image: A clean, fast and frictionless UI reflects Mailmodo’s promise of being interactive, modern, and user-first.

By sharing its journey openly, building in public, and staying close to users, Mailmodo has gone beyond creating brand awareness. It helps people understand the email marketing category better and has built trust over time. These are the two things that have helped this brand truly stick.

Takeaways

Each of these brand marketing examples above speak about companies that approached brand marketing with a different goal - some of these brands were keen on changing how people think, others focused on community, and some focused on the design or credibility.

But what stands out across all these brand marketing examples is consistency. The strongest brands align their message, voice, product experience, and customer engagement to reinforce a clear identity over time.

If you’re building your brand, start by clarifying what you want people to believe about you, and then find ways to show that belief through what you create, how you speak, and where you show up. You don’t need a massive budget. If there’s something worth learning from these brand marketing examples, it is that you need sharp brand positioning, a clear tone, and the discipline to remain consistent, no matter how crowded the market gets.