I had written about decision-makers and decision influencers recently. In most B2B communication, the decision-makers are C-level executives, so the brands that sell to the organization frame their communication to suit the needs of that C-level executive.
For instance, while I was at Subex Systems back in the early 2000s, the company had a suite of telecom revenue assurance products, of which the fraud management product was the highlight. Now, ‘fraud’ is a nice, dramatic topic to market in context of consumer users of telecom – how would you get defrauded, what can you do to avoid it etc. But that was not the story, as a B2B company.
As a telecom product vendor selling to telcos, the story was meant for the CFO of a telecom company. The story is about how much the CFO can save by plugging the revenue leaks owing to fraud. This framing assumes that the target audience is completely aware of the kinds of frauds that may happen in their network and that they would be a lot keener to know the impact of avoiding fraud and safeguarding their revenue.
The same product would also be sold to the CTOs of telcos – to showcase how many kinds of fraud the product can help detect and plug, with limited focus on revenue loss.
Is there a case to be made about communicating the kinds of frauds that could happen in the telecom industry to all kinds of people, without specifically targeting only one specific set of audience?
Of course! If there was a broader brand-building exercise to let the world know what the company is, to B2B decision-makers, decision influencers, potential employees, the society at large, then yes, such a communication too could make sense, along with more focused communication to more sharply-defined audiences.
Here’s a great example of a broadly enjoyable communication from a primarily B2B company (or at least one that has decided on its buyers as just 2 – enterprises and gamers).
The company is called EPOS and till I saw this wildly enjoyable ad film, I had not heard about them at all. After seeing the film, I could not control the urge to know more about them!
The film, by Danish agency &Co (about which I that, once again, took a very B2C’ish approach!), starts with a fantastic hook: it opens with what seems like a question, but while you read it and hear it, you do not specifically notice that there is no question mark at the end of it (appearing on-screen).
And the film’s lead helpfully proclaims shortly: that wasn’t a question!
That nice opening gag makes you think (“Damn, they got me!”), replay the start in your mind again and that is the starting point of the engagement.
Using a kinetic, always-moving narrative style, the host keeps talking to you while a lot happens in the background, all in service of the core message, to accentuate how the company’s core proposition is so important.
By the time we see a conference room with 3 people exasperatedly talking to a device, “Can you hear me? Hello!”, you may be telling yourself, “Hey, that happens so often to me!”.
The best part of the narrative was to juxtapose that most of us have taken it for granted that poor voice quality/sound in our devices is an obvious and normal problem… but in another sphere—the airline industry—you simply cannot take for granted since it is a matter of life or death! So, the fact is that the voice quality could be significantly better if the companies involved demanded more.
And that is the punchline that is offered after a self-referential pun, “Get to the point, Jack!” 🙂
Observe the dialog then: “We optimize everything in our business life, from the way we travel to the way we work, so why should we accept this?”. Here’s where the broadly enjoyable B2C’ish film takes a sharp turn towards talking to the core decision-makers and decision-influencers. This is where the brand introduces that we, end-users, perhaps may not find these products being promised on Amazon! (You can, however, buy on Amazon products from EPOS as part of their joint venture – known as Sennheiser Communications – between Sennheiser Electronic GmbH and Demant, the parent company of EPOS).
The many things happening in the narrative also enable you to see the film more than once, to see what you missed in the seamlessly fast-paced script!
I love the idea here: while they can make only a sharply focused film speaking about employee productivity and talk about it to CXOs alone, they have also chosen to introduce the brand to a larger audience by broad-basing the narrative. From a funnel perspective, anyone who sees the film could be on the top of the funnel – remember the brand within positive connotations. From that, those who could influence business purchase decisions would move into the next level in the funnel. Then the decision-makers at the next level.
Excellent work!