Could The 'B' In Your B2B Marketing Stand For 'Boring'?
Time to humanise and reinvent your B2B marketing!
When I began my career at Lowe Lintas, Bombay, the agency was helmed by the legendary R. Balki.
Balki was best known for his famous disdain of creative awards, and his drive and motivation to do work that worked; that built great, long-lasting brands; that brought in revenue for his clients and his agency.
His obsession - and that of his lieutenants - was to cut through the clutter. He’d do that with work that was rooted in culture, specific to the category, specific to the audience and highly populist. He was unrestricted by the history and “norms” of advertising, and had absolutely no fear of cringe or cliche.
As long as it sold.
And entertained while doing so.
That ethos, has influenced me deeply. And it came to mind strongly some time ago, when I read about this study in AdWeek:
A System1 study of more than 2500 B2B ads between 2020 and 2022 showed that 66% of the ads studied were formulaic and forgettable.
I mean…
The formula most of these ads followed?
A disembodied voiceover in a soothing baritone.
Talking at length about rational product features - ROI, speed, cost-savings.
Overlaid on stock images of professionals in grey suits sitting around a conference room, shaking hands.
Followed by the big brand reveal.
I can only imagine Balki’s reaction to the work the study covered.
I’ve spent 95% of my career working on B2C marketing; about 4% on Policy marketing; and just about 1% on B2B marketing. (Obviously this excludes time spent on Internal Marketing, if you know what I mean.)
And so I wondered - could the Human-Centric Approach I’d previously written about apply to B2B Marketing as well as B2C?
(If you haven’t read my previous post, I suggest you do and then come back to this one.)
So I spent some time digging through great B2B creative work, and thinking about what made it great. Here goes.
Umault - Possessed
Distinctive, memorable…and two-pronged cultural relevance: the horror movie cues and a clear call out to the community of passionate B2B marketers.
Spoiler alert: As I dug deeper, I also noticed (and read about) a trend towards using celebs the way consumer marketing would. That’ll become more evident as you read further.
Heineken - Pub Museums
I loved this work because it had strong customer-centricity (the customer being the pub), a strong sense of community (pub owners), built for headlines and a delightful experience. And it drove impact by doing good - a gold star in my book.
Spotify - Spreadbeats
I’ve written about Spreadbeats before. This campaign has a high cultural relevance, deep customer-centricity and a surprising experience that drives sharing. And a level of execution that I cannot yet fathom.
Heinz - Ketchup Fraud
This one scores on so many levels. It picked up something that was trending, worked to cement the brands’ place in food culture, drove headlines, and created a great flywheel for success.
Trucker Napp
This was work rooted in strong consumer insight, centred around a delightful experience, targeted at a community. And drove business results by doing good for its core constituency.
Crowdstrike - Troy
This was an idea just waiting to be done. Fantastic cultural relevance, highly memorable. There’s always room for a great 30 second commercial in the world of Modern Marketing.
Matomo - Googleheimer
(Disclaimer: I do not subscribe to the views of this advertiser.)
But damn, this is good advertising! Massive cultural relevance, rooted in the unhappiness of confused web analytics professionals and built for headlines, with its direct attack on an industry leader.
Adobe - Click, Baby, Click
And, finally, the ad voted as the world’s greatest B2B commercial. I loved this for its simple, powerful insight and sheer shareworthiness.
So, to conclude, it’s clear to me that the Human-Centric Approach certainly applies to B2B Marketing.
So what went wrong with all those B2B ads that System1 studied?
I suspect the problem lay in the brief. That the audience those marketers sought to target was the business…when it should have been the human behind it.
That is the insight.
B2H Marketing, anyone?
Samit