B2B is Luxury Marketing (Part 2/3)

In the second episode of our thought-provoking series on the intersection of luxury and B2B marketing, we continue to explore how B2B brands can leverage luxury marketing principles to foster deeper relationships and drive sustainable growth.

Dive into discussions about the evolving B2B and luxury buyer demographics, with a special focus on the increasing role of women in decision-making positions and how this shift impacts messaging and brand experiences. Our guests share insights into the significance of values like sustainability and personalisation in crafting engaging brand narratives and bespoke customer experiences.

Learn about the importance of community, status, and shared values in building brand affinity, and how long-term brand building through heritage and consistent strategic narratives can enhance your brand's resonance.

Whether you're interested in understanding how to align your brand with your audience's evolving values or looking to create exclusive, memorable experiences that set your brand apart, this episode is filled with rich insights and strategies. Join us for another enriching session that bridges the gap between luxury's emotional journey and B2B's strategic ambitions, offering actionable insights for marketers looking to elevate their brand's impact and loyalty.

Guests

Sonia Hobbs, Former Head of Marketing at Harwoods Group

Paul Monteith, Former VP Demand Generation at User Centric

Sam Kendall, Digital Marketing Manager at Beyond Encryption

Andrew Davies, CMO at Paddle

Chris Davies, EMEA Growth Director at Wunderman Thompson

All right. Well, thank you so much, everyone, for being here today. We're here to talk about the the parallels. Uh, if we can find any between luxury marketing and B2B marketing, um, we have some amazing guests with us today. We have Paul Monteith. Paul is VP of demand generation at the consent management company User Centric. Uh, they run all the cookie banners on every website you've ever been to. Also running his own project, a growth agency called Andragogy Rico. Um, before this, he was demand generation manager for user testing. Um, which is a software company that provides user testing. Um, very fast growth venture backed company. Uh, focus on demand generation, digital marketing throughout his career, but very relevant to this conversation. Paul has also worked on behalf of Radisson Blu. Um, on the agency side, so obviously a luxury hotel brand. Andrew, Dave is lovely to have you here. Andrew. Um, CMO at paddle, which is one of the, um, one of the most active B2B digital advertisers in in this country. Um, responsible for driving significant growth acquisitions, including profit. Well. Um previously was VP of corporate marketing at Optimizely, which acquired idiot, the company Andrew founded previously um, which became a leader in website personalization content personalization for for B2B visitors to to B2B websites. Also sits on the board of 90 which is a social enterprise and you advise early stage start ups. And you've given me lots of really valuable advice over the years, Andrew as well. Um, okay. Sonia, lovely to have you here. Sonia. Um, Sonia has worked at the I would say the sharp end of luxury automotive marketing because we're going to talk about this obviously a lot today, but the brands themselves focus on slightly you know. Well we'll talk about the the nuances here. But brands that Sonia has worked on behalf of, things like, um, Bentley, Aston Martin, focus on one side of marketing and Sonia, um, at Glyn Hopkins Group, Premier Endeavor and Harwood's, where she was most recently focused on the kind of the yeah, I would say the the actual demand generation and the sales side close to the sales teams. Outside of marketing. Um, plenty of experience selling, as we say, Bentley, Aston Martin, McLaren, even. Even higher end perhaps. Um, and yeah, really strong end. Uh, strong experience in M&A, marketing and change initiatives. Okay. We have James who is not here. Um, I'm sure he'll join us. Sam, digital marketing manager at Beyond Encryption, uh, company specializing in secure communications. Uh, replacing a traditional financial services letter that comes through your your door or perhaps gets lost in the post. Um, runs all forms of digital marketing there. Marketing automation data, uh, content creation, CRM, digital search engine, SEO, data and reporting. It's also, I believe, a singer and an impressionist. So we might call on you later on for some of the, um, um, have a history. You've you've worked with several massive companies, including atonal content, um, which obviously an agency offering content production and strategies and really has an interest in venture backed tech businesses, which you've worked in for for most of your career. So I think one aspect of what we're going to discuss today, uh, is going to be super interesting there, and we have Chris. Chris is EMEA growth director at Wunderman Thompson, a very large, probably the biggest performance agency within WPP. A new lead growth across EMEA. And, uh, you worked for on the luxury side Emirates Cartier, Macallan whisky and an increasing focus on B2B as Wunderman Thompson uses some of the learnings from from luxury to transfer to B2B. As B2B digital marketing spend explodes. Um, so, um, the principle, the premise of this podcast that the concept was luxury marketers face the challenges of niche audiences. They can spend a lot of money targeting people that will never have the means to purchase long sales cycles. Last week we were we had a guest from Burgess Yachts who was saying that the average sales cycle for these, these luxury yachts was 22 months. And they developed relationships with people that span decades, which, you know, all of these things have some parallels in the B2B world. I think we're going to have some really interesting conversations today, I hope, about demographic change. Lots of B2B marketers, lots of luxury marketers who've spoken to have talked about. The differing profile. Of decision makers in luxury. Sonia has has mentioned that Bentley in particular is interested in speaking to a different demographic. More women are buying, you know, Bentley cars over the next ten years than than men. Um, which has not been the case over the previous ten years. And I'm sure the same or some kind of similar transition has happened in B2B decision making over the last over the last 5 to 10 years as well. So it might be quite interesting. Um, some of the conversations that came out of last week were whether or not emotional decision making was. Present at the same extent in B2B as in luxury marketing. We heard from we heard from Charles Stevenson talking about very long, detailed processes of purchasing, let's say a £50 million, £150 million yacht and how the decision can be, you know, turned around on the spur of the moment by someone in the owner's family that doesn't like the color of the bathroom suite, for example. And we were saying, would that happen in B2B or is it more purely logical? And I think the conclusion we came to was that all of us in B2B have seen instances where a really careful, long process of decision making can be thrown off by by, you know, some senior person's whim at the last minute, who decides to go with his neighbor or something. Um, we talked about brand consistency over these long sales cycles and. Capital sources we heard many instances in Chris was really, uh, Chris Davies, who's with us today. Uh, it was really interesting to hear him talk about the differences between these. Let's say, you know, northern, Italian based, luxury family owned firms that have been in business for many, many decades, sometimes even hundreds of years, who are able to make longer, firm decisions about brand building, investing more in the lifestyle, building up the concept of the luxury lifestyle in someone's or a family's mind over a really long period of time, and how B2B often struggles to invest properly in developing brand over a long period of time. Perhaps that's because we are driven often by venture capital cycles, which are incredibly short, or public company, uh, reporting, you know, quarterly reporting cycles, which might be even shorter. And we talked about relationships within B2B. What is the relationship that a client or a prospect develops with a B2B brand? Is it with the brand itself as it sometimes is in successful luxury companies, or is it actually more commonly with a salesperson at that B2B company? Or worst of all, simply focused on the features that that that product of that brand can offer? Um. So where shall we start? Perhaps, I mean. Perhaps. Sonya, I can come to you first. I'd be really interested to to hear your thoughts on. Perhaps. Let's start with those. The concept of long terme versus short terme. Brand or relationship development in luxury versus, well, not B2B. Let's focus on luxury to start with. Have you seen luxury brands do that well, or is that just something that B2B companies think luxury companies do well? But actually, you know, grass is greener.

Yeah. No, I think certainly what what I've witnessed and what I've experienced, um, certainly at Harwood's working with, you know, a brand like Bentley is it's always been about relationship building. It's always been about long terme, um, you know, building that loyalty with your customers. And we've we've been very fortunate that Harwood's has been 90 years in the making, and they've had a number of customers are, you know, excessively loyal to the Harwood's family when it comes to the actual brand, the car itself, what we've seen is that, you know, you, you now need to actually tap into, you know, what's important to the customer who's buying that and what's going to actually make them, um, purchase your luxury good versus someone else's. And what we've seen with Bentley is that we now need to be looking at value based and what I mean, values as in what's important to them. So sustainability and well-being, it's not your traditional display of, you know, overtly, you know, luxury goods. You know, previous generations would want to show their wealth by what they purchased. And what we're finding now is, yes, you know, you've got, you know, an increased growth in high net worth individuals, but they tend to be younger now and female and their values. And what makes them buy something is completely different to the traditional, um, set of, you know, um, customers. And what we found with, with Bentley in particular is 40% of those high net worth individuals which are going to be, you know, coming into the market, are now female of a younger generation. And we did something recently with, with, you know, we handpicked 40, um, individuals, females. We did a lot of research on LinkedIn about what they liked, what was important to them, what their values were by their associations and their partners. You know, as in what they what they purchase other purchases. And we then built a unique experience for them that got them, you know, a into a, you know, network that that was important to them, but also that they were in an environment that it was a unique, extraordinary experience. And the car was part of that experience. But, you know, so was speciality travel wellbeing, um, sustainability. So it's all around hybrid and the future generations of vehicles. So we've had to think differently. Um, it's still about personalised experience. It's still about building relationships with those individuals. And that was, you know, six months in the making of that one event. And from that, we've got 40 real potential customers that that were completely new to brand. So they are, you know, they are high net worth individuals who purchase love luxury goods. But they'd never considered Bentley before. Um, and.

A Bentley is a few hundred thousand pounds at least. Right.

So starting point.

Okay. All right. So so perhaps it's on the higher end of what a B2B company would be. So I mean, there are plenty of B2B companies that sell products for millions of pounds a year. Of course. Yeah. Um, but commonly it will be, you know, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of pounds. And I think you said to me, you know, these people now are in your CRM. It'd be interesting to talk about what are the differences or similarities between B2B and luxury CRM. But, you know, they've accepted hospitality from you. They've actually shown interest in the first place.

Yeah. What we found is they were individuals that were running businesses. Um, you know, again, you know, highly influence influencers. You know, we were able to find them by profiling them. Um, and as I said, we've created this almost like their own network, affinity network. Um, and the power of that and obviously they share their experiences. Um, but I think in terms of, you know, who they are, you know, they are going to be, you know, I would expect your, you know, your B2B decision makers because I think that there is a growing number of females that are now running those organizations. And, you know, again, traditionally, we wouldn't have we wouldn't have approached or targeted, um, you know, females in that way because traditionally luxury was, you know, about getting the, the owner, you know, getting the driver into the car. And that tends to be male. It tend to be a track day. It tends to be very, you know, um. Around the car, around the performance of the vehicle, rather than actually, as I said, tapping into what's important to them and what you know, why would why is a Bentley going to be that that, that next, you know, um, purchase for you, um, rather than all the other.

So what we're saying is actually, in many instances, the sorts of audiences that a luxury company like Bentley is going after are precisely the same people, in many cases, literally the same people. Yeah, but the B2B brands might be targeting. And your justification for this is, well. If we sell 1 or 2 Bentleys, it more than pays for all our hospitality. The yacht that we hired for the day, the. Yeah, you know, the food, that everything.

But it was a it was quite it was a it was a experience that money can't buy for them. It wasn't, you know, let's just get them in a car and drive them around the track. You know, we we pick them up, we chauffeur them to the yacht that took them to the wind farm out off the shore of Brighton. We then brought them back. They had, you know, a full sort of it was, you know, as I said, well-being was a center to that sustainability. We had somebody come in and talk to them about why hybrid, why electric? Why is it important for the environment and the future of, you know, the economy that we are moving towards, considering those those items rather than, you know, putting that decision off? Um, well.

I'm really interested to talk to Sam. You obviously have there is a values or a sustainability element in, in your sale. And I know, Andrew, you've for years you and I have discussed the concept of B2B organizations investing very seriously in knowing the accounts, right? At a very early stage, that we want to target the individuals within those doing the sort of level of research that Sonia's talking about. But do you feel that B2B companies. I mean, there are there are lots of there are B2B companies that provide experiences to prospects. But. I haven't heard anything of quite that sort of, uh, sophistication that Sonia is talking about. What do you think?

I think if we if we leant too heavily on sustainability in our activation events, it could very easily come across as greenwashing. And I think that comes down to that kind of. There is a demographic divide outside as well. And it's really a. To simplify it. It's a young and old thing, you know, it's, uh, you've got lots of people in senior roles at big, large enterprise companies who have had digital technology all their lives, and they go through digital sales processes and they care about sustainability, and that's what speaks to them. But then you've got the other half of their buying team, which are maybe a little bit older. And for them, it very much seems like that sustainability element is it's important. They know it's important, but it's a box tick. So if you lean on it too heavily to them, it can very easily come across as you know, we don't want this. We don't need to be force fed. This. Um, so it's not something we would rely on heavily. But I definitely think there's a. There's an equivalence in terms of that experience creating that that experience, that community. And I think from what Sonia is saying, it sounds more like it's the creation of a, of a community of like minded people at the same time as kind of matching up with that. Sustainability element and the performance of the cars and all of those things. You know, for, for me, joining things like like this. Right. Uh, podcasts, webinars. The important thing is the, the people, it kind of taps you into a network. And the hard thing from our end has been continuing that over time. So I'm interested to hear sort of how. How that community is sustained from from your side. Sonia. How how you how often you look to touch base with those prospects, with those contacts, even if they've already bought a car. Um, and how you kind of bridge that, how you walk that difficult line. Really.

Um, it was actually a really good question. It's a question we asked them because it was, you know, we ran it for the first time in September, and it took, as I say, a long time to, to put together. But once we got those individuals in a room, we didn't want to lose that opportunity to ask that question. They've gone for quarterly to start with, um, and we're going to have two major sort of get togethers over a course of a year where we will do something very, very similar, but maybe in a slightly different location each time. Um, but quarterly we're running forums. Um, we are, we're inviting them to specific events if we've got them in showroom where if, depending on where they are in their process, if they are actually genuinely looking at buying, they may be tapping into that. Um, we've created, you know, a community effectively, but we're we're also leaning on Bentley to help us maintain that communication. And for us, it's always been about it needs to be right message, right time and right person. So it's about personalizing it to them and understanding, you know. As as much as we can about them, as individuals as well as as that community. What we found is there's so much there's a lot of, um, you know, confusion around, you know, what's coming in terms of 2030 or 2035. What is the government actually trying to achieve with its, you know, going going electric and going green? And actually there's a lot of myths around it. And what's what what's really important is actually what's what's you know, what's right for that individual may not be right for the next person. So we're all about making sure that we're educating and sharing knowledge and experience and creating a means for them to you know, I know this this is probably unusual. It's still probably as as a sector automotive puts females off, you know, they don't like actually the way in which you purchase vehicles and cars because it's still very maybe it's perception, it's still very male dominated and it's not you can't come in and ask silly questions around, you know, electric cars or hybrid or what's right for me. So we've found it's given them a safe space. You know, these are highly intelligent, as I say, highly, you know, you know, influence influencers in their own right. And they didn't feel they could ask those questions in the normal traditional environment for buying a car. Um, when you're spending that kind of money, you don't want to feel uncomfortable. You want to feel, you know, that you're in control of that decision and be able to experience it for yourself and not not feel put off by that experience. So we that was a big thing for Bentley and it was a big thing for us. It's still that perception.

Andrew, let me let me ask you about this. Do you think that luxury companies that are I can't think of a digital product that is would be considered a luxury product. So they're commonly physical goods? Do they have an unfair advantage in that, you know, there is something physical that is in a certain fixed geographic location that you control people to, to touch, to feel, to or, or, you know, many of the things that Sonia was talking about, holding information on prospects is something that we've talked about for years. B2B companies are. Generally quite cognizant of the need to do that, but probably, I would guess, less good at bringing people to a certain location, less good at providing interesting experiences. What's your feeling about the differences there?

Well, firstly, I'm delighted it's not just me that gets embarrassed by the stupid questions I ask when buying a car. Um, like, I think that all of this. All kinds of creativity becomes possible when you deeply understand the customer. And what Tony is talking about here is a deep understanding of the changing customer that allows all kinds of things to happen. So we learn loads from consumer and from luxury because they tend to be way more aggressive and interesting. Genuinely, a lot of it's not so boring as B2B. Um, and so, you know, when we deeply understand our customer and we, we're a payment infrastructure for thousands of software companies. So it sounds pretty boring, but you're enabling a founder of a software company somewhere in the world to achieve their ambitions. There's a whole bunch of possibility and aspiration that's tied up in what we deliver. Then by deeply understanding them, we can and we strive to deliver what we call them is WTF experiences. These experiences that make our target market go, wow, why do these guys kind of understand me like this? So, you know, recently we took a whole bunch of customers and prospects to a Blink182 concert because most of them are 35 year old founders of tech companies who that was a cool that that was cool for them. And when they did the reunion tour, it became a massive point of attraction. Um, so and, you know, part of my job is flying all around the world trying to meet people in their home territory, flying into Tel Aviv or Cluj or Austin, or flying into Bangalore or Sydney to try and meet people face to face, because you can't get away from that. I strongly believe if we get the right people in those rooms face to face connection, breaking bread to connect together is way more influential than any anything else we could do. So I think those experiences are really key. I think secondly, we learn when it comes to media, we've got quite an aggressive studios investment. We make documentaries, we make series, we we do stunts on film. We do a whole bunch of things there that we learn from consumer in order to try and educate and entertain our target market. And then thirdly, we're trying other things like, um, drops, you know, where we're sending physical things, branded swag or we just did a physical 3D button, a button with 3D printed. Um, that kind of is a execution of our core value proposition as a business, but in a physical thing that we could send to people. So yeah. So you're trying.

To boil down this. So that's that's quite interesting. So because that is a dilemma frequently of, of companies, many B2B companies will be talking to on this on this podcast are selling something that is digital. But you've found a way to boil it down, boil the concept down into something physical. So how on earth did you do that? What was tell us more about that.

I mean, this one we've just done, you know, our core product vision is what we call do it for you. So rather than giving you software, payment software that kind of you have to put together like Lego. It's a it's a kind of a partner, a partnership where you're effectively outsourcing a huge bunch of your risk and liability to us. And so we talk about how all of our product interfaces should just do it for you rather than give you complicated tools to solve the problem. And so we built a 3D button that you press it and then the execution is this nice, snazzy kind of social media friendly thing where we go and do something for you. So wash your dishes or call a taxi or, you know, clear your emails and your admin or put put up your Ikea sofa. But it all locks back to a core product value proposition, which is we take away the pain and do it for you. So it's all about finding, you know, finding that. Another easy example is we we sent we sent a device to space to take a payment for a software purchase in space with 4K cameras. Now, we've we've solved tax compliance for software all across the world. And so we were extending that value proposition in a creative way to say, now you can buy software on the ES and we'll have solved tax compliance if there is such a thing on the IRS as well. So again, very clear ladder down to our core value proposition that our software founders face every single day, but then exposed in a creative way that makes people think, oh gosh, you know, what the hell are these guys doing now? So yeah, that's the kind of thing of locking, locking something experiential or physical down to a value proposition.

Mm. Sounds. That sounds fascinating. I'm not sure I've heard many of those ideas before, but I'm interested in why the physical and Paul and and Sam and Chris. What do you think about this idea of trying to boil down a kind of a digital concept into a physical experience? Have you seen that done with other B2B companies? Is it more commonly done in luxury or.

And for me. Yeah. So to answer that, to come back to something that Sonya said there, um, around value. Right. And someone who's, you know, super wealthy sitting with a Bentley, they have no doubt a fantastic home. Almost everything they want the, you know, the the, um, whether it's a handbag, the clothes, whatever they need, um, the gym, the concierge, whatever they want. So it comes down to a status thing, right? And that sustainability might be part of the status. So the value comes in. How does it round out their status? And if we take that to a, B to B side of things then it's the status within that person is if they're I don't know, as a user. Um, let's take user testing as an example or user centric, um, a great example. If you're owning the website and the security of a website, your status is that you've got it locked down, right? You own it. Nothing's going to break through it so that status comes with it, and they expect you to do the bit you're doing. So to turn that into an experience means you. The best way to do that is personalize it, whether it's through an email, because some people don't want to go on a yacht, some people want to sit behind a laptop and just type away and know that their website is safe. Right? And then you've got other people like, let's take the user testing example where it's human insight, and you've got to sit there and talk to your customers and listen to your customers. But how can you round that into something that's an experience for them? How can they feel the right people? So I think that's when you're boiling it into the whether it's a physical or digital experience, it comes into rounding it that status. It does the thing that it's supposed to do. It answers the problem they've got, but then it also makes them complete better. They feel good. They, they, they walk around with that. And you know, I am what I just did. I am what you say I am. So I think building out the experience, if you put them in a hotel and give them a lecture or something. On to Sam's point, doubling down on something, they might not want that or to make them feel that part of their status, the rounding that out, then it does become that you're trying to sell them something, or you're you're building an experience that is, whilst it's valuable to them, it's not going to make them want to to be part of that community, you know, as part of that close network, but then then feel unique in that sense. I am within my group, right? I am the one who is rich, but I don't. There's not many people I can talk to about that. So in this network, great, we all understand. But then I can go away and still be the rich one. And my status is rounded because I feel whole. And so I've done experiences where where it has quite simply been in a hotel influencers talking, you know, and it's we've, we've taken on a really nice thing, not necessarily wanting to concert like a whisky tour around, um, you know, something like that. That's, that's been more around the. The heritage of the company that we're selling from user testing, for example, in Scotland and Edinburgh. We brought people in and we took them on a, um, Johnnie Walker whisky tour. Really nice. Really just a beautiful experience. It's such a so well done. But it was not necessarily to do with it was more to say thanks. Right. That's the way the kind of experience was. It wasn't necessarily to sell to them or, um, you know, we wanted them to come back and that we care. We but we don't necessarily run that back in. So I guess my answer is, I don't really I've never really been part of an experience build, turning it into a physical. That hasn't been something that's just really nice versus, uh, this is exactly part of our proposition and, you know, truly understand us as we truly understand you. It's more of a thank you, as the experiences I think have been part of I'm really a problem, but I think it's a it's there's definitely a definition between what Andrew was just discussing there.

I'm really interested in this concept of of status and whether B2B companies can leverage the value that people get from that, because if you're selling something that people have to buy, then your life is actually very easy. If it's cybersecurity that you are, you know, legally complied to, to, to purchase. Um, and perhaps a user centric kind of perhaps fits into that because everyone absolutely needs a cookie banner. But most B2B marketers, most of the time, the trick is, is trying to persuade someone to buy something where they won't get fired if they don't purchase this this product, it's maybe they will grow slightly, they will grow faster, they will, you know, save time. But it's not like something where they're going to, you know, have go hungry or like get fired if they if they don't if they don't purchase it. But still you need to persuade them to do it and to do it now. Right. And obviously it's the same in luxury. No one's going to go hungry if they don't buy a Bentley or, you know, there won't be terrible outcomes if they don't purchase the Bentley. But by providing the not just the status of having a Bentley, but also it sounds like providing the community in which that status matters as well. Sounds like a really clever idea. And perhaps that's the same as what you're doing, Andrew, by going to meet all these people, they're actually also they know that you've met other B2B buyers as well. They've coming to the blink 182 concert. And perhaps one of the valuable things there is the status of the relationship with paddle, who is impressive enough to be able to put on a blink 182 concert invite package, but also they can see other people for whom that status of that relationship with paddle actually matters. So you're kind of giving them a full package of the status and a community in which that status matters, which is quite often quite hard when everyone's working from home. And you might not know that many other B2B marketers maybe.

What we also did, though, is we we created an affinity network around it as well. So we brought other partners like MacKinnon. Actually, Macallan Whisky was one of them. We took, you know, we brought like minded, um, organizations to that. So a they were part of that network and they were supporting the event. But it was it was giving them a multi-dimensional sort of access to, you know, to luxury experiences. And, you know, we're supporting each other in that. Um, but it's something that Bentley truly believes in. You've got to tap into all the things that matter. So we thought about speciality travel, which is one of their values. They'll say, okay, so that was the yacht, then sustainability, then well-being, um, then real estate. So it was, you know, the location needed to be impressive, not just because of the amount of money that we were spending, but it had to mean something. So the location on that particular retreat, being Brighton, was because of the, you know, their green credentials. Um, so it just it fitted in with everything. So yeah, it's just creating that it's, it's creating the environment and that network. And we can get leverage and momentum from that as a complete, you know, so it wasn't just Bentley. It was a number of different partners. Um. And again just adds to the value of what they get from that experience. Why come is the question, isn't it? Why should I go? And we had to, you know, convince 42 people to come and they they've all signed up to say, yeah, we want to do this. And um, it's actually created another movement called She's Electric, which is being supported by Genesis, which is another brand where they're going around the UK on like a road show and taking that, and it's all about getting, you know, sort of more. It is a it is targeting the female audience, um, because they feel that they often get forgotten, um, as a decision maker in any of those purchase decisions.

So often this just requires an extra piece of thought, doesn't it? And I know, I'm sure it's the same with luxury too, in our B2B lives. Like, you know, as go to market leaders, everything feels like we've got this treadmill to to, to run on constantly. And it requires us to disconnect, to have the ability to think through what that next step of experience or value could be. Um, you mentioned, you know, I sit on the board at 90 and insurance innovation consulting firm, and I know often they hold their kind of exec roundtable meetup workshops in very selective, you know, co-working hubs or rooms around London which have a deep insurance or social impact past. Yeah. And so they'll be able to say in this room so and so Prudential was founded or in this room, the insurance cover for the very first X, Y, Z. And so again, you're just trying to think through how can this experience be multi-layered rather than come to a meal, we'll have some sandwiches and we'll talk about insurance.

Yeah.

And there was when I'm just thinking of experiences there that are digital experiences that have a physical consequence. Um, there was a role I had a number of years back is when demand gen we targeted startups and small businesses who weren't. It was a communication tool, an app, essentially, and, uh, provided their phone number. So business signed up for the phone number and they weren't staying for very long. And we realized it's because the businesses were going out of business before they needed the phone number, really. And but they had to have the phone number to be a business. And so our. Goal wasn't to get them to download the app, it was to get them to exist longer. So as part of downloading the app and a much cheaper campaign than buying Google ads with it was putting on a small training course of accountants marketers using influencers to do little training things that sent five minute training courses each week into their app, so on their phone that they could just watch a video of, and they ended up just existing for six months longer. So we doubled the the, the income we would receive from these businesses without actually paying for them to, to stay longer. I mean, the, the training, uh, course was considerably smaller, so it allowed them to exist longer, but they just got this, this physical experience on their phone. So that was something that's an experience. And it was nothing to do with us. We didn't, you know, whether people phoned their business or not. I don't there wasn't there wasn't something that um, was the outcome of this. So those kind of experience that makes someone feel that come back to status, they were then able to be that founder for longer, then able to to, you know, I'm getting help here. They probably weren't shouting about that help. They were probably talking about how great they were at marketing right off the back of this training. So it was a, um, turning, turning that physical experience into a phone and trying to find a way to make it in their world was, um, it was something we did. It's actually something I'd forgotten we'd done, but I was, uh. I should probably use that again in the near future. Um, it turned out pretty well.

I think that that idea of status is really interesting because we, we kind of always think about an event or an experience as. Right. What are they going to want? They're going to want a tour of you. They're going to want they like whiskey or, you know, they like sustainability. They want to learn more about this. But actually the status thing is not just learning something new or being that person. It's often that there is kind of a hierarchy within the group. So you've got, I don't want to say lowest status individuals, but you've got, you know, maybe more junior people, more senior people, people who are already customers, people who are looking at stuff. And, uh, the more senior or more able to educate people, kind of you're giving them that this experience of, oh, I can tell people about what I know about whiskey. I can tell people what I know about the product, what I know about sustainability. And I think we kind of often miss that, that there is a we're not teaching our prospects something they can often teach each other.

I suspect that even in B2B, you need to be somewhere on Maslow's hierarchy of needs or whatever. And if that thing, if you're nowhere there, then perhaps, you know a.

Bentley is quite, quite far up there.

Well, it's the I think the top one is status or something. So at least at least if you can, you know there is.

You're doing the right thing for the environment.

The status thing is interesting though. And sorry I've been I've been a bit muted. I almost forgot I was supposed to be contributing to this. I was just enjoying listening to all your insights, but, um, but I think that it goes back to what Sonia was talking about at the start, about the changing demographic. And with the changing demographic. There's a different psychographic profiling of of the luxury market as well. And I think one of the big shifts that we've seen with our clients is that it's definitely gone from experiences of exclusivity, you know, things that other people can't do to inclusivity. So things that you can do and you can take your friends along with you or, you know, um, as Sam was saying, you can go and do and then you can share the experience. So it's a bit more about it's almost a complete opposite to, to what it used to be. And I think the other the other parallel from a lot of the the examples that you've talked about is, is just value add. I, I'm struggling to think of a of a luxury brand that we work with, where our kind of focus focal point of our campaign is the product. It's it's always about, you know, how the product impacts lifestyle or how the product gives you a new experience or, you know, it's it's it's very rarely kind of looking at the product itself, which is which is an interesting point because B2B is very rational and almost the opposite end of the spectrum. So there's definitely a learning to be had there. Well, well.

Well is it I mean I'm I'm really interested to kind of explore that. Um, Andrew, what do you think you were inclining your head there? Well, I think.

I think I think lots of mediocre marketing and B2B is very rational. Um, and, you know, fortunately, because it doesn't, you know, it provides kind of a backdrop which people can raise from and lift their head up from. I think what what really interests me in the B2B world is the fact that, um, people buy into a narrative about how the world is different and how the world has changed, and how your product or service can help them be set up for this new world, rather than the old world they're currently in. And so, you know, I do think, again, that, you know, deeply locks back to some of the storytelling that would be exactly the same in in a luxury scenario. I think if we're stuck in describing the bits and bytes and the widgets that we're selling, um, then, you know, we're going to be lost in that morass of kind of mediocrity. The really interesting thing for me here is how was the world shifted? How were, you know, how does that reframe the challenges that our buyers are facing? And how does what we do help provide the tools for people to cope with this new world? Um, and so everything that we do is always looking back to that kind of strategic narrative rather than back to our features and functions.

But why are people buying into so we often hear about, yeah, getting thought leadership, etc., getting people to buy into a new vision of how the world is. But what are the why do people because people absolutely meet people all the time that say, oh, I've just come across a hockey stack is the latest one everyone I speak to. Oh, I love it. You know, this is absolutely wonderful. Um, but and obviously. But why are they doing that? Is it because it genuinely is just a purely rational thing that they think this will allow me to navigate the future better? Or is there a combination of that? Perhaps with I am now part of a community of people that also believe this, and when I look at them, I think they are cutting edge marketers, and therefore I must be a cutting edge marketer. Why are they buying into this new, this new concept, whatever it is?

So I think I think that's a few things there. I think number one, a good strategic strategic narrative helps reframe the problems in front of you. So it provides a structure for you thinking about those costs, unquantifiable unquantified costs, unrealized opportunities, the things that are in front of you. That might not have been clear. So I think there's one thing there. Secondly, I you know, I strongly believe that a good strategic narrative then allows you to, um, to, to, to group people together, as you're saying. So they have this community of understanding other people that see the world the same way as you do. Um, and, and for me, one of the most powerful thing about storytelling is that it has the ability to be repeated easily. If I tell you, you know, a few, you know, classic stats around puddle one, you'll be bored senseless. And number two, you'll never be able to repeat those to someone else. Whereas if I tell you that a founder who builds a software business has these invisible barriers to growth, where these champagne problems, as they build their product, they suddenly hit up against HR problems or tax compliance problems over fraud problems over these things that they do not want to be dealing with. And paddle removes all of the back office compliance, so you can focus on building something that puts a dent in the universe. Suddenly, I've reframed bits and bytes and boring billing systems into something that enables thousands of software founders to achieve their dreams. And so I just I do think that that putting it in a tight story allows people to. Tell that to other people better. So when you talk about hockey stick or others, it can now be self referring because other people are hearing that story from multiple different places. Because I've taken the time to think about what this means now and in the future.

Yeah.

Six months ago it was $0.06. So and what can we learn from from from from luxury here. Like you're talking about storytelling. I'm sure there's lots we can learn from Cartier, for example, Chris or, um, you know, the luxury brands around around the effect. Yeah.

I think it's.

Um, do they also buy into a new way of thinking, a community of people that also buy Cartier, and therefore they're able to better navigate that world, perhaps, or.

I think, um, I mean, I just wanted to touch on just what what Andrew said, because I think it's really interesting because I think that the like, the stories especially kind of founders stories in, you know, tech, B2B businesses are always really interesting. There's always some kind of like serendipity or innovation that, you know, everybody knows how Netflix started and like how it's kind of a little accident and Amazon and stuff like that. And I think there's I definitely think there's a missed opportunity with a lot of B2B businesses just to tell that story of how the business started, because people are interested in that stuff. And I think with, I mean, Cartier, a lot of luxury brands have it easy these days because of the heritage. And they have so many hundreds of years of of stories to tell. Um, I just think it's, um, you kind of have to have some obviously some buy in, some stakeholder buy in to do that, because any money you invest in brand, you're not investing in demand. And there's it's a lot harder to track ROI on Long Tum brand building activity. So there's definitely a, you know, um, a boardroom buy in element to this, um, that I think kind of stands in the way of some B2B organizations. And also the story is a little bit harder to craft. I think if you don't have that story ready made for you, you don't have that family in Italy that founded the brand 200 years ago and have been supplying coffee to the Swiss royal family for hundreds of years. You know, you don't have that story ready made for you to tell in a different way. You have to write that story from from scratch, almost, even though you know what the foundations of the story is. And that just takes a bit of a bit of creativity and a bit of, um, a bit of kind of navel gazing, I guess, which people think is the wrong thing to do. But sometimes you have to do it.

Even with luxury, um, you know, purchases, there's still competition. I mean, you think because it's it's a high ticket value, you know, it. There isn't that much choice. But actually, there is as much choice in the luxury market as there is in, in the volume market, which I've also been in. And you therefore got to make it bespoke to them and, and make it, you know, it's all about for Bentley, it's all about, yes, you've got heritage, but then it's the, the thousands and thousands of individual stitches. So every Bentley is unique. Every Bentley is, is crafted bespoke for the customer. And you build in their almost their personality into their own vehicle. And that's what Bentley are aiming for. If you just want a performance vehicle, a very fast car, there are lots of choices. If you want something that is unique to you and feels that you know goes towards your status and and shows you know who you are in that, in that, in the design, in that bespoke ness of that car, then that's that's why you buy a Bentley and you've got the, you know, the beautiful history and heritage of, of Bentley. Um, and that's what they're tapping into with the younger generation. It needs to be a little bit more bespoke, um, and not as ostentatious, as obvious as it was before, you know. You know, used to wear the sort of, you know, the badges, if you like, with, with that part of that experience. But now it's about more about it's just more. It goes deeper. Um, so we've built in as part of the experience, it might take 12, 24 months to build a Bentley for you, but that's that's what they'll do. They'll build it for you. And you go up to the factory watching your car being built with your finish, your touches, your, you know, your uniqueness becomes part of that vehicle.

That's very cool.

Yeah. And that's, you know, that's why we're trying to, you know, that's how we've got to sell it. It's because, as I said, if you want a fast car, there's plenty of choices. If you want an expensive car, there's plenty of choices.

I think that.

Personalisation element when it comes to B2B is right. It comes into your story, right? We're talking about stories there, the personal story and what Chris just mentioned there, the the business talking about their story. But it's the, the I don't know, I purchased a tool not long ago and, um, it's my story with the guy that contacted me. Right? I, I work closely with the salesman that reached out. I mentioned something about Creme Eggs, a funny story we'd had, and he sent me a pack of six Creme Eggs. Right? I mean, that doesn't mean I want to go and give thousands of pounds, but, um, we had a laugh about that. And so I was like, why is six Creme Eggs? You know, it comes in a little egg crate or off Amazon. It was cool, right? And I said, what? And he told me and it was a it was a funny, a ridiculous thing that had happened. And he said, oh, I was chatting about it with my wife, we're having a laugh. And we said this and I say, I purchased this for a few months ago. A few years ago, I purchased something from him. So we'd stayed in touch because we'd had these different interactions and things. So those stories matter down to six Creme Eggs versus watching your Bentley getting built. Um, as long as you hit that personalization, it's really hard to do that at scale. But if if I'm coming to the status of someone to spend lots of money with B2B, if you're looking at, you know, user testing wasn't a cheap product, but if you've got lots and lots of people to use it, it was people would spend an awful lot of money. And if you had a big team of designer product designers or UX ers, so then you start having to speak to different, different leaders, and it's hard to get your foot in the door with one of those and hit that experience. But if you manage to get with a bunch and that's good B2B, but that can't be done just by sending them ads and having a chat. It really needs to be someone who can have that conversation, and marketing amplifies that. But it comes into that personal experience, and it's not because your ads written on your name is written on an ad, or you get sent a t shirt or whatever. Um, it needs to be that to to make a, I think.

You probably need to do you probably need to do both, don't you? We're talking earlier about, you know, you you produce content, you put on the concert, you put on the whiskey distillery tour so that people understand the the kind of vision of the future that your product embodies. And they, they see there's a community of people that are also there. But then actually taking that decision to actually purchase, whether it's a Bentley or a B2B product, you then need to tell not your story, but the prospect's story. That's what Bentley doing when they're stitching the name into the, you know, into the the leather of the seat or or what what that chap did with you is sending you the Creme Eggs. He's telling you, telling you a story about you. And that's probably necessary as well. And the B2B and luxury process are the tenant when you're getting.

That's the status, isn't it?

It makes me go, yeah, I am the Creme Egg guy, I am. It's not. It's not up to me.

It's not about wider community then it's really about just you. But they're able to.

Tell you I'd much rather be a Bentley guy, by the way, and be that guy. That would be a much better status to have. But I think I think my, uh, my status quite right there. Thanks, cream I guess.

Yeah. That will go in the CRM when you do buy. Yeah, I'm going to.

Put it in both. He likes Creme Eggs but that needs to be stitched into the headrest. Yeah.

Please do this guy this guy says yeah.

It must.

Be the most surprising, the most surprising brand partnership in history.

Yeah, exactly. Doctor Cadbury for all, uh, yeah. Oh, I've.

Shot myself way too low there.

Yeah.

I like Ferraris as well, if anyone's listening.

Um.

Uh, the. No. But I think it's down to that personal story and being able to tell their story. It's exactly that. It gets you in the room and then being able to, like you said, then then take that further, enable a purchase and then how strong that relationship means. It can last for years depending on the value it brings. So there are stages to it.

I think that's really interesting because you're at least we're thinking about things from the prospect, from the customer's point of view, what their mindset is at the beginning, and then how it suddenly goes from external to internal when they're thinking about, why is this right for me?

I think we need to, um, we need to remember, though, that stories are very often badly, badly told in B2B. Um, probably the case in luxury as well. Right. But we don't know about them, um, those brands, because they died. Um. Lots of people. You know, it's really interesting what you're talking about, Andrew. The the kind of those significant moments that you can create in your brand's history. If you can sustain that and you can make it a consistent part of your brand and kind of systematize it, then it works really well. But you see so many B2B brands and we've all worked with so many B2B founders who who will have lots of ideas like that. And execution is everything. But it has to be execution over a long period of time so that you establish these. You know, we have weekly we have bi monthly moments of wonder or whatever you want to call them that we create for our prospects. I think it's really difficult to again. So that's a line that's difficult to walk because you've got to sell it into the board. And as soon as you start to do that, it becomes not the, uh, the idea that that was incepted. So it can quite easily become a compromise. And. We all know that. Compromise doesn't necessarily lead to as good a. Sorry. Are you hearing my cat? It's that. No no no no no, he's screaming outside the door. Um, we know that in marketing, compromise isn't as effective as maybe it is in, you know, product or or other areas of the business. Um, it's really which makes it very hard to kind of be defensive about your ideas, because compromise is often seen as a good thing in other areas of the business. You know, there's some much senior people, more senior people than me on this call. How would you how do you go about defending ideas, um, and trying to protect the that inception of an idea rather than it leading to a compromise? And how how far do you let it go into a compromise before you go and go? Yeah, let's try it, um, before you have to. Defender hard line. I suppose I mean.

Working for a creative agency, I should. I have got a very strong opinion on this. So, um, um, I mean, I think it comes back to actually what's something Andrew said earlier, which is just about having a strategic platform which is brought into a boardroom level, because once that's in place, you've almost got your your guardrails for what's on brand and what's off. Brand. And Andrew gave some good examples of kind of executions, which are all closely aligned with what the product benefits are, but kind of brought to life in a creative way. And if you know the presentation of that back to a CEO who's not marketing trained can be this is aligned with our strategic platform that you signed off at the start of the year. That conversation's a lot easier. So I think, um, it's just about having, you know, getting that senior buy in at a strategic level so that the executions don't feel like they come from left field. Um, but also, I mean, I just just just to kind of, um, correct the stereotype that that, um, luxury brands do it well, because that definitely isn't always the case. And one of the big problems, actually, the luxury brands have is that because they believe so richly in their heritage that sometimes that heritage has, um, quite deeply ingrained local roots and that doesn't always travel across borders. So especially with British luxury brands, you always find that the marketing director wants to include a scene from a cricket game or something like that, and cricket just doesn't travel around the world. It works in India and Australia. It doesn't work in the US because they don't understand the rules. So, you know, there's a lot of kind of like cultural boundaries that are interesting with, with luxury brands in that respect. But I think in terms of ideas, yeah, it's it's about, you know, being true to having a good understanding of, of your brand. And I think that also kind of ties together the conversation about sustainability earlier, which I'd kind of widened to purpose because it's such a frustrating buzzword. Um, and every brand under the sun has been trying to do it, and that was amplified during Covid. And you can always tell when when a brand is being benevolent and when they're not being benevolent. And it's more about greenwashing, which you mentioned earlier, Sam, because it's just whether it makes sense for that brand. Right? Like if you're a toilet paper brand, like people don't expect you to find a cure for cancer, you know? But if you're a toilet paper brand, people might expect you to help with deforestation. So it's, you know, as long as that, that, that that kind of sustainability initiative is on brand, then people will accept it and it will it will be more effective. And I think that's the case with every, every idea. If it's on brand, it works. If it's not, it feels weird.

Authentic, right. Because you you need to make sure that you're staying true to your values and your purpose. And, and there's authenticity around what you're trying to do and not just doing it. Because as you say, it's the the next buzzword or the next the next marketing, you know, initiative and idea. So for us, we always have to map it back to ROI. You know, marketing has had to become a lot more commercially savvy and not just be the creative side of the business. It has to say, well, what is it going to put on the bottom line? And that's that's the conversation I have to have with my board every time. And I have to sometimes go into bat on behalf of the, the brands that I represent, because they just want you to spend your money, right. They just want to amplify the message, and they want you as the retailer to do it for them rather than take some ownership of that problem. Um, but, you know, when I have to go and get marketing budgets signed off, it's about, well, what are you going to deliver? How many cars? Um, and, you know, yes, there's an understanding that luxury takes longer, you know, but they still want at the end of the day, we still have a target. Might need to be able to deliver that and do it in budget, on budget, um, and be. That's why I've got to be quite creative with what I do, because actually, funnily enough, we don't have massive marketing budgets in comparison to what we're needing to turn over the performance. So yeah, it's a balancing act. Definitely.

In our inner demand. General tum for the for the proof. Specifically with the SaaS business I've been working with for the last ten odd years, we there's a whole host of data across lots of stages there. So, um, ideas are usually built off data, but the thing that's differentiating is it's not just it's qualitative and quantitative data that allows you to do that. And with tools like user testing as an example, you can test those before they go live. So you can get the empathy. I say data informed and empathy led. Right. So it's still creative but it's it's it's leaning on putting the customer first. If you lean with the customer, get feedback on the type of customer. But it's data based, it's not easy to get buy in from a business, right? Because you still need to justify ROI, and there's a huge amount of risk in any of those things, no matter how obvious it is or how much experience you've got in that. But the empathy part really matters. Tom, you and I have spoken previously about the art and the science of it. You can have the best you, you know. You can have the ads put in the right place, pointing at the right person, and if they're rubbish, they're not going to buy it and vice versa. You can have the best message sitting to the wrong person. So I think empathy and data are two key parts of getting an idea signed off. In a demand gen world. You know, it's not as big with the experiences, um, that perhaps Sonia was talking about, but that still comes with data. You know, that's still and there's a lot there's just a lot less data when you're working with 42 people. Right. As opposed to 42,000 people, um, that you can then go to with the type of maybe a couple of data points you need to pull from them. But I would say data, empathy and testing and that will get you the, the.

Site and learn.

Yeah really useful. Thanks, guys. Um, yeah. I mean, we we're kind of just coming out of this phase of, of having no data, um, to having some data and that's, that's a lot easier. Um, and, you know, probably I've been in my position for, for two years, so. We have. We have, you know, a year and a half of of CRM history of analytics. Um, but we also have those relationships that we've all built with our customers. And that's probably been the most useful thing for, for me, you know, every time you come into a new industry, you have to learn, right? Um, you have to speak to customers. But that that still takes a it takes time. And every year you go, I wish I'd known what I knew about customers this year, last year. Um, if I had those insights, I'd do everything differently. Um, and then. Yeah, putting that into a a strategic kind of systematic approach, um, that you can sell in once and then play out throughout the year is definitely what I've kind of leant more into over the last couple of years. Um, as we've got that data and, you know, we've got more, more freedom with sales cycles because, you know, we're not working to quarterly, quarterly targets. We're working to half targets and annual targets more. Um, so yeah, that's really, really useful. Thanks, guys.

And I think fundamentally, what it all boils down to for me is that you either invest in brand, and I'm using that word as a collective of things that aren't generating direct response in the quarter. You either invest in brand or you pay the price in customer acquisition cost for every quarter till the cows come home. And so that's the board level conversation you've got to have. Every study shows that where you have more aided or unaided brand awareness in a B2B or a luxury context, then your direct response and your conversion rates will be higher. And so it's making sure there's this understanding that we might be operating on different time frames, but we're all here to try and do the same job. And so invest in how you build affinity, how you build the audience of the future, or pay the price in higher customer acquisition costs from now to the end of time.

Yeah, it's really interesting.

Useful way to put it. Yeah.

Yeah. It just it I've saved lots of money on a marketing budget and seen results that ceiling get lower and lower and lower and lower until you reinvest back in that. And then it just starts going up and up. But there's almost nothing to attribute it to it. And when you're saying data there, Sam, there's no there's no data point to be able to reference to that other than, oh, we turned it off and things went down. So I 100% Andrew. And and you will put it like SEO almost. You pay the price if you don't have organic in the background, if you don't have that brand piece, it's so hard to catch up with the rest that have spent time on it.

Chaps, I'm so sorry we have come to time. Um, thank you so much all for your time today. This has been a fascinating episode. Really look forward to catch up with you later in the week. Um, if anyone who is listening and would like to suggest a topic for next year's series, series two of the Future of B2B Digital Marketing, then please email me at tommasso. Oxley. But just, uh, leaves for me to thank you so much, Sonia, Paul, Sam and Andrew. And Chris has had to had to drop off just now. Um, really look forward to speaking to you next week. And looking forward to the episode. Thank you guys. Thank you.