Nobody ever decides to stop investing in their reputation. It just... happens. One reasonable budget cut at a time.
That's the story CMSWire just told, and it stopped me mid-scroll. Here's how it works: every fall, budget drafts bounce between marketing and finance. Each round trims the brand line a little more. Each cut comes with a sensible note attached. By the fourth or fifth draft, that line is a rounding error with a new name — Miscellaneous.
Nobody fought it. Nobody meant for it to happen. But it did.
Why does this matter right now, more than any other year? Because buyers have quietly changed how they find companies to work with, and most finance departments haven't caught up.
Buyers Stopped Googling. They Started Asking ChatGPT.
Forrester's 2025 Buyers' Journey Survey found that 94% of business buyers now use AI somewhere in their shopping process. Not someday. Now.
G2 dug deeper. Half of software buyers start their research with an AI chatbot more often than with Google — up from just 29% a year earlier. One in three ended up buying from a vendor they'd never even heard of before asking.
Think about what that means. A CFO at a prospect company asks an AI tool for three accounting firms that understand private equity-backed manufacturers. The answer doesn't come from last quarter's ad campaign. It comes from years of articles, reviews, conference talks, and client commentary — the exact stuff that brand budget was paying to build.
I've run businesses long enough to know how this plays out. You don't see the damage right away. That's what makes it dangerous.
The Cost Shows Up Two Years Too Late
I spent my early career in finance at a Big Four firm, so I get the CFO's position. Their job is protecting cash. If a budget line has no obvious return attached, cutting it is the responsible call. I'd have written the same note myself.
The problem is timing. Gartner's 2026 CMO Spend Survey found awareness and conversion now eat up 62.6% of total media spend, as CMOs chase results they can show this quarter. Reputation doesn't work that way. It builds over years. It fades over years.
Cut the work that keeps your company in trade press or on review sites, and nothing breaks right away. Pipeline holds through the next quarter. AI tools keep citing whatever's already out there, for a while. By the time a competitor fills the space you vacated, the decision that caused it is two budget cycles old and nearly impossible to trace back.
Here's the part that's new, though. In the old days, the fade looked like inbound slowly drying up — easy to blame on "the market." Now you can watch it happen in real time. A buyer types a question into ChatGPT, and your company just isn't in the answer.
I find that fascinating, honestly. It's the kind of thing that makes you ask, "What happens if I actually test this?" So test it.
Give Finance Something It Can Actually Check
Arguing for "brand" in general terms doesn't work. Saying "buyers need to know who we are" is true, but a careful CFO can't do anything with a sentence like that. Finance hears versions of it every year from every department, and it rarely survives the next draft.
What does survive? Evidence.
Pull up ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. Screenshot the answers they give for your category. Describe the brand line by what it actually buys — not vague "awareness," but specific activity. Attach one quarterly leading indicator. Agree on a review date with finance ahead of time. And if cuts have to happen, let the public-facing work go last, not first.
That's not a hard sell. That's a conversation most CFOs are glad to have, because now there's something to point at.
The Name on the Line Matters More Than You'd Think
A budget line called "Brand" gets argued over every year. One called "Miscellaneous" becomes the first place finance looks when it needs cash, and it gets harder to defend every cycle it sits there.
The buyers asking an AI tool who to call in 2028 are going to get answers built from whatever gets published about you between now and then. That's the whole game.
So here's my question for you: is your name still showing up in that answer? If you're not sure, that's worth finding out before the next budget draft locks in — not after.
Source: CMSWire
Earlier in this series: Firefox Wants You to Remember the Internet Before Everyone Was Watching
