I don’t know about you, but when I think of B2B marketing, the first thing that comes to mind is golf.
Specifically, ad after ad during PGA broadcasts touting obscure financial institutions or infrastructure companies. Things that, like golf itself, we generally identify with stuffiness and squareness.
Even in the tech industry, where brand names lacking vowels count as cool, B2B marketing has traditionally paled in comparison to its B2C brethren. Apple and Google are exciting, their marketing campaigns innovative, glossy, and memorable.
But the truth is, there is plenty of creative—and even innovative—marketing being done for traditionally “boring” tech companies. In fact, here are five of them:
1. Flock Freight
There are two things that really make this 60-second ad stand out. One is its star Steve Burns, aka the original “Steve” on Blue’s Clues. That right there scratches the nostalgic itch for a lot of young executives who grew up in the ’90s.
The other standout element is the question the ad poses right from the start: “How much exactly is a fuckload?” Such pottymouth language isn’t something you’d ever expect from a logistics company, and it immediately announces Flock Freight as a memorable brand.
2. Wistia
It’s one thing to show how your product works, another to actually do something truly creative in the process.
That’s exactly what Wistia, a B2B video marketing platform, did with its series One, Ten, One Hundred. In it, the company asked three video production companies to film a video about one of its products, but there was a catch: each production company was given a budget of $1,000, $10,000, and $100,000.
Not only did this highlight how Wistia’s product worked, it showed potential marketers that when it comes to budgets, biggest isn’t always the best.
3. Dell Technologies
“Reflective glory” is a term I’ve made up for when a company promotes other, smaller companies in order to promote itself. This type of marketing can be effective when done right or an all-time humblebrag when done wrong.
This Dell ad is one I’d put in the former category. Yes, it’s polished, and yes it’s all about Dell at the end of the day, but the emphasis on startups with just brief glimpses of what Dell is actually offering is solid.
4. MailChimp
There are a lot of ways to describe the above 15-second spot from the venerable company MailChimp. Confusing for one. Terrifying, horrific, wtf??? for two, three, and four.
But one thing the ad is not is forgettable. In fact, once you see it you can’t unsee it. Does it really tell you what MailChimp offers your business? Absolutely not. Will it stick in your brain? For sure.
5. Zapier
Few things are as un-creative as SEO. In fact, an argument can be made that SEO is the opposite of creativity. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be used creatively by smart marketing agencies.
Case in point is Zapier, an app integration and automation platform that went above and beyond when it came to improving its SEO marketing. How far above and beyond? Well, the company created 25,000 landing pages. Each page had its own unique creative with as many integrations as possible.
The result: Each of those 25,000 landing pages now rank in the top 100 on Google.
Looking to up your own B2B marketing game? Check out our free resource Generate The Right Leads. Build Trust. Achieve Breakthrough Growth.
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