Contrary to some preconceptions, the B2B buyer is not a faceless, emotionless corporate ‘robot’ solely interested in the practical functionality and ROI of a product or service. Claire Weekes explores how emotion plays a key role in B2B purchasing
There is a generalised (but often very true) difference between B2C and B2B advertising challenges – the fact that when it comes to B2C, marketers are trying to persuade consumers to ‘want’ – whereas in B2B they’re actually already pandering to a ‘need’ for a product.
Apple is very good at creating a desire for its brand. People love Apple’s products to the point where they will queue for days outside an Apple store to get their hands on the latest iPad or iPhone. Do these hardcore obsessives need an iPad 2? Well no. But the reason they’re queuing outside that store is because they’ve made an emotional connection with the brand – they’re effectively in love with it.
It’s a little difficult to imagine a similar scenario in a B2B environment. Four thousand C-level executives queuing outside IBM waiting to get their mitts on the latest software upgrade? Not likely. But that doesn’t mean emotion can’t play a role when it comes to B2B advertising. In fact, arguably, the danger lies in thinking that corporate advertising is okay to be faceless, bland and functional. However, it doesn’t matter if your target is Google CEO Larry Page – yes he might head up the world’s largest Internet property but he’s still a person, complete with feelings.
Supporting this idea, it’s rumoured, says Charlotte Graham-Cumming, managing director at marketing agency Ice Blue Sky, that Oracle founder Larry Ellison had an active hand himself in writing and designing the company’s adverts. “Which makes some sense as he is exactly the kind of person they are designed to appeal to,” she says.
Hard emotions
Graham-Cumming argues that emotion in B2B advertising has been prevalent from day one. It just perhaps started out as a very different type of emotion to the warm, fuzzy one often perpetuated within B2C advertising – that feeling that if you buy a product, it will make your life instantly more fun. “Vendors like Oracle and SAP [have previously] employed techniques to appeal to C-suite executives – for example they adopted very similar approaches using cold primary colours, and testimonials from large enterprises with unambiguous messages like ’10 of the top 12 healthcare companies use Oracle software’ placed in executive hangouts.
“These messages were carefully engineered to appeal to the time-poor, alpha male, baby boomer executive at conservative enterprises, whose greatest fear was to be exposed to shareholders for taking a risky decision,” she says.
In other words, these seemingly ‘hard’ adverts – which Graham-Cumming says were typical in the 80s and 90s – were tapping into an emotion, it’s just that the emotion tended to be a negative one – fear. “These ads said ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be in very good company if you choose us’,” she adds.
In the last couple of decades, however, times have changed.
“I don’t think B2B companies are only just discovering how to apply emotion in marketing, but I do think the behaviour and demographic of buyers is changing radically,” adds Graham-Cumming.
“Each successive generation to the ‘baby boomers’ is questioning the traditional ‘command and control’ enterprise structure and is less impressed by corporate-looking marketing.”
Perhaps this point is illustrated well by the fact that Apple, despite being considered essentially a consumer brand, is finding its way into the corporate space too. To give a fleet of employees iPhones isn’t a cost efficient decision – iPhones are expensive and there are much cheaper options on the market. “But emotionally, they make us feel good, and the benefits outweigh the price,” says Lee Waite, business director at marketing communications agency, Billington Cartmell.
“An initial business purchase can be one of two kinds,” he argues. “Either the business has identified a need for the product and budgeted for it – or the business has become convinced it needs that product that is unbudgeted for – and that is where the emotion comes in,” he says.
Waite cites Salesforce as a B2B brand that has perfectly embodied the role of emotion within its advertising collateral. Salesforce recently produced a highly personalised YouTube video clip that could be downloaded and made interactive. The underlying message within its proposition was that using Salesforce products equalled more time on the golf course. “The clip was hugely successful – and not just because Salesforce had a rational business benefit. More significantly, the underlying emotion was that you get more time on the golf course from purchasing the product. After you have watched the clip – which is stronger, the rational or the emotional benefits, or both?” asks Waite.
Love + logic
The trick for B2B marketers is to be able to address both the emotional and the rational triggers, and create a campaign that sets both of them off in tandem. “By appealing to both the emotions and the logic of your buyer, your brand is immediately more attractive and memorable,” says Maia Honan, board account director at marketing agency, Positive Thinking.
“Hard numbers and facts appeal to the rational brain. The abstract brain responds to more abstract concepts such as safety and trust. The tendency within B2B clients is to lead with the ‘what’ and ‘how’, which invariably means ‘we’ve developed this great new product, this is what it does and why you need it, this is how we deliver it.’ What we need to do is get B2B clients to bring the ‘why’ further up the chain.”
The ‘why’, and whether it’s been addressed or not, says Honan, is really the difference between success and failure.
In a B2B organisation though, it can be hard to lose sight of the fact that the end decision over whether or not to take up on a product, or service, lies ultimately with the decision of one (or maybe several) human beings. “It’s always someone who makes the decision, and it’s always an emotional one,” says David O’Hearns, creative director at brand agency Vibe. “Generally everything ends up in the consumers’ hands, however far down the B2B line.”
At the end of the day, each individual wants to be acknowledged as a person in their own right – and they take their personality to work with them. You might think your proposition is perfect for ‘that’ company – but if you don’t inject a little emotion into the proposition, then why should the person representing the company you are targeting care?
“The human truth is that an individual wants recognition as a person. When we acknowledge this in a customer or prospect dialogue, we give them the emotional feedback that allows them to engage and select our product, brand or service,” says Richard Lloyd, head of data at database solutions company, Information Arts.
Making it personal
When dealing with big, apparently faceless corporations, it’s understandably inevitable to lose sight of the individual you are trying to establish a dialogue with. At Information Arts, says Lloyd, an emotional tipping point has been identified, “In a small company it is inevitably more personal and the business leader’s emotions will significantly affect business decisions. In a big corporation, however, individuals can become invisible among corporate governance and legislations. The processes and legislation that the recipient will have to go through to implement the call-to-action might not always be possible and can become just another task on the very long to-do list of a chain of employees.”
Regardless of company size, nobody can ignore the powerful role that social media now plays in purchasing decisions. These days, in particular, peer recommendations equal sales.
“There are four stages to the modern business purchase – consideration, evaluation, purchase and advocacy,” says Waite. “These elements are all influenced by rational and emotional elements. With the continued influence of social media, we must converse with audiences at a personal level, as people, not organisations. B2B has woken up and understands that emotion does sell.”
Mark Rae, business development director at agency Brandhouse, whose strap line is ‘emotion sells’, offers this parting shot, “Although some say B2B and B2C purchasers are very different, they’re in fact the same. We are all people connecting with brands at an emotional level, regardless of whether we’re buying those products in a personal or professional capacity. We connect with those brands that have a clear story and are differentiated over the competition.
