Five Common B2B Advertising Myths

Selling to a company is different than selling to a consumer. But there are some fundamental principles all ads should follow

by Steve McKee

A few days ago, my company met with a business-to-business client that had hired us to help position its firm as a leader in a category it had recently entered. We presented a handful of concepts that were different, compelling, and that would stand out among all the bland ads in their targeted trade publications. Usually, when an ad agency is presenting new ideas, you can pretty much tell how the meeting is going by the looks on the clients' faces. This one wasn't going so well.

When we finished our presentation, the room was uncomfortably silent until one of the representatives of the client team spoke up. He was the one who gave us the assignment, and he could see how the campaign would accomplish the objectives set out for us. He thought it was different. He thought it was breakthrough. He thought it was smart.

But it wasn't long before one of his colleagues weighed in. He, too, thought we had something to work with but "suggested" a few changes. He didn't want the campaign to be too attention-getting. He thought it should look more like those that were already in the magazines. He was afraid that a captivating appeal like the one we were suggesting wouldn't be direct enough. And he wanted to include more copy points and product shots. In other words, he wanted a typical B2B ad.

Time to Debunk

This is a common occurrence that happens in conference rooms across the country every day. It's not that there's anything inherently wrong with copy points and product shots, but there seems to be a powerful gravitational pull towards the bland in business-to-business advertising. The reasons, I believe, are because of a handful of persistent myths that permeate the industry's thinking. Here are a few:

B2B is different. This is probably the most common misunderstanding—that somehow the rules of everyday marketing don't apply in a business-to-business context. Sure, selling to a company is different than selling to a consumer. But it's no more different than selling toothpaste is to selling paint, or even than selling wine is to selling beer. In each case, you're trying to win over a unique group of people with an existing array of preconceptions and a distinct set of needs. No two marketing assignments are alike, yet every marketing assignment is subject to the same fundamental and unchanging principles (see below).

Information trumps emotion. Anybody who has spent time working in business-to-business advertising will hear this refrain (or some variation of it): "Make the product the hero," or "Get right to the point," or "Just make sure it has a strong call to action." It's as if the people who read B2B ads don't buy Nike (NKE) shoes, attend Cirque du Soleil, or shop at Target (TGT) on the weekends. Or if they do, they somehow disengage the right sides of their brains Monday through Friday.

That's not to say that information isn't important, and especially so when you're dealing with purchases that can run into the thousands or millions of dollars. But the bigger the purchase (typically), the longer the sales cycle. This affects the role that an ad can be expected to play (see BusinessWeek.com, Winter, 2007, "Staying on Top of Your Game").

In most advertising—consumer as well as B2B—it's the job of the ad to open the sale, not close it. And just because you want your prospects to know something doesn't mean they want to hear it. At least not at first. There's a saying that people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care, and there's truth to that even in advertising. First you must demonstrate that you understand the challenging world in which your prospects live, and then perhaps they will be willing to listen.