Boring. Predictable. Repetitive. Incendiary adjectives threatening what’s left of B2B marketing’s credibility.

In 2017, business decision-makers fired a warning shot when 71% voiced their discontent. Five years on the mob is angry. This year, 82% chastised B2B marketing as boring, predictable, repetitive. Frustration is boiling over.

And for good reason. Despite repeat condemnation. Despite clear calls for a bolder, more contrarian, provocative approach. Little has changed.

The same empty promises of emotion. The same platitudes about empathy. The same boring B2B marketing.

So, what’s holding us back?

Rewind 10, 15 years, and it’s reasonable to argue that the barriers to a vibrant, intuitive, emotionally driven B2B marketing were big and scary. Convention dictated a more conservative approach. There was business scepticism about the role of brand building, a culture of risk aversion among wider stakeholders. 

However, speaking to CEOs, CFOs, CTOs, among others, this year reveals that those barriers are there to be destroyed. And the demolition crew: marketers. Some 91% of business leaders want marketers to become accountable for educating the business on brand building. While 90% want marketers to step up and tackle the culture of risk aversion.

The challenge has been laid down. The question is, are marketers up to it?

For me, the answer has to be yes. Our integrity as a profession depends on it. We can’t simultaneously be unanimous in condemning the industry as boring (93%) and not fight for a brighter future. However, the fight will demand a fundamental mindset shift.

We need to be bolder, braver, more provocative. We need to stop reaching for excuses. But, above all else, we need to believe in ourselves. Alarmingly, more than one in two CMOs called out a lack of ambition and conviction from marketing as the blocker. 

Finding the guts to lead the change is the central thesis of this report. As an agency, we argue for marketers to make B2B electrifying, deeply moving, and in the following articles we show what needs to be done. We examine what B2B decision-makers really want and what they really want to stop. We reveal the emotions - and intensity of those emotions - that your audience is crying out for. And, we outline a future for B2B marketing built on:

• Human truth

• Divisive positioning

• Defiant leadership

• Visceral communication

The mandate for change is clear. A bolder B2B is there for the taking. You just need to decide if you’re up for the fight.

Business customers are consumers too. So, when marketing strategists Binet and Field came up with a piece of research in 2019 to show that B2B buyers are as susceptible to emotional brand triggers as B2C customers, it wasn’t all that surprising. It did signal a step change in the industry though, but it didn’t go far enough. 

Emotional triggers – the fear of missing out or messing up, joy in the revelation of the unexpected, or even just sheer relief that something’s going to save your skin – are cast aside in B2B communications. Instead, it’s usually all boiled down to some boring, basic, functional common denominator: you will have a larger client handling team than our competitors, our software is more compatible or our dashboard allows more users. This does not make the heart beat faster. 

Hope is a pro-social emotion and one that’s really good to elicit because it feels good and leads to action-oriented behaviour

Smadar Cohen-Chen, professor of psychology at University of Sussex Business School

Feel the fear

Emotion drives action. More than a third (38%) of buyers in our survey need to feel intense anger, bordering on rage, to take action. Yet a meagre 7% ever had these emotions triggered by B2B marketing.

“Emotions are vital in driving behaviour. We talk about the appraisal theory of emotion,” explains Smadar Cohen-Chen, associate professor in occupational and organisational psychology at the University of Sussex Business School. “We appraise events based on our experience, the context and our personality, which elicits an emotion driving action or tendency.” 

Anger is an “approach” emotion; it leads us to action. Fear is an avoidance emotion. Hope is a pro-social emotion and one that’s really good to elicit because it feels good and leads to action-oriented behaviour. People make more concessions in negotiations when they feel hopeful, for example.

It’s not enough just to have an emotion. The depth and quality of that emotion is vital. The more extreme the emotion, the deeper the connection and the more likely it is to drive buying behaviour. But how strong an emotion should the B2B marketer elicit? A provocative marketer wants to provoke, certainly, but not terrify or plunge into deep despair. 

Cohen-Chen says research on anxiety shows that too much leads to stress and depression but, if the level of fear is reduced, anxiety can result in a person becoming sharper and more focused.

Wheel of emotion

To understand how a B2B audience might be helped to respond to a provocative emotion, Dr. Robert Plutchik’s “wheel of emotion” provides a formula for mixing and matching emotions.

Of the very many potential distinct emotions, Plutchik starts with eight in four pairs of opposites. The centre of the wheel is where the emotions are at their most extreme – terror or rage – and at the outside of the wheel the emotions are shown as mildest – apprehension or annoyance. Blending the wheel gives yet more emotions – joy and trust make love, while trust and fear equal submission. 

Cohen-Chen explains how to identify just the right strength of emotion, based on both Plutchik’s wheel and a dimensional scale. “There are many ways to categorise emotions,” she says.

“All emotions are on two dimensions - violence and arousal. Violence is the scale of how pleasant or unpleasant they feel, and then arousal is about how physiologically impacted you are. A pleasant high arousal emotion would be enthusiasm and a pleasant low arousal emotion would be a state of calm. Similarly, anger would be unpleasant and high arousal, while boredom would be unpleasant low arousal. 

“This is all about how you want the end-user to feel and then what are the different categories that these emotions fall into, and how do I frame my narrative around that?”

These techniques give B2B marketers a tool to elicit the right degree of emotion at the important parts of the B2B buying journey that will drive action. 

Emotional journey

So what are the right emotions at those critical stages of the purchase journey? Let’s put Plutchik’s wheel into practice.

Gartner’s B2B buying journey fully plotted is a discombobulating maze, but essentially it can be distilled into six steps that buyers need to work through:

1. Problem identification

2. Solution exploration

3. Requirements building

4. Supplier selection

5. Validation

6. Consensus creation

Marketing that elicits strong emotions supercharges the buyers’ progress through each of these stages. 

Take problem identification. Our research shows that 43% of buyers need to feel intense fear bordering on anxiety to take action. If you look at Plutchik’s wheel, fear comes from a threat: the threat of falling behind, the threat of being exposed to risk, a threat that is personal, professional or both. Fear is a response to danger and the behavioural reaction to that fear is to escape to a place of safety. 

Chris Illman, alan’s head of strategy, reveals exactly what fear and escape look like when realised creatively. “Christian Slater, in an ad for HP’s Wolf security, is a high-level example of B2B marketing that targets its audience’s fear receptors. He’s stalking around, smashing the place up with a golf club,” says Illman. 

By evoking each element associated with fear – threat, danger, escape and safety – the marketer can elicit those necessarily strong emotions to successfully build a powerful brand message

“The message is: this could be you if you don’t take action on cybercrime. Is someone going to come round and smash up your home? No. But giving that abstract threat of digital crime a real world context is a powerful, visceral way to highlight the very real dangers customers face.”

So, how do we use a controlled level of fear? By evoking each element associated with fear – threat, danger, escape and safety – the marketer can elicit those necessarily strong emotions to successfully build a powerful brand message.

Don’t be afraid to feed the fear, but always offer an escape to safety and positive buying behaviour.

Are you a victim of risk-averse corporate culture? If so, 100% of CEOs think you should stand up for yourself. 

We aren’t victim-blaming, or supporting a macho culture. This is about perceptions. Specifically, the belief from B2B marketers that they are somehow victims of circumstance, facing insurmountable barriers and institutionalised anti-brand, risk-averse corporate culture.

While more than half of B2B marketers in our research (53%) feel they work in a risk-averse culture, and 33% feel their company doesn’t understand brand building, CEOs, CFOs and COOs take a completely different view. They are united and unequivocal: 100% of CEOs and COOs say marketers need to tackle risk aversion; 100% of CFOs and COOs say the same about educating on brand.

The message is quite clear: stop making excuses, step up and hold yourselves accountable for overcoming these barriers.

It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it

Marketers are not, as a breed, known for being shrinking violets. So why is it specifically in B2B that they are so ready to hide their proverbial light under a bushel? 

Chief marketing and communications officer at Apex Group Ltd, Rosie Guest, acknowledges that there are years of culture to overcome. “B2B marketers are so used to being subservient to the business in a very different way to the way they are in B2C where it’s slightly more respected, more front of house,” she says. 

[B2B marketers] need to shift from the subservient position to a more authoritative one and to do that means you have to lead the conversation

Rosie Guest, chief marketing and communications officer, Apex Group Ltd.

“They need to shift from the subservient position to a more authoritative one and to do that means you have to lead the conversation. Not, asking what do you want to do but, this is our marketing strategy. It’s such a tiny difference.”

Marketers can be their own worst enemy. The language of clicks and conversions, engagement and saliency means nothing to a sales team chasing a Q2 target, or a CEO looking to delight shareholders. 

“The accepted industry metrics for scaling a SaaS company are often at odds with the notion of consciously investing into the building and stewardship of a strong and special brand,” warns B2B marketing director, most recently of referral company Mention Me, former editor of Marketing Week, and author of Boring2Brave, Mark Choueke. “Marketing strategies that start out vibrant and high in value often play out as vanilla, once they’ve been run through a spreadsheet by someone who doesn’t understand marketing.”

We’re not afraid of putting ourselves at the service of the end-customer, why is it so difficult to communicate this to the business too? It shouldn’t be, according to Mercer CMO Áine Bryn.

“It's all about speaking to whoever is sitting in front of you, if they're the budget holder, or they have a veto or can influence the decision. Speak their language and ask, ‘what are you trying to achieve?’. Then, show them how you can help them achieve it,” she says.

Trade on experience

Quite simply, B2B marketers have somehow become afraid to rock the boat. Accountability is one thing but if you’re going to step outside the norm then the very definition of doing something new means there is little to no tangible proof that it will work. How do we marry going out on a limb with proof, KPIs, metrics and confidence? Perhaps it’s in that last word – confidence – that lies the key. 

Guest states, quite simply: “Walking into the room knowing what you’re supposed to be doing happens the minute you stop asking for permission.” The irony is that the c-suite wants marketers to be provocative, but marketers seem to have got into a habit of craving approval. Nothing provocative came pre-approved.

It’s ironic that everyone else in the organisation has confidence in marketing, just not the marketers themselves. Every single CIO we surveyed – yes, 100% – said that marketers have the skillset to break down barriers around conservatism in the industry and more than two-thirds (67%) of CFOs say that marketers can do the same with risk aversion.

And yet more than half of CMOs and marketing directors (53%) think marketing tends to show a lack of conviction or ambition. What if, after all this time, this perceived frustration that the company isn’t going to give you buy-in, or is being too demanding, is simply just waiting for you to step up? 

If that’s the case, how do you move from the fear factor – don’t rock the boat, keep my job – the sort of thing that Maslow’s theory identified as necessary to satisfy our most basic needs, to one that feeds the soul? To a growth mindset that brings satisfaction, self-actualisation and some much needed vim and vigour to the B2B marketing landscape? 

“If you're good enough at your job, you'll be able to get away with doing that because usually it means you know what you're doing is the right thing,” insists Guest. Being provocative isn’t necessarily an easy ride; the c-suite wants to hear challenging thoughts, but they don’t have to shower you with praise when they hear them. The strength to plough on regardless is a muscle marketers need to flex more. 

“They may not love it when they hear it, but ultimately it’s the results that show the value. That's the difference between B2B and B2C.”

Ultimately it’s about finding passion paired with pragmatism. You can be a maverick visionary and still have the business’ best interests at heart. Just make sure they know that. 

The c-suite seems increasingly happy to accept a contrarian stance and they want their marketers to be bold. But gaining the confidence to be bold is a matter of laying foundations. 

Bryn says: “Prove that you can do the fundamentals. Then they'll let you run with all the visionary ideas. Sometimes marketing promises you the earth, but can never deliver it because they don’t actually understand what the business is trying to achieve. Marketing needs to have a clear understanding of the objectives and what success looks like for the business, then they are empowered to ideate and deliver.”

Marketers need to dismiss the idea that CFOs are miserly bean-counters, rationing every drop of largesse, just to balance the books. They, too, can be provoked, stimulated, excited, even. 

The problem is that marketers have latched on to the idea that to “speak the language of the CFO” it’s got to be some kind of pidgin finance-speak as if a CFO can only comprehend life if it’s boiled down to a stat. It’s as if they go home to their families at the end of the day and deliver a 60% ROA (return on affection), enjoy 4:1 TSA (TV show allocation) and assess DTS (dinner time satisfaction) on a wholly CPC (cost per chew) basis.

Talk about the narrative of what we’re trying to do as a marketing team, how that fits into the broader narrative of growth for the business and how the two connect up

Peter Markey, CMO, Boots

What does it really mean, to speak the language of the CFO?

Narrative, not just numbers

Naturally, during the nine-to-five, the CFO has a job to do which is to ensure the financial health of the business. They are going to want to know numbers. But they also want to buy into the company’s direction and all the parts that go into making that a success, including marketing.  

At 2022’s Festival of Marketing, the B2C bunch once again showed us how it’s done. The double act of Boots CMO and CFO took to the stage to debunk the myth that marketers are all fluff and bluster, and finance is spreadsheets and percentage points. 

Boots CFO Michael Snape advised marketers to: “Invest time and say ‘I really just want you to understand what we’re trying to do’.” 

And how? CMO Peter Markey followed up with: “Talk about the narrative of what we’re trying to do as a marketing team, how that fits into the broader narrative of growth for the business and how the two connect up.”

There’s no room for fear: our research shows that 85% of CFOs respect brands that aren’t scared to have an opinion and take a disruptive position in the industry. That goes for the CFOs marketers are trying to convince to buy, and their own CFOs who they’re trying to convince to buy in.

Formula for success

There is absolutely no doubt that CFOs are wide open to learn about marketing and want a better view of how marketers operate. Our research was unequivocal: 100% of CFOs think marketers need to educate the business on the value of brand building. And if marketers think they can’t do it in terms a CFO or CEO will understand, they’re mistaken. 

“At Mention Me, it took some organisation and some rallying, but by the end everyone was bought into the idea that brand building and brand awareness should be a key performance indicator, along with revenue,” reveals Mark Choueke, former marketing director of Mention Me. “In the end it came down to one very simple mathematical equation: share of voice > share of market = growth; share of voice < share of market = shrink.

“For the first time they went: ‘We get it’.”

Marketers do have a metric in share of voice that demonstrates how reliant companies are on emotional as well as financial cut-through for their success. They just need to use it.

Áine Bryn, CMO at Mercer, adds: “Understand the objectives of the stakeholder you’re working with and step into their shoes. I have a very open dialogue with my CFO. And if your CFO is an advocate of marketing, that sends a positive message about the value of marketing.”

It’s not often you can draw a parallel between B2B marketing and a nightclub, but when it comes to choosing your audience, they have more in common than you might think. 

The velvet rope, the clipboard, the dress code: nothing was more likely to strike fear and desire in equal measure. For those admitted across the hallowed threshold, nirvana and a profound sense of belonging. For those excluded, disgruntlement perhaps, but they lived to dance another day down the road at a perhaps less exclusive establishment.

No nightclub worth its salt would try to attract all and sundry. To do so would dilute its cachet, turn off high-spending clientele, not to mention confuse the DJ. B2B brands are no different. Just as they cannot be all things to all people, nor should they try. 

B2B customers have personalities too

Yet B2B marketers are still reluctant to find their tribe and cultivate them, worried that alienating potential customers will sound the death knell for the company. In fact, our research reveals that a startlingly high number of respondents to our survey (82%) say B2B brands fail to personalise for their target audience. More than half (56%) think B2B brands talk to them like anonymous automatons categorised by a job title.

As one attendee put it to me: I could see everyone else was loving the event, but it wasn’t for me

Carlos Doughty, founder, LXA

It’s not even as if B2B buyers have experienced collective personality erasure. In our survey, 70% of respondents will identify with brands tailored to them, rather than a homogenous bunch who share the same job title or sector. 

Turn up and turn off

Carlos Doughty, founder of LXA (Learning Experience Alliance), is the creator of the “anti-conference”, a martech-focused conference that features speakers delivering the latest intel on new solutions, case studies and best practice. So far, so typical of the conference circuit and at its heart something that most B2B buyers are looking for to help guide them through the several thousand seemingly identikit solutions out there. 

But the conference circuit is a busy one and, let’s face it, suffers from an identity crisis. Insofar as, it doesn’t really have one. Colour-by-numbers conferencing: same corporate venues, same corporate speakers, same branded notebooks, pens, thermal mugs, same rubber chicken and congealed potato salad. 

LXA’s anti-conference doesn’t necessarily pretend to espouse a controversial approach to martech, but it does make a concerted effort to appeal to marketing and technology execs of a very specific mindset. The jargon, the buzzing atmosphere, the speed networking and the street food are defiantly targeted. And exclusionary. 

“Everything from the copy used for the beer mats, to wi-fi name, the venue selection and music are carefully selected. In doing so we alienate some marketers, and that’s OK. We’re not trying to be everything to everyone. We want to create an environment our tribe wants to be part of and connect with others,” says Carlos Doughty, CEO and course instructor, LXA.  

“As one attendee put it to me: I could see everyone else was loving the event, but it wasn’t for me. I prefer something more formal.”

Be ruthlessly clear on what you stand for and what you do not

Doughty never specifies who might be the “in crowd” and who might find themselves turned off by his approach. But with the conference’s highly informal language, neon and pulsing music, it’s easy to see how this is the natural habitat of youthful, digitally native, agile professionals, and how some executives – perhaps a certain vintage – may feel less at home.

There is, naturally, more to finding your tribe than simply deciding to be contrary. But it’s not rocket science. Chris Illman, alan’s head of strategy, summarises what it means to stake your claim to a tribe: “Powerful positioning comes from knowing your tribe, your competitors’ tribes, understanding who they are, what moves them and building a brand that the target audience actively identifies with – and the rest rejects.”

Tips to find your tribe

• Face your customers Many B2B marketing decisions are based on a picture of customers that lacks any real depth or colour. Worse still, it’s one built largely on unfounded opinion and bias rather than robust insight. Interrogate your customers, understand their needs, attitudes, beliefs and what they want to achieve. From there, you’re in a better position to identify who you can serve better than others.

• Turn the wrong customers away Apple is unapologetic about the price of their products. A significant proportion of the market can’t afford the latest iPhone but, despite this, the brand is hugely successful. Strategic brands focus on attracting the customers who matter, not wasting resources on those who hold little value.

• Unapologetically focus on your position Now that you know your tribe, ask yourself, how can you better cater to their needs, both in your offering and your marketing? Be ruthlessly clear on what you stand for and what you do not, and make sure this is reflected in every touch point that you have with your customers. Remind them often. Building your reputation takes time, but inconsistency can unravel it in seconds.

When you think about B2C brands that stand out, who comes to mind? The ones who generate debate, polarise opinion, develop not just loyal customers but fans, advocates, passionate defenders. 

Take companies such as Unilever and its brands Dove and Ben & Jerry’s. The former has taken the lead on positive body image and female empowerment. The latter has continued its original founders’ stance on environment and even waded into the very tricky waters of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

B2B rarely pins such vivid colours to its mast. 

Fade to beige

The vast majority of respondents to our survey (89%) say most B2B business leaders just take a generic position on the state of their industry, with 47% feeling they have no discernible opinions to share. 

If those leaders are worried that there is no stomach for a strong viewpoint, they’re very much mistaken. More than two-thirds of our respondents want B2B brands to show more leadership with one in five wanting them to actively espouse a disruptive position and strong views on the future. Brands that stick their heads above the parapet would be likely to earn the respect of much of the marketplace (65% of respondents).

If leaders are worried that there is no stomach for a strong viewpoint, they’re very much mistaken

Gren Manuel, alan’s managing editor and former editor of WSJ Europe, says: “The interviews that stick in my mind aren’t with the most senior business leaders. Many of those were bland and lacking passion. The encounters I remember were with passionate people who had interesting, unconventional things to say. The parallels with brands are manifest.”

Controversy within confines

This doesn’t mean B2B marketers should start meddling in geopolitical conflict, unless it’s relevant, or being contrary for the sake of it. 

Matthew Leopold, head of brand, PR and content marketing at LexisNexis UK, daily treads the fine line between defiant leadership and the literal letter of the law. “There are red lines in terms of compliance and regulations so defiant leadership is about operating within a constraint,” he says. “Defiance means shaking off the shackles and telling customers the home truths that, essentially, they already know but aren’t quite brave enough to hear themselves say it.”

That said, there’s nothing to stop even the most regulated industries weighing in with a righteous opinion when matters close to their employees’ hearts are at stake, for example. 

Rosie Guest reveals how global financial services firm, Apex Group Ltd, took a public stance on employees’ rights, almost by accident. “A former client was consistently disrespectful to employees, even going as far as to mock our stance on including pronouns in email signatures,” she says.

“Inclusivity is a huge part of what we stand for as a business - no revenue is important enough for our employees to be spoken to like that. Following internal communication directly from the CEO about the company’s decision to terminate that six-figure relationship as a result, it went viral on social media. 

“Advocacy is completely underrated in B2B and it’s so much more authentic when your people are your ambassadors.”

Leopold agrees that it’s often down to the marketer to drag issues out into the cold light of day that would often really rather remain hidden. “I work in the legal industry but I am not a lawyer. I can’t make any comments about the law. I can, with some authority, talk about the industry, how it sees itself and call out some of the shockingly obvious issues that are simmering under the surface,” he says.

Silence speaks volumes

What remains unsaid can clearly be as powerful as what is said. Guest reveals that employees questioned the business’ conscious decision to not participate in what it sees as platitudes, not action, in jumping on some of the higher profile annual bandwagons that roll by. For International Women’s Day, it didn’t drag its senior women out and pop them on a pedestal for that one day. What this does is raise the question why? And it allows us to start an authentic conversation rather than just join the noise. 

“We feel that, as a whole, financial services is still not doing enough. Instead of simply adding a photo to social media of the still too few female leaders at our organisation, we took the stance of highlighting how that is problematic and serves to perpetuate gender-washing, not change. It’s about starting a conversation. You can do this in subtle ways,” she says. In this case, the company was conspicuous by its absence – no need to crow about what it could or couldn’t do – actions spoke louder than words.

Sometimes there just has to be an acknowledgement that there is no current big, divisive platform from which to beat a drum. Does this mean B2B marketers must stay silent? Not a bit of it, says AlixPartners’ Barney O’Kelly: “If you can’t or don’t want to be provocative, at least be evocative. Tell good stories. What’s the real magic you do as an organisation?”

Mercer’s Áine Bryn agrees it’s the marketer’s ability to tell stories that is, if anything, their superpower. 

“Sometimes B2B people forget that what we are doing is storytelling. You help bring things to life, solving clients’ problems and highlighting opportunities for success,” she says. “We shouldn’t be banging on about product. That’s a hammer in search of a nail. What are you actually trying to achieve: solve problems or show them nirvana? Focus on telling the story.”

Defiant leadership means finding a contrarian perspective that’s rooted in some kind of truth

Gren Manuel, managing editor at alan, former editor of WSJ Europe

O’Kelly bemoans the fact that when it comes to communication, it’s all rational; there’s no romance. “What did we actually do? We saved the company. What did we tell the world we did? We cut costs or we digitally transformed a company. This is quite boring to most people,” he says. “But what we actually do is we save businesses, we save communities, we save jobs and we help organisations prosper. Not all decisions are easy decisions but, when it’s framed evocatively, it feels more powerful and resonates more strongly with people."

According to alan’s Manuel: “Defiant leadership means finding a contrarian perspective that’s rooted in some kind of truth. It sparks a wholesome, healthy debate because it shows they are willing to go against the status quo. It’s providing a fresh perspective and making people think differently.”

I want my decision-maker to be lying in bed at night in a pool of sweat, worrying about the thing I’ve just been talking to them about. 

So says LexisNexis’ Matthew Leopold, who adds: “I want them to be thinking, ‘This is really relevant to me and it’s bothering me that we haven’t done enough about it’.”

However, far from taking a sadistic glee in distressing future clients and condemning them to wakeful nights and fitful sleep, he also has a more considerate aim.

“I want us to be part of helping them get that solution, whether it’s psychological safety in the workplace or maximising revenue,” says Leopold. “I don’t want to add to their burden, their sweat and their pain. But I do want them to feel it in the pit of their stomach, because that means we’ve really hit on something. And I want to make sure we have a realistic way to solve that for them.”

Human truth

Bit by bit, B2B brands are starting to find this human truth. Witness the number of B2B brands that formerly skulked in the shadows now unleashing their creativity on prime time TV.

In a timely intervention, given the current financial pressures many small businesses face, accounting software tools have stepped away from their dusty, number-crunching reputations and pulled on the mantle of the small-business champion. 

Quickbooks’ tiny team parachutes in to take the tedious and time-consuming job of filing taxes away from hard-working business owners, leaving them free to serve more chips. Or, should their business demand it, cut more hair, repair more cars or design more extensions. Sage encourages its customers to ‘Save that first order feeling’ which, in the words of its TV ad voiceover, may or may not include screaming with delight. 

If the accountancy firms are over-indexing on the emotional, human front, they’re doing a lot of the heavy lifting for everyone else. Our research suggests that just 2% of B2B brands are currently very visceral in their communications, able to connect with a target audience on both a rational and meaningfully emotional level. Given that 74% would like to hit this sweet spot, this means an awful lot of marketers are still falling short. 

Witness the number of B2B brands that formerly skulked in the shadows now unleashing their creativity on prime time TV

Find the emotional drivers

The success of the accountancy ads comes in recognising the human behind the business. Understanding that they aren’t defined by a job title or demographic. Half of all CFOs and CIOs surveyed in our study want brands to demonstrate they understood their experience as a human being. 

Of course, it’s almost certain you won’t alight on a killer behavioural data point, like you might find a sales figure or click-through rate, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t data out there that can guide you towards some fundamental human truths. You have to look beyond the obvious, explore a wide range of disparate data points, which together will paint a much deeper picture of your audience that goes beyond the obvious and speaks to buyers on an emotional, human level. 

Uber for Business’ marketing lead Nina Reschovsky points out that understanding your customer on a human level isn’t rocket science. “At the end of the day people are people,” she says. “Understanding that buyer, why would they be interested, what pain point are you solving, what challenges do they face day to day? Companies have personas, but ultimately it’s about talking to current customers, getting into their head, that’s what makes you a better marketer.”

Finding a more nuanced understanding rather than a generic, job-title persona is key. It’s all about putting in the legwork. 

Reschovsky adds: “With Uber for Business, we have 10 different types of buyer with completely different pain points. But it’s understanding the sales process, sitting in on demos, meeting customers, in-person events, to understand what makes people tick.”

Visceral connection

What does a human experience look like? It’s certainly not product spec and yet this is precisely what so many B2B marketers spend so much time relentlessly trying to hammer home. 

Companies have personas, but ultimately it’s about talking to current customers, getting into their head, that’s what makes you a better marketer

Nina Reschovsky, marketing lead, Uber for Business

“The B2B industry has often prioritised product truths over human truths when the order should be the opposite. First, tell me how your product resolves a fear I harbour or emboldens an ambition I nurture. Then, tell me how it does it so well. We must give products a soul and a purpose. Re-viscerate the eviscerated. Only then will customers make space for them in their minds and hearts,” says alan’s creative director Daniele Pulega.

So, what is it that’s going to get inside the buyer’s head and, as Leopold hopes, keeps them awake? At least until your product helps them sleep soundly in their beds. 

For an example of a very human “heart in mouth” moment, look no further than Adobe’s “Click, Baby, Click” ad campaign. Here, you’re the owner of Encyclopedia Atlantica. In a moribund, out-of-touch business, clicks suddenly go through the roof. More paper, more pulp, more shipping, more encyclopedias. Pushing volumes like never before, the profits are going to be huge.

The payoff? An 18-month-old baby in a nappy going to town on its parents’ iPad. Buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, gurgling.

All emotions have the potential to elicit a visceral reaction, but human beings can be selfish swine when it comes to it. Nothing like a dose of schadenfreude to get the message across. 

There but for the grace of God.