From Business-to-Business to DAO-to-DAO: Why Marketing Leaders Need a New Playbook

From Business-to-Business to DAO-to-DAO: Why Marketing Leaders Need a New Playbook

For decades, B2B marketing has operated on a well-understood model: companies build relationships with other companies through formal contracts, centralized decision-making, and carefully managed partnerships. But a new organizational form is challenging these assumptions. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are creating what we call "D2D" marketing dynamics that require fundamentally different strategies.

What Makes D2D Different from B2B?

Traditional B2B marketing relies on identifying key decision-makers, building trust through repeated interactions, and formalizing relationships through contracts enforced by legal systems. DAOs operate differently. These blockchain-based organizations distribute decision-making power among token holders, automate agreements through smart contracts, and replace traditional trust mechanisms with transparent, verifiable code.

Consider how partnerships typically form. In B2B contexts, your sales team identifies prospects, your legal team negotiates contracts, and executives sign agreements. In the DAO ecosystem, partnerships emerge through protocol exchanges, where DAOs share technical standards and infrastructure. Community members vote on collaborations. Smart contracts execute automatically once conditions are met. There's no CEO to wine and dine, no procurement department to navigate.

The Role of Tokens in D2D Relationships

Tokens fundamentally reshape partnership incentives. Unlike traditional B2B relationships where companies guard their competitive advantages, DAOs can align interests directly through token economics.

There are two types of tokens to understand. Governance tokens give holders voting rights on organizational decisions. If your DAO partners with another, governance token holders from both sides can participate in joint decision-making. This creates unprecedented transparency but also means you cannot control partnerships the way traditional companies do.

Native tokens function as the economic engine. They facilitate transactions within the ecosystem and can be designed to reward collaboration. For instance, two DAOs might create token-based reward systems that incentivize members to contribute expertise or resources to joint projects. This approach eliminates intermediaries and transaction costs that plague traditional partnerships.

The narrative surrounding your tokens matters enormously. Unlike traditional B2B where brand reputation builds slowly through demonstrated performance, DAOs operate in environments where communities can join or leave instantly. Your tokenomics design must signal credibility and align stakeholder interests from the start. Poor token design undermines partnerships before they begin.

Protocol Exchange: The Foundation of D2D Strategy

Protocol exchange represents a paradigm shift from proprietary advantage to shared infrastructure. When DAOs exchange protocols (the technical standards and code governing their operations), they avoid redundant development, reduce fragmentation, and create interoperability across the ecosystem.

This conflicts with traditional B2B instincts to protect intellectual property. But in DAO ecosystems, protocol sharing generates network effects. As more organizations adopt and contribute to shared protocols, their value increases for everyone. Marketing leaders must shift from thinking about competitive moats to thinking about ecosystem growth.

Successful protocol exchange requires three capabilities. First, you need market sensing to understand what protocols partners need and value. Second, you need market responding capabilities to design protocols that address those needs while delivering superior value. Third, you need market shaping abilities to influence how the broader ecosystem evolves through collaboration.

Community Marketing Replaces Traditional B2B Outreach

In B2B marketing, your team controls messaging and targets specific accounts. In D2D contexts, your community becomes your marketing force. Members who hold governance tokens have ownership stakes that motivate them to advocate for partnerships beneficial to the ecosystem.

This creates authentic, grassroots appeal that resonates more powerfully than traditional marketing. Community members interact across DAO boundaries, sharing experiences and identifying partnership opportunities that centralized marketing teams might miss. They serve as connectors, raising awareness and facilitating knowledge transfer between allied DAOs.

Marketing leaders must enable rather than control these dynamics. This means creating platforms for community interaction, rewarding members who contribute to partnership development, and transparently sharing information that empowers decentralized advocacy.

Governance Quality Over Token Quantity

Traditional B2B partnerships often depend on the size and influence of partner organizations. In DAO contexts, voting-based governance creates a different challenge: ensuring decision quality rather than just token quantity.

If governance depends solely on token holdings, a few wealthy holders can dominate decisions that may not serve the broader partnership or ecosystem. Marketing leaders should advocate for governance models that weight voting based on contribution history, expertise, or involvement in specific initiatives, not just token ownership.

Multi-signature governance mechanisms, where decisions require approval from multiple stakeholders, reduce unilateral control and ensure diverse perspectives shape partnerships. This governance quality becomes a competitive advantage when building D2D relationships.

Practical Implications

Marketing leaders entering DAO ecosystems should focus on three priorities. First, design token incentives that transparently align partner interests and reward collaboration. Second, develop capabilities for protocol exchange rather than hoarding proprietary advantages. Third, empower your community to become partnership advocates rather than controlling all outreach centrally.

The shift from B2B to D2D is not just about new technology. It represents a fundamental reimagining of how organizations create value together, moving from hierarchical contracts to collaborative ecosystems, from proprietary control to shared protocols, and from centralized marketing to community-driven partnerships.

Original Article: Ling, Xiaoxu, Piyush Sharma, and Siyuan Yan. "Decentralised autonomous organisations: the marketing perspective of tokenomics." European Journal of Marketing (2025). (Article Link)