Differentiating any brand within a saturated market, particularly if you have complex technical products to demonstrate and long sales cycles to manage, can be a daunting journey into the unknown. Creative minds will be the first to tell you that the most effective and valuable tool to help your brand reach its destination quickly is a simple, memorable, well-executed idea informed by data.
Creating something different captures the imagination, gets people talking, and inspires them to take action - especially when today's audiences are bombarded with multimedia messages competing for short attention spans.
A more emotive sales tool
We live in a digital world where almost everyone has a creative studio at their fingertips. Data provides detailed knowledge to sharpen insights, while state-of-the-art technology gives us the production tools to craft our ideas to perfection. However, without emotion, there's nothing to relate to or respond to, and even the most carefully constructed marketing campaigns can fall flat.
Relying too much on research and only applying logical, left-brained thinking makes everything we do formulaic. That's why creativity stands out. It shows we have feelings. It shows we understand the intentions of who we're talking to. And it shows we're human beings, not some automated artificial intelligence.
According to long-term research from Kantar, creative accounts for half the ability to achieve sales impact and can help brands achieve 3X higher marketing ROI. And here's another interesting fact: we have it on good authority from Google that 70% of a campaign's success is determined by the creative.
Award-winning thinking
B2B agencies are increasingly breaking the corporate mould to embrace a creative outlook. They're even appearing alongside B2C counterparts on the global stage of awards festivals like Cannes Lions, where last year Wunderman Thompson's 'Speaking in Color' campaign for Sherwin-Williams scooped the very first Creative B2B Lions Grand Prix.
LinkedIn has found that 69% of marketers see B2B purchasing decisions as emotionally driven as B2C decisions and 39% say they are increasingly focused on tapping into the emotion and humour that make traditional B2C campaigns land. And an impressive 81% of marketers believe they are increasingly producing creative campaigns that rival consumer brands. B2B marketing also shows humanity and transparency with campaigns considering sustainability, diversity, and inclusion.
Increasingly, customers have little opportunity to engage with ads. And we are also communicating with a younger generation of decision-makers, who are really clued up. They don't particularly care what we have to say, can be suspicious of what we're trying to sell, and most likely have something much better to do with their precious time. So, it pays to cut to the chase with a strong message that resonates well.
Yet whether at work or at home, all of us are consumers with individual personalities and a sense of humour. Therefore, we shouldn't be afraid to have fun and inform. Luxid specialises in B2B marketing, but rather than offer prescriptive solutions full of tech-savvy jargon, we like to present things simply and playfully. Our Big Long Idea methodology provides a long-lasting, endlessly variable creative platform, combining impactful storytelling with a clear purpose to entertain audiences throughout the customer journey.
Remarkable and relatable 5G
Collaboration is key to maximizing the potential of 5G. To build a truly open ecosystem, Dell Technologies wants to make 5G accessible by talking about it in a relatable, user-friendly way. To do that, Luxid created an engaging series of targeted campaigns with authoritative content on how Dell's Enterprise 5G services are revolutionizing different industries.
Working with Dell's Chief Technology Officers and other thought leaders, we created compelling narratives around near-future 5G opportunities in industries ranging from energy and manufacturing to healthcare and retail. We then brought them to life with rigorously researched eGuides, compelling sizzle videos, and witty social campaigns on both organic and paid media accounts.
By demonstrating Dell's understanding of the marketplaces and its commitment to innovation, our meaningful conversations attracted much more interest than expected and strengthened Dell's position within the telecom space.
Immersing ourselves in OTEL
Another example of thinking outside the box is the immersive, scalable experience we created for Dell's Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab (OTEL) in Round Rock, Texas. With construction yet to be completed, Dell required a means of virtually demonstrating OTEL's capabilities to customers.
We created an online, interactive 3D experience for multiple users, enabling Dell to tailor client presentations without relying on pre-rendered video content. Customers could control their avatar and customize clothing, complete with a feed from their webcam displayed above their head – retaining the essential human element in business relations. Cutting edge yet also light-hearted, the blend of bold visual styling and informative content is designed to keep audiences consistently engaged by interacting with it in person.
The virtual OTEL environment proved hugely successful for the Dell team. Consisting of entirely organic traffic, it was the highest engaging Dell Technologies broadcast of 2022, even surpassing product launches.
Imagination unbottled
One of Finland's major breweries wanted to increase its B2B sales of soft drinks. Luxid came up with the idea to rent out large drinks coolers and provide a refilling service for all sizes of businesses.
Our recruitment style advertising campaign involved the personification of three different fridges. Giving them human personalities, we used ambiguous humour to promote the fridges as refreshing new work colleagues, with character names like Becky Beverage, Jimmy Juicebar, and Suzy Soda.
We also included email nurturing triggered by a competition entry and retargeting ads. After a strong start, Covid got in the way, but the campaign was relaunched in 2022, and the results spoke for themselves – doubling the SQL target of the initial campaign. The client loved our unique creative approach, which delivered the belief that marketing automation can work in B2B.
Delivering end-to-end value
Creating a stand-out, high-performing campaign starts with building knowledge and understanding. It means identifying the core brand and audience insights to develop a proposition, creative expression, and assets that will inform, engage and inspire.
Inspiring brands outperform by growing market share faster and by the ability to charge higher price points. Most buyers will research products and services online before speaking to vendors, so the brands with higher awareness will undoubtedly get noticed, while others go undiscovered.
B2B marketing can benefit from 'hybrid' customer-centric consumer brands to provide the right balance of inspiring and activating content at the right moment. Described by the B2B Institute as 'category reach,' it's less about appealing to a hyper-targeted audience at the point of need and more about building future demand. Focusing on the emotional benefits as much as the practical products can save a lot of time and effort spent identifying live opportunities.
Irrespective of the campaign objectives or the ROI we ideally want to achieve, collaborating on the central creative idea should bring both partners and clients together to build successful relationships.
From beautifully produced, emotionally real videos to digital marketing and social strategy, we can create a diverse platform to bring Big Long Ideas to life and elevate B2B brands through memorable end-to-end experiences.
The value of creativity is undeniable. Because as important as data, analytics, and other factors are to measuring buyer behaviour or marketing effectiveness, only human imagination has the edge of challenging convention and making the most significant commercial impact.
To find out how outstanding creative can help drive results for your business, contact Luxid's Creative Excellence solution.
