The biggest myth in B2B marketing is that it shouldn’t appeal to our emotions

Often, literally, through the environments we create and manufacture, but also figuratively, as I work alongside major corporates trying to influence the world through supply chain orchestration, digital transformation, or revolutionizing mobility.

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B2B marketing is a discipline unfairly afflicted with tropes and clichés about its lack of creativity, compared to consumer brands – the “business to boring” tag.

For the lifelong B2B marketers about to express their outrage, think of B2B’s journey to creative credibility. While the first Cannes Lions was awarded in 1954, the category for Creative B2B was only introduced 68 years later, in 2022.

The festival said that it introduced the B2B Lions because it had witnessed an uptick in B2B winners in recent years. “It’s time [B2B] finally had its own spotlight on the global creative stage,” the organization said at the time.

The inaugural prize was won by Wunderman Thompson for an AI-powered tool the agency developed for paint manufacturer Sherwin-Williams. The product was an AI-driven solution for architects to generate custom color palettes by either explaining the desired color or by starting “with a memory, a place, a feeling – anything that inspires you”.

Emotional intelligence

This leads me nicely to the subject of the influence of emotion and capitalizing on ‘humanness’ in the insight and understanding of the brief and the target audience. Does emotional intelligence have a place in the development and realization of B2B communications? Spoiler alert: Yes.

The term ‘emotional intelligence’ first appeared in 1964, gaining popularity in the 1995 best-selling book Emotional Intelligence by psychologist and science journalist Daniel Goleman. Some researchers suggest that emotional intelligence can be learned and strengthened, while others claim that it is innate.

I don’t care either way. I just know that if you can put emotion and intelligence into the work, you are on to a winner. However, the barrier B2B must overcome (going back to the negative trope) is the idea that emotion in the work has no place, or is hard to find.

It’s important to remember that in the B2C world, marketers can over-rely on an emotional connection where there is none, or it’s fabricated. Most products are bought for specific, rational reasons: they taste better, work better, look nicer, are more convenient – or cost less.

Emotion is not and never should be the preserve of B2C, or B2B for that matter. An emotional brand experience is the outcome of the appropriate application of effective strategy deployed at the right time, in the right way, to the right audience.

I remember a long time ago, when I first worked for a large agency group that liked the color red, working for a brand that also liked red, we were all under stress (the good stress, not the modern stress) to crack the brief and create something epic.

A senior member of the team looked at our impasse and said: “It’s a brown fizzy pop, we are not saving lives”. They were right. But I often think of that quote now when I am working on a B2B project where the product is saving lives. That does stir emotion.

The B2B marketing work that works is innate with emotional intelligence. Check out this Bronze (Bronze?!) Cannes Lions 2024 winning work, Magnetic Stories from Siemens and Area 23. I’m not crying. You’re crying.

Human-centric

Work that entertains with a relatable message (and promise) is effective, too.

This olden but golden work from Slack demonstrates the power of humor. The entire ad was filmed at the offices of a real Slack customer to show how Slack improved culture and workflow at the company.

The ad touches on all the common pain points that work teams might have and showcases Slack’s benefits in an authentic, humorous, and relatable way (borrowing equity from The Office). Did it work? Well, we use Slack every day.

B2B marketing can be a playground for immersive storytelling, and I use the word ‘immersive’ cautiously as it can sound like a cliché these days. However, our work for Salesforce to help create Dreamforce shows how B2B is at the forefront of creating in-person worlds that drive emotion and connection. As the Wall Street Journal put it, we ended up with something: “Equal parts luau, spring break, rock festival, food drive, and TEDx.”

Human-centricity in B2B works best when you make promises that stir emotions – be it fear (Think Cisco’s “If it’s connected, it’s protected”) or hope.

Driving a $1bn sale of incremental new business through a B2B communications campaign or helping support the deployment of cutting-edge MRI machines in the medical sector to alleviate the fear suffered by children with cancer?

Boring, it is not.

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