Clients buy emotion too
Everything I have learnt during my time in ad land suggests that humans are driven by emotion even when they aren’t supposed to be, says Will Harms, head of planning at independent media agency Half Dome.
Pitching is well and truly back on the agenda, and we are evolving the way we go to market. As such, I’ve started to dive into the world of B2B marketing for the first time in my career to see what I can learn.
To be honest, I’ve always tried to stay at an arm’s length from B2B stuff, I was always told it’s a fundamentally different game to B2C, driven by overly rational messaging and a reliance on super-efficient, hyper-targeted, lead-driven media – in other words a brand guy’s worst nightmare. But my gut told me this shouldn’t have been the case, everything I have learnt during my time in ad land suggests that humans are driven by emotion even when they aren’t supposed to be. So why would a client going through an agency pitch process be any different?
Well, it turns out it’s not, and the B2B Institute (backed by LinkedIn) has assembled a supergroup of marketing science rock stars to prove it. Evidence presented by Ehrenberg Bass suggests a stunning amount of similarities between B2B and B2C marketing, but one of their findings really got me going – building brands matters! Just like in B2C, marketers need to consider how they build mental availability and leverage emotion to create meaning, ensuring they take a balanced approach to short term sales and long-term brand building. Hallelujah.
Great article Will. Having moved from B2C to B2B recently I’ve seen the huge opportunity for building brand in my sector. Thanks for the interesting read.