B2B effective cases that are not B2Boring
I recently spent 10 hours reviewing B2B effectiveness case studies. This is where I’m sharing them. Each made to be digested in one minute or less.
The structure is simple. Business problem. Reframed problem. Solution. Results. It's designed to inspire your next creative brief. Nice and easy.
Why am I writing about this at all? Two reasons:
We talk a lot about reframing problems, but I don't see enough practical examples of this done well. That starts to change now.
B2B is often synonymous with boring. I want to be part of what we could call 'the anti-B2Boring club'. Hope you'll join me there.
Let’s get into them.
BT Enterprise
Business problem
BT was losing market share among UK SMEs, due to quite low consideration despite high awareness. They were seen as remote, disinterested, expensive.
Reframed problem
Don’t compete on price, compete on value perceptions. SME life is never boring and full of drama, so SME owners don't need soft empathetic messages. What they really want is a reliable problem solver.
Solution
A campaign that’s 'All business. No drama.'. They used humour to show everyday SME difficulties. And they positioned their product benefits around removing unnecessary drama from business operations.
Results
+22 points in product quality perceptions. +11 points in brand trust. +7 points in brand consideration. Short-term ROMI of £6.32 per £1 spent. Long-term ROMI of £13.52 per £1. Dramatically good.
Dallas Regional Chamber
Business problem
Vaccination rates in Texas dropped to dangerously low levels. In fact, 48% of North Texans were not planning to get the COVID-19 vaccine. And messages from politicians, celebrities and scientists simply weren’t working.
Reframed problem
Texans were more worried about economic survival than health. So, DRC went beyond partisan messages and focused on maintaining livelihoods. No vaccinations costed businesses money.
Solution
The 'Take Care of Business' campaign, fronted by local business leaders as trusted messengers focused on economic recovery. Plus, targeted messages for conservatives (focus on freedom), to Spanish-speaking segments ("Manos A La Obra") and businesses (protect your paychecks).
Results
625k more North Texans vaccinated in under 100 days.
QuickBooks
Business problem
Hispanic small business owners were hesitant to invest in tech. Many perceived their business was too small for advanced tools. And QuickBooks had a low baseline awareness among this group.
Reframed problem
Demonstrate that size is not determined by initial scale. In fact, for every time Hispanic business owners saw a"small venture", QuickBooks would remind them it was a "potential enterprise".
Solution
The 'Think Ote' campaign, which challenged Hispanic small business owners to think "ote" (large) not "ito" (small). Fronted by football star Chicharito (nickname meaning “little pea”), who achieved big things despite his nickname. Executed in English, Spanish, and Spanglish.
Results
Growth in brand awareness (+27 points), familiarity (+36 points) and consideration (+86 points). Growth in new Hispanic users by 96% vs previous year. 43% lower cost per acquisition. ¡Dios mío!
PERGRAPHICA®
Business problem
Mondi’s paper business was in significant decline. And despite ok growth, PERGRAPHICA® only had 7% brand awareness. They needed to win market share more consistently, with a small budget, in a struggling sector.
Reframed problem
They didn’t try to get competitors to switch intermediaries. Instead they focused on targeting end users, like creatives and designers. And they changed the focus to how paper is chosen, not just which paper is chosen.
Solution
The 'Catching Feels' campaign, which highlighted the sensory experience of physically touching paper. They partnered with Adobe to show how striking photography and illustration can leap off the page with the right premium paper. And created a lookbook with 300+ images from Adobe Stock, printed on 16 paper varieties, linking to behind-the-scenes maker videos.
Results
Increased sales volume by 85%, despite price increases of 8%. Doubled market share from 13% to 25%, exceeding the 17% target. Sales enquiries grew 87% and project conversion rates grew 10%.
Procell
Business problem
Procell needed to increase market share in the business battery space, despite being 30% more expensive than competitors. In classic fashion, procurement departments preferred familiar brands at lower prices. And to make things more difficult, Procell had low brand awareness (23%) vs Energizer (38%).
Reframed problem
Go from 'cost to buy' to 'cost to replace', by focusing on the hidden labour costs of battery replacement, which are 9x bigger than the battery cost itself. The task: make the invisible cost of cheap batteries visible and memorable.
Solution
'The Battery Changers', a campaign featuring comedic characters who represented the wasteful labour costs of replacing batteries. They went to market through a communication strategy designed to Disrupt (break through apathy), Demonstrate (show the extent of the problem) and Deliver (provide savings calculator). And delivered physical 'Battery Changer Dolls' to businesses, to capture their attention around the cost of cheap batteries.
Results
+6 points on 'longer lasting' perceptions. -15 points on ‘too expensive’ perceptions. +7 points on top of mind and unaided awareness. +12% revenue growth and +10% market share growth compared to the previous year.
Royal Mail
Business problem
The UK's Royal Mail produced half the CO2 per parcel versus competitors due to on-foot deliveries, but few businesses knew about it. So they needed to communicate this to decision-makers to increase adoption of their services.
Reframed problem
Rather than go broad, Royal Mail went targeted. They focused on 10 of the UK's most sustainability-focused retailers. And made the environmental advantage tangible and visible, by personalising the message they sent them.
Solution
A personalised 'box within a box' direct mail campaign, where the larger box represented competitor CO2, and the smaller box represented Royal Mail's 50% lower emissions in comparison. Each box was customised with the target brand's colours and imagery. And included QR codes linking to dedicated landing pages for easier sales follow-up, and to track impact.
Results
Meaningful contact with 100% of targeted brands. 60% of targeted brands visited the landing page via the QR codes. Growth in sales pipeline. 300x ROI.
Sage
Business problem
Sage invented the accounting software category but had become a fragmented business due to a long history of product acquisitions. They were now perceived as the old school option in the category. And 95% of their marketing costs were spent on in-market customers, not very effectively.
Reframed problem
Rather than focusing on B2B software benefits, Sage focused on how business audiences felt alone and unheard in the category. They chose to target professionals who bring their whole humanity to work. And they focused on the true human impact of finances and bookkeeping in a business.
Solution
Sage created the 'Voices of Business' platform, championing unscripted customer stories around vulnerable and messy truths in business. They paired human stories with a distinct and vibrant animated world. And executed a full global rebrand across 8 markets and 1,000+ assets.
Results
+31% lift in ad recall. Leading on ‘empathy’ scores, +6 points higher than the nearest competitor. +9% growth in ARR. 101% renewal rates, which sounds weird, but means customers not only renewed, they also increased spend!
State Street Global Advisors
Business problem
State Street Global Advisors had a struggling ETF product. MDY, which tracked the top 400 US mid-sized companies, had a 10-year trading decline. Investors saw mid-caps as mediocre, often defaulting to a balanced portfolio of large-caps (for stability) and small-caps (for growth). Mid-caps were only 11% of portfolios, despite representing 24% of the US equity market.
Reframed problem
They didn’t focus on why you should invest in mid-caps, but on what happens if you took them away. Classic loss aversion. Plus, financial advisors are 5x more likely to play golf, so they used golf to make this analogy feel more vivid and relatable to the audience. Therefore they could demonstrate how crucial the middle actually is to give you the performance you need.
Solution
The MDY Mid-Cap Cup, where golf legends play without their middle clubs for the first 9 holes, and then again with their full bag. Executed as a 10-minute hero film with a showdown between Annika Sorenstam and Tony Finau, hosted by Marc Evan Jackson. And they hosted a live MDY Mid-Cap Cup event, where top clients tried playing golf without their middle clubs.
Results
3x digital engagement compared to industry averages. 55x ROI from the client activation event. +16% in assets under management, an all-time high.
Tesco Mobile
Business problem
The UK SME market was dominated by major telco networks. And Tesco Mobile only had 9% share of voice in the category. They lacked the business credibility of other more established providers, so a typical uphill battle.
Reframed problem
Targeting was the answer. They decided to specifically go after blue-collar tradespeople with fewer than 10 employees, which felt ignored by major networks and already trusted Tesco. They didn’t focus on price (despite being 40% cheaper), but instead on the convenience that Tesco Mobile is available in any Tesco store. This allowed them to flip the narrative from 'Why would you switch your mobile service to a supermarket?' to 'Why wouldn't you?'.
Solution
Tesco Mobile positioned itself as 'The mobile network with the convenience you'd expect from a supermarket'. They adopted the look and feel of their live and already successful 'Supermarket Mobile' campaign, to benefit from its existing effects. And recognising that tradespeople spend much of their day in their van, the channel strategy included trade magazine ads, radio sponsorships on talkSPORT, and targeted sandwich counters.
Results
+30% sales volume vs target. £2.19 for every £1 in ROMI. Yummy stuff.
Tide
Business problem
UK fintech Tide needed to reduce customer acquisition costs, and previous approaches used generic targeting with varying results. So, they needed to identify their most receptive segments in order to grow more profitably.
Reframed problem
They didn’t just look at number of businesses to reach, but the business lifecycles. Through customer and campaign data, they identified businesses celebrating their first-year anniversary had higher response rates to Tide comms. Therefore they targeted businesses who were ready to go from survive mode (early results) to thrive mode (long-term success).
Solution
A targeted direct mail campaign addressing this quite specific segment. Featuring a congratulatory tone for this first-year milestone, with stories of other businesses like them thriving with Tide's support. And a clear call to action offering £100 discount for sign-ups, to track direct responses.
Results
5x higher response rate vs expectations. -78% cost per acquisition vs previous campaigns. -25% cost per acquisition compared to industry standards.+6% in NPS vs months where there was no direct mail campaign.
Toolstation
Business problem
Trade customers were stuck using traditional catalogues, and felt high resistance to switch to Toolstation’s ecommerce app. On top of this, they saw any marketing messages about shopping behaviour as irritating, which wasn’t helping with brand equity or their business priorities.
Reframed problem
Customers weren’t being stubborn. It’s just they hadn’t resonated with the real reason to use an app instead. Toolstation’s insight was that trade customers value speed above all else, because time is money, and delays mean lost revenue. So they specifically focused on the benefit of speed.
Solution
This led to the ‘Witness the Quickness’ campaign. They identified specific chokepoint moments in the customer moments where delays happened, like in-store queues or website slowdowns. And then created contextual comms speaking to those frustrations, in the style of explosive movie posters to emphasise speed. This then got rolled out across all owned channels too.
Results
+87% increase in app downloads. +265% increase in app revenue. £5:1 ROMI. And an effective shift of entrenched customer behaviour by being specific.
Workday
Business problem
Workday was operating in one of the sexiest categories ever. HR software! But no, the deeper problem was this: that's all they were known for. Which, in turn, limited growth in other segments like finance professionals. As a result, they were seeing a slower pipeline growth and struggling to expand their customer base. So they needed to fundamentally widen their market appeal.
Reframed problem
Everyone glorifies the CEOs of the world. No one glorifies HR, finance, or IT, not really. They're traditionally seen as unsexy, back-office executive functions. Even though their roles had been evolving for years as proper drivers of business growth. In a way, they were the rockstars no one talked about. So Workday decided to position them as the real stars of business.
Solution
The ‘Rockstar’ campaign. Hosted by actual rockstars. Ozzy Osbourne. Joan Jett. Billy Idol. Gary Clark Jr. Paul Stanley. The whole thing first ran at the Super Bowl, but they’ve done new executions since then. They created vintage band posters. They even embedded this idea in the customer experience, by giving their 17,000 employees branded materials to work with.
Results
4.35 billion earned impressions. #10 in AdMeter, beating all B2B brands. Widespread coverage in popular culture outlets. +63% in consideration among those who recalled the campaign (vs 38% in control group). +50% increase in the value of marketing-qualified leads. Incremental $268 million in lead value vs projections. Outperformed Nasdaq performance by 21.3%.
Xero
Business problem
Xero had been in the UK for 10 years, but was struggling. They had a solid product, but were consistently behind Sage and QuickBooks. Lower brand awareness. Lower on consideration metrics. Minimal share of voice (competitors outspent them 10:1!). And previous TV campaigns hadn’t contributed to lasting growth. Plus, they were perceived as more expensive.
Reframed problem
They realised business owners were people first, so they focused on the emotional experience of running a business. And they primed a larger group of customers who weren’t buying yet, to increase their odds of considering Xero when that time would come. So they reframed accounting from a recessive fulfiller of tasks, to accounting as the conduit to business success.
Solution
The ‘Healthy Business’ campaign, which used humour and entertainment to break through category dullness. They featured alternative reality scenarios featuring comedian Rhys Darby, which brought wit to the communications. In effect, they followed a trojan horse approach: deliver important and rational messages through entertaining communications. Beautiful stuff.
Results
+194% increase in unaided awareness. +90% increase in consideration. +340+ increase in brand equity. +156% increase in trust perception. +85% growth in market share. 1 million subscribers 7 months ahead of target. +10% more subscribers per quarter on average. £2.11:1 gross profit ROMI. Double digit year-on-year revenue growth during campaign period. And +12% year-on-year growth from long-term brand building effects.
Goodness me
Cool stuff, right? Even what feel like 'boring briefs' can benefit from not-boring thinking. Anything has potential to be reframed and make budgets work harder. And the bar for B2B can be… erm, quite low. So aim high(er)!
Sources for these: APG, DMA, Effies, IPA, Jay Chiat Awards, Marketing Society. Legit, trusted organisations. I can't share the paywalled papers publicly. But, if you email me, we can work it out. Or if you want access to my private strategy swipe file, where I save my favourite papers, join the Salmon Crew.
