I’d like you to take a moment to answer the following for me:

‘Who can’t you live without?’

I presume that your answer is probably one of the following: your child, partner, siblings, best friend or even your pet.

Ok, here’s your next question:

‘Do you stop caring about them when you go to work?’

Of course you don’t.

You’re the same person; with the same feelings and motivations inside your workplace as when you are at home.  Admittedly, your loved ones may not be constantly in your thoughts when you’re at work (as you have a job to do), but you still care about them.  You probably even have a picture of them on your desk or as a screensaver on your phone?

In which case, why do many B2B brands market to their customers (new and existing) as is if they would be unable to answer these questions? 

Avoiding empathy, sensitivity, humour and friendliness? 

As a creative agency that has the privilege of working with B2B and consumer-facing brands; we know that introducing some of the humanising principles of mainstream marketing into a B2B campaign creates a great impact.

Here’s the proof that we practice what we preach.

Client: VMA Group – market leaders in corporate and marketing communications recruitment.

Objective: Generate awareness of a new lower cost service for more junior positions, without impacting on or devaluing their existing offering.

Audience: Existing clients who have experienced VMA.

We wanted to understand the issues that the audience faced, so used this third-party syndicated research as a foundation:

And we added a few of our own insights as well…

–          The majority of UK Senior HR Professionals are 75.8% female and +35yrs

–          Possibly frustrated with the mundane and repetitive aspects included in their role

–          Regularly experience time pressures

–          They enjoy the ‘human’ element of their role

–          The ‘buying process’ was extended due to stakeholder and procurement involvement

 

But we didn’t stop there, as we felt that there was more to find out….

Additional insights

–          Twice as many females under 55yrs are likely to own a dog than a man of the same age

–          Women feel their dogs are more affectionate than their partners

–          Over the past two years, women have accounted for 51.5% of total Pug registrations

 

So what did we propose?

–          ‘A chip off the old block’

–          ‘New addition to the family’

–          Referring to the quality of the service they had already received from VMA

 

What were the results from the campaign?

The activity has led to the highest response to any campaign in the history of the company.

The morals of the story:

–          Just because you’re marketing to someone whilst they’re at work, don’t forget that they’re human too

–          Use whatever insights you can to shape your marketing campaign

–          Have some fun

You can’t say that this isn’t funny!