I will put the disclaimer for this blog right up front.
I work for a B2B (Business to Business) advertising agency, so there is a vested interest here.
However that doesn’t distract from the fact that most B2B advertising is appalling.
And it’s appalling on so many levels.
Go through a B2B publication, there are hundreds of them, and you will see what I mean.
The ads lack a strategy or an idea, are poorly written, poorly branded and look like they were designed by the boss’s 3 year old.
They make a dog’s breakfast look like the winner from Master Chef.
You could almost expect a lack of creativity and communication skills in an ad for an EP/NN100 Coal Mining Conveyor Belt from the Shuangma Rubber Co Ltd.
But why is it well-known consumer brands suddenly take on a chameleon persona as soon as they run an ad in a trade publication? They spent millions of dollar building equity into their consumer brands then flush it down the toilet, by running a trade ad that mimics the rest of the dross in the magazine.
Isn’t the consumer, who is looking to buy an industrial air conditioner for a factory, the same one who might be looking to put a reverse cycle wall unit into the family room?
There shouldn’t be one brand strategy for consumer ads and another, inferior one, for B2B.
The consumer sees one brand and it’s bad for business if that brand doesn’t see one consumer.
