Media agencies are being asked to deliver more than ever before – from brand building and performance to purpose and provable outcomes. But the people they’re trying to reach no longer fit into neat categories.
Decision-makers are as influenced by TikTok as much as the business press. Corporate buyers expect consumer-grade storytelling. And business brands are under pressure to show up with emotional intelligence, not just rational proof points.
As business and consumer expectations converge, traditional customer categories are breaking down with the lines between B2B and B2C marketing fading.
For agencies, this presents a new challenge in how they structure, pitch and deliver work for audiences that think and behave differently, yet expect more.
Campaign, in partnership with Bloomberg Media, assembled media big hitters at their second Leaders Roundtable in London - this time to examine this fluid landscape and assess how the industry is adapting to it.
More human
Recent Bloomberg research - What drives vision for B2C and B2B brands? - finds there’s convergence about investing in tech, innovation and thought leadership - but less so in terms of disruption.
B2B can learn from B2C so Bloomberg Media is working on ways to be “more innovative and more human in our story-telling on behalf of partners”, said David Bradford, managing director Europe.
Agencies face challenges of their own, not least in a perceived gap between B2B and B2C which retains its own unwritten rules, said James Harris, VP of planning and strategy at WPP.
"People say that B2B is really serious and dry so you have to behave in a certain way, but we don’t split our brains that way. (Ogilvy UK vice-chairman) Rory Sutherland talks about B2Human (B2H) and maybe we should take that mindset."
Bloomberg’s research indicates that finding the interests of individuals can be a better way of targeting businesses than zeroing in on job functions
“Everyone has their passion points that they cannot help but engage with,” said Rachel Tarley, managing editor at Bloomberg Media Studios. “Our data shows where certain audiences over-index on something, like a love of sport. Tapping into those is an opportunity,”
Reasons to believe
While the gap between consumer and business is getting smaller, the best B2B campaigns have emotion at their heart, said Pippa Glucklich, CEO at Electric Glue referencing a classic McGraw Hill ad from the fifties. “You have to give people a reason to interact with your brand.”
Despite a convergence in approach, Kat Bozicevich, managing director at MG OMD noted distinct differences remain, such as the longer purchase journey for B2B due, for example, to buying committees. “But we need to consider how we show up. More B2B buyers are millennials and understanding that context is the secret sauce.”
Younger buyers have changed the nature of media consumption, added Chinar Desai, global managing director at Spark Foundry International.
“Mindset shifts are so fluid. We’re on social media at work, and go between business and consumer mindsets during the day, so it’s harder to map media consumption. And it’s not just younger audiences – everyone is thinking about seven things at once.”
Business expectations
According to Jenny Biggam, CEO at the7stars, the business audience is more informed than ever. “The importance of online reviews for reputation means that the role of brand is fundamentally different. It’s not just driving awareness.”
Richard Kirk, chief strategy officer at Essence Mediacom, part of WPP Media, said that B2B customers still expected a more bespoke sell. “Small businesses are so focused on growth that they don’t have time to do research, especially in areas like business software where branding is so bad. They are bewildered by options.”
For media planners, the emergence of new spaces such as podcasts are providing more opportunity and credibility for B2B campaigns. It is an exciting time for the sector, said Caitriona Henry, head of strategy at Hearts & Science.
“The quality of marketing has improved with different vehicles, more insights, and more accountability which builds evidence for the board of how you can target effectively.”
Go big?
Achieving cut-through can be challenging, however. Agencies dread open-ended B2B briefs that are vague about their target market. Meanwhile, a paucity of business data, compared to B2C, makes B2B campaigns costly.
Harris challenged agencies to be more creative in their own approach to B2B where there is an assumption of responding in a particular way.
“We had a B2B brief where we did a podcast as a pitch instead of a deck. The client went for it but there was a lot of apprehension at the agency. Sometimes you need to be brave.”
But cultural conservatism can creep in when “brave” ideas get to the board level and may be seen as too disruptive and too dangerous.
Biggam pointed to a recent focus group with business owners, which overturned the accepted picture of entrepreneurs as risk takers. “As entrepreneurs, they said you are always trying to de-risk, so it’s not surprising that disruption might not be right for them,” she said.
Fit for the future?
Going forward, agencies need to understand the brand and the business - to be a genuine business partner, said Glucklich.
“Marketing is often the single biggest investment a business might make, but you still get situations where they spend a lot on producing the ad and then cut the media budget so nobody sees it. We need to be further up the telescope where we can add value rather than a few minutes at the end of the meeting. But it’s a hard thing to do.”
Kirk believes AI could help with the problem with lack of quality and high cost of B2B data.
Elsewhere, agencies can flex their muscles around effectiveness to help exhausted marketing teams to explain the importance of long-term investment to their CFOs, said Bozicevich.
Kirk believes there’s a massive missed opportunity in not studying the extent to which B2B advertising supports a company’s ability to charge a premium for its brands. Recent company growth has come from comparative pricing rather than sales growth in many cases, he maintained. In conjoined analysis, a debranded offering has a massively diminished price point and conversion rate.
For financial services clients, Spark has shown how long-term brand media brought effectiveness down to actionable KPIs in the B2B space. “We had to bring measurement and analytics to the board and show how it underpinned storytelling,” Desai said. “It shows how brand building drives KPIs.”
Mutual misunderstanding
Given that finding the real ask in a B2B brief can be more art than science, greater communication between brands and agencies seems imperative. Agencies need to challenge B2B clients more on who their audience is, said Desai.
“We need to understand more about SME businesses, for example, otherwise we’ll be in a sea of everyone else, pay three times as much, and we still won’t differentiate.”
Glucklich said the quality of briefs is perennially problematic and more education is required. She recommended courses such as John Hegarty’s The Business of Creativity.
“The whole point is that creativity is part of your business and will make you stand out. More clients should do it because it helps them think about how their brand lands in the real world.”
B2B brands often have great stories but are not always great at telling them, said Sharon Dhillon, managing director at Initiative and can take a lesson from B2C brands in this respect.
At Bloomberg Media, Bradford points to the importance of looking at B2C case studies and imagining how to apply the learnings to B2B content.
“When we think of B2B and B2C as audiences, we think of them as very distinct and differentiated groups of people,” he said.
“But, really, is that true? Or are we just talking to the same human?”
*L to r: James Harris, VP of planning and strategy, WPP: Kat Bozicevich, managing director, MG OMD; Rachel Tarley, managing editor, Bloomberg Media Studios; Jenny Biggam, CEO, the7stars: David Bradford, managing director Europe, Bloomberg Media; Pippa Glucklich, CEO, Electric Glue; Caitriona Henry, head of strategy, Hearts & Science; Chinar Desai, global managing director, Spark Foundry International; Maisie McCabe, UK editor, Campaign (moderator) and Sharon Dhillon, managing director, Initiative.