Building brand awareness has never been simply about reaching more people. It's about creating memorable connections that influence future decisions.

For B2B marketers, that challenge is becoming increasingly complex. Buying journeys involve multiple stakeholders, media consumption is more fragmented than ever, and attention moves constantly across premium publishers, CTV, newsletters, podcasts, professional communities, and social media. In this environment, generating reach alone is no longer enough to build lasting brand recognition.

Instead, marketers are increasingly asking a different question: how can brands create meaningful interactions that audiences actually remember?

Lenovo explored that question through a global campaign developed with Seedtag around the FIFA World Cup 2026. Designed as a controlled test, the campaign compared our Neuro-Contextual approach with standard contextual targeting across the same flight period. Rather than matching ads to relevant content alone, the campaign adopted our Neuro-Contextual approach to align advertising with moments of genuine interest, emotion, and intent.

The results demonstrated how a modern brand awareness strategy for B2B can strengthen brand impact through relevance rather than reach alone. Most notably, Excitement drove a 94% lift in Top of Mind Awareness among enterprise audiences, while generating valuable insights for future campaigns.

Key Takeaways

• Brand awareness strategies are evolving beyond reach to prioritize meaningful engagement.
• Modern B2B marketers must build brand awareness across increasingly fragmented media environments.
• Understanding the context surrounding attention helps brands create more memorable advertising experiences.
• Lenovo adopted our Neuro-Contextual approach to align advertising with moments of genuine interest, emotion, and intent.
• The campaign delivered a 94% lift in Top of Mind Awareness for excitement, demonstrating the impact of that emotional alignment and context-driven brand building.

Why Brand Awareness Looks Different Today

Brand awareness has always been one of the foundations of a successful marketing strategy. Before people consider a product or service, compare solutions, or speak with a sales team, they first need to recognize and remember the brand itself.

That principle hasn't changed. What has changed is how brand awareness is built.

Today's B2B buying journeys are longer, involve multiple decision-makers, and unfold across weeks or even months. Throughout that process, buyers encounter countless messages across premium publishers, CTV, industry publications, newsletters, podcasts, professional communities, and social media, making it increasingly difficult for brands to create memorable interactions through reach alone.

Unlike performance campaigns, brand awareness campaigns are designed to influence future decisions rather than immediate actions. Success depends on building familiarity, trust, and positive associations long before purchase intent becomes explicit.

Every interaction contributes to brand perception. Whether it happens through content marketing, premium editorial environments, CTV, or social media, each touchpoint helps shape how buyers perceive a company over time.

But consistency alone doesn't guarantee effectiveness.

People respond differently to advertising depending on the context surrounding the message. A campaign that feels relevant while someone is actively exploring industry trends can create a much stronger impression than the exact same creative shown in a disconnected environment.

This is where many traditional brand awareness strategies begin to lose effectiveness. Media buying has historically prioritized maximizing reach across broad audience segments. While that approach can generate scale, it doesn't always account for the interests, emotions, or motivations that influence how advertising is experienced.

As competition for attention continues to increase, marketers are asking a different question.

Instead of simply reaching more people, how can brands build awareness in ways that people actually remember?

That question is driving the next evolution of brand awareness strategy.

Why Context Shapes Brand Awareness

Building brand awareness has never been about exposure alone.

People rarely remember every advertisement they encounter throughout the day. They remember the messages that feel relevant to what they're reading, watching, or thinking about in that moment.

Context shapes how advertising is experienced.

The same creative can generate very different outcomes depending on the environment where it appears. When advertising aligns with a person's interests and the surrounding content, it is more likely to capture attention, strengthen recall, and leave a lasting impression.

This is where our Neuro-Contextual approach creates a meaningful advantage.

Rather than relying only on broad audience characteristics, it helps marketers understand the context surrounding attention by identifying signals of interest, emotion, and intent. That deeper understanding allows brands to engage audiences when they are naturally more receptive to their message.

For B2B marketers, where buying decisions often involve multiple stakeholders and longer consideration cycles, those moments become even more valuable. Building brand awareness is not simply about increasing visibility. It is about creating meaningful interactions that influence future consideration.

Lenovo's campaign demonstrates what this looks like in practice.

How Lenovo Put Neuro-Contextual Into Practice

As FIFA's Global Technology Partner, Lenovo saw the FIFA World Cup 2026 as far more than a sponsorship opportunity. The tournament offered a global storytelling platform to reinforce the company's positioning around innovation, AI, and technology leadership among IT decision-makers and C-level audiences.

The objective extended beyond awareness alone. Lenovo wanted to strengthen message association and support consideration across the buying journey, using one of the world's biggest sporting events to build deeper connections with enterprise audiences.

Reaching those audiences, however, presented a familiar challenge. Enterprise decision-makers are notoriously difficult to engage, and traditional targeting methods often struggle to identify when they are genuinely receptive to a brand's message.

Instead of treating the campaign as a standard media activation, Lenovo treated it as an opportunity to test and learn. Working closely with us, the team set out to explore how Seedtag’s Neuro-Contextual approach could uncover new opportunities for engaging business audiences in a privacy-first environment.

Instead of asking only where advertising should appear, the campaign sought to understand when audiences would be most open to messages about innovation, growth, and technology leadership.

That shift changed the role of context.

Traditional contextual advertising helps brands align messaging with relevant content. Lenovo wanted to go a step further by understanding the emotional environment surrounding attention. By incorporating emotional signals such as curiosity, excitement, and optimism alongside contextual relevance, the campaign focused on identifying moments when business audiences were naturally more receptive to its messaging.

Rather than treating every impression equally, Lenovo prioritized environments where those signals were already present, allowing advertising to complement the experience rather than interrupt it.

The campaign also became an opportunity to generate insights that could shape future planning. Beyond campaign performance, Lenovo wanted to better understand which contextual environments and emotional signals created the strongest connection with its audiences, helping inform future media strategies.

From Strategy to Activation

To bring that strategy to life, Lenovo activated our Neuro-Contextual approach across premium digital environments, aligning creative with moments of genuine interest, emotion, and intent.

Instead of relying solely on broad audience characteristics, the campaign identified contextual environments where business audiences were already engaging with themes related to innovation, technology, ambition, and growth. This allowed Lenovo to deliver messaging in moments that felt naturally relevant to the surrounding content and the audience's interests.

The strategy also reflected a broader evolution in how marketers approach brand awareness.

The goal wasn't simply to maximize reach. It was to maximize relevance. Every impression became an opportunity to reinforce the brand within environments that supported its message, helping create stronger and more memorable interactions throughout the customer journey.

For B2B marketers, where purchase decisions often involve multiple stakeholders and extended consideration cycles, this approach demonstrates how contextual intelligence can strengthen brand-building efforts by creating more meaningful connections with the right audiences at the right moments.

The Results: A Brand Awareness Strategy That Delivered

The campaign demonstrated how aligning advertising with context can strengthen brand-building outcomes.

Among the most significant findings, Excitement drove a 94% lift in Top of Mind Awareness among enterprise audiences, demonstrating the impact of connecting with business audiences in moments of genuine relevance. The campaign also delivered meaningful improvements across Brand Lift metrics, reinforcing the relationship between contextual relevance and stronger brand perception.

Beyond the performance metrics, the campaign also generated valuable strategic insights. The controlled comparison between standard contextual targeting and our Neuro-Contextual approach provided a clearer understanding of how advanced contextual intelligence influenced campaign performance. By analyzing how different contextual environments and emotional signals influenced engagement, Lenovo gained learnings that will help inform future media planning and campaign development.

Rather than optimizing for impressions, Lenovo focused on creating interactions that contributed to long-term brand growth. The results illustrate how a modern brand awareness strategy centered on understanding audience context can strengthen awareness while supporting broader marketing objectives.

For marketers looking to build stronger brands in increasingly fragmented media environments, the campaign offers an important lesson: relevance is not simply a media optimization tactic. It is a strategic advantage.

Watch the Conversation with Lenovo

Want to hear the story behind the results? In the conversation below, Barbara Falanga, Europe & META, Media Center of Excellence Director at Lenovo, shares how the team approached the campaign, why Lenovo adopted our Neuro-Contextual approach, and the key insights that will help shape future brand-building initiatives.