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19: The Failed B2B Ad Medium: You Can't Bore Strangers Into Listening & Remembering (Problemotional Advertising)
42 Plays10 months ago
How do you get your marketing message heard, remembered, and shared? The message is what influences buying, but what if it's ignored and forgotten? In this episode, Dylan explains how B2B ads need to communicate in an emotional way about the problem we solve.
Here's the link to the article if you prefer to read:
https://blackcamel.agency/humphub-research/the-failed-b2b-ad-medium-you-cant-bore-strangers-into-listening-remembering/
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Transcript
Introduction to Audio Article
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, what's up guys? This is the audio and video version of the article below. If you failed B2B ad medium, you can't bore strangers into listening and remembering. It's the exact same content, I'm just simply reading it out loud. And depending on how you prefer to consume content, perhaps this is a better way for you. Otherwise, you can just read the article below. Alright, here we
Can the Opposite of a Good Idea Work in Advertising?
00:00:19
Speaker
go. Dear CMO, marketer, VP of marketing, how can the opposite of a good idea still be a good idea in advertising? Why does Babathor the caveman remember to buy a spear at cavemart? How can a boring service make us cry? And most importantly, how does not knowing these answers waste your B2B ad budget?
Perception's Role in Advertising Success
00:00:38
Speaker
First, let's back up a second. In our previous article, the failed ad message, your solution is not a solution without a problem, we explained how advertising is a battle for perception. The reality doesn't matter. What creates the right or wrong perception is the message you put out in your advertising from the very first interaction buyers have with you.
00:00:55
Speaker
There are two possible perceptions that buyers can have of your B2B service. An interchangeable, nice to have, which is caused by a solution-focused message, or an irreplaceable need to have, caused by a problem-focused message. The perception is what determines inbound book calls, win rate, sales cycle length, and customer acquisition costs. In other words, perception determines growth, scalability, and profitability.
Miscommunication and Message Clarity
00:01:18
Speaker
but can't create the right perception if the ad message isn't heard or read, the right perception won't influence buying if the message isn't remembered, and the influence of buying can't be maximized if the message isn't shared. And what determines all of this is how that message is communicated. When I was learning French and living in France, I decided to text one of my friends only in French. I had made plans with a French friend, a female, to go out later that evening to a party.
00:01:44
Speaker
Unfortunately, my level of French wasn't as good as I had thought. I decided to send her a text message. just we exite postwa Pretty good French, right? The message I was trying to say was an innocent, I'm excited for tonight. But because of how I said it, using the wrong word, She understood, I'm horny for tonight.
Choosing the Right Medium and B2B Misalignment
00:02:02
Speaker
Oops, message not received well, I got blocked. If you don't communicate the message you want to put it out in the right way, then it doesn't work the way you want it to. In other words, the right message can't work without the right medium. In this article, we'll break down three key outcomes and how they're achieved by communicating your ad message in an emotional way, aka the medium.
00:02:21
Speaker
instead of rationally like most B2B ads. Outcome number one is that your ads about the problem focused message are heard and read. Outcome number two is that buyers remember you as the irreplaceable need to have solution to the problem when buyers are ready to buy. And outcome number three, your ad viewers share the ad with other people that suffer from the problem. Because word of mouth is and will always be the number one driver of growth. First, we need to understand decision making functions in the buying journey. When we try to communicate using the wrong decision making function in mind, the message is not received effectively. We call this B2B buying journey misalignment.
Rational vs Emotional Marketing on LinkedIn
00:02:57
Speaker
It's the reason most B2B ads are wasting budget and triggering CFO tantrums. Buying journey alignment considers both the stage of awareness, problem versus solution, but also how decisions are made. Previous article focused on the stages of awareness, problem versus solution. This article is about decision making.
00:03:14
Speaker
If you're pretty active on LinkedIn you might appreciate this little story here. On LinkedIn, there are two factions waging war against each other. Laying waste to the LinkedIn feed, we hold so near and dear to our hearts. Each believes they know how B2B buyers receive messages and make decisions. Rationally or emotionally. We call this the B2B marketing communication war. Faction leaders drop heated comments onto each other's posts, conduct drive-by DMs, and partake in public shaming via memes. Bystanding LinkedIn citizens are no longer able to have peaceful conversations about their weekend plans and kid's soccer games without being disrupted by the raging guerrilla comment warfare. One faction, the United Rational Alliance, the U.R.A.,
00:03:54
Speaker
is composed of traditionalists that champion the need to communicate rationally in B2B. They believe emotions are for impulsive B2C decisions, not $100,000 deals, and that complex purchases with high-stakes demand logic.
The Black Camel Peace Corps: Finding Middle Ground
00:04:08
Speaker
The URA are a quieter people compared to their counterparts, but do not be mistaken by their lack of noise. Their presence is numerous in B2B marketing. The opposing faction, the Democratic Emotional Revolutionaries, the DER, is composed of progressive that have rebelled against the URA's long-standing rule over B2B marketing. For years, they hid in the shadows of the outer territories, Reddit, TikTok, Indoor, slowly converting new followers to their cause, primarily dopamine-addicted Gen Z, and only recently they have gained enough TikTok dancing followers to launch a coup. So, who is right? Should B2B marketing be rational or emotional? Which ideology drives
Rational and Emotional Elements in B2B Decision-Making
00:04:47
Speaker
more revenue?
00:04:47
Speaker
Well, dear marketing reader, we have forgotten to mention that there exists an alternative faction, the Black Camel Peace Corps. We've created a third faction to unite both ideologies, ensuring LinkedIn harmony and profitable B2B campaigns. Consider this counter-intuitive idea. The opposite of a good idea can also be a good idea. Both factions believe B2B buying is either emotional or rational. Mutually exclusive. But by analyzing their commentary, we've found the hidden piece of the puzzle. They're both right and both wrong. How can that be? The emotional faction makes claims like, you can't get attention when you're boring, emotion creates an attachment to the brand and helps people remember it when they're ready to buy, emotion is what inspires people to take action and learn more.
00:05:30
Speaker
The rational faction makes claims like when someone thinks about buying a $500,000 service, they're thinking about the ins and outs of it for months.
Emotional Influence in Micro-Decisions
00:05:39
Speaker
That's deep and rational thinking. When someone thinks about buying such a complex service, they need trust. They need to trust those experts. They need information and cold hard facts. When someone thinks about buying, they need to measure the value against the costs. And while these are all very different claims, they're actually both right because one is making claims about apples and the other about oranges. They're talking about decision making at different moments in the buying journey. B2B decision making in the buying journey is both emotional and rational. It just depends on when. Modern humans in 2024 make, on average, 33,000 to 35,000 decisions each day.
00:06:18
Speaker
That might sound pretty surprising, especially if you're like me who takes two hours to decide on which Netflix movie to watch. Usually when we talk about decision-making, we think about it as a long process of thinking that takes months leading to one decision. Did you decide on which college you want to go to? Did you decide where you want to buy the house? Did you decide on the baby's name yet? Luke or Obi-Wan Kenobi? But in reality, there are thousands of smaller decisions that make up these big decisions. To make it easier to understand, we call these micro-decisions. The same happens in the buying journey. There are many micro-decisions that lead up to the one big decision. Do we buy this expensive B2B service? The very first micro-decision that occurs is when a buyer sees an ad from your brand. The moment in which your brand is a complete stranger. Do I pay attention to to this ad or do I scroll by?
00:07:04
Speaker
This micro-decision takes you about one or two seconds to make, and it's primarily emotional. You are not there, looking at the ad, thinking for 10 minutes, okay, this is an ad, should I pay attention to it? Well, let's do a cost-benefit analysis, find some success stories from others that have benefited from consuming this ad, and discuss with my team to hear their thoughts. I hope you don't do that. Only later on in the buying journey, your micro-decisions become more rational. Is this the right service that will solve my problem? If I use $50,000 on this service, what's the opportunity cost? What are the potential negative consequences if we buy the wrong service or product? The micro-decisions in the beginning of the buying journey are more emotional because it's about attention, memory, and sharing. Which ads do you pay attention to? Which ads in their message do you remember? Which ads in their message do you share with colleagues or friends?
00:07:51
Speaker
Surely you don't say, hey Tim, just wanted to share this video with you. It was really boring and it made me think of you. The micro decisions in the end of the buying journey are more rational because it's about evaluation, justification, and risk management. Aligning our communication with buyers micro decisions and ensures our message and influences them, guiding buyers to the ultimate decision, buying from our brand. This is why B2B advertising needs to be communicated emotionally. Advertising influences buyers in the beginning of the buying journey when they are not yet evaluating justifying and managing
Rational vs Emotional Advertising: Outcomes
00:08:22
Speaker
risk. But what happens if we don't align with how they make these micro-decisions and make our ads too rational, like most B2B companies?
00:08:29
Speaker
Let's look at each of the three main outcomes comparing rational advertising and emotional advertising. We'll use everyday examples, scientifically backed research, and excerpts from our B2B communication advisor, Baba Thor, the caveman, to explain. The first outcome. When you communicate emotionally, your ads about the problem-focused message are heard and read. What gets our attention? How does one decide what to give their attention to and when? Well, it depends. Sometimes we give our attention to something unintentionally. A beautiful person walks by us and smiles. We look back, staring, and bam, we walked straight into a pole because we weren't paying attention to the right thing. Sometimes we give our attention to something intentionally. For New Year's, we decide we're going to pay more attention to the gym and what kinds of food we're going to be eating.
00:09:11
Speaker
We make the conscious and intentional decision to pay attention. But here's the thing, no one is intentionally making the decision of seeking out our ads. People may, however, intentionally make the conscious decision of booking a call with us. Again, this is because of the difference in decision making in the buying journey, beginning versus the end. So if we can't get buyers, aka complete strangers, to intentionally consume our ads, how do we get them to do it unintentionally?
Capturing Attention and Memory Through Emotion
00:09:36
Speaker
We use basic human psychology and evolution. Think back to our ancestors living in caves and fighting for survival. We'll use our buddy, Bobathor the caveman, as an example. We'll call him Bob for short. Picture this. Bob is taking a leisure walk in the woods on his way to the local cave mart. Save money, survive better. The sounds of nature surround him. Birds chirping, river flowing, wind in the leaves. But all of a sudden, he hears crumpling sticks and leaves nearby and immediately turns around, his heart pounding with adrenaline. Bob sees a big bad wolf ready to attack. Let's look at the situation through a psychological lens. Bob is receiving lots of stimuli, the landscape, birds, river flowing, but a certain stimulus stands out in his mind, the sound of crumpling leaves. His brain makes him pay attention to it by making him feel emotions, fear and adrenaline. This is what makes him pay attention instinctively to the problem, wolf, so he would be ready to fight or flee in order to survive. Emotions are deeply embedded in our biology and are linked to survival.
00:10:33
Speaker
Our brains are wired to pay attention to emotionally significant events because they often carry important information for our well-being. For example, fear can signal danger while joy can indicate a beneficial situation. Evolutionary trait helps us prioritize and respond to stimuli that may impact our survival or well-being. Whether you're browsing through LinkedIn, TV channels, or a predator infested forest, you're bombarded with stimuli. And the best way for something to stand out and require your selective attention is emotion. Our buddy Bobathor didn't hear the crumpling leaves and sit down to ponder for an hour whether or not he should turn around and pay attention to the stimuli. It was instinctive, subconscious, and immediate. It was not a rational decision. Remember Bobathor's words of wisdom on the matter. Me no think, me feel, then me look. Okay, outcome number two. When you communicate emotionally, buyers remember you as the irreplaceable need to have solution when they are ready to buy. Why, where, and how does memory of your ad messages matter?
00:11:33
Speaker
How many times has a stranger given you directions where you enthusiastically assure them you've heard them? Yep, yep, turn right, turn left, left again, great, got it, thanks. Then you turn around on your way and poof, you've completely forgotten how to get to your destination. You can hear and understand a message, but if you don't remember it when it matters, it's completely ineffective. Let's say your problem-focused message is received and understood. By owning the problem in the buyer's mind and connecting it to the pains they feel, You have successfully created the perception in the buyer's mind that you are the irreplaceable need to have solution. This is worth a big pat on the back. Most B2B ads don't get this far. But here's the thing. Most B2B buyers are not ready at that moment to buy. When in the buying journey doesn't matter to be remembered. Remember, the buying journey consists of many micro decisions leading to the final purchase. Buyers need to remember you and your message at each step. When they see your other ads, they remember the problem you solve and decide that they should listen to what else you have to say about it.
00:12:30
Speaker
because it's valuable to them instead of scrolling by. When they see your marketing content, they remember that you understand their pains and care, so they decide to take the time to read all your content. When they are researching how to solve the current pains, they remember that you helped rid the pains caused by a specific problem, and then decide to go to your website to learn how to solve it. When they are shortlisting services to buy, they remember you as a solution to an important and urgent problem, deciding to put you at the top of the list. When they're with peers from their network, they remember to mention you as the solution to the problem their peers also suffer from. If you don't believe this is how it works, well, just imagine the opposite. Start from the bottom of that list, go back and replace the word remember with forgotten. Doesn't quite work. Of course, the buying journey isn't always as linear as we like to think with our oversimplified explanations and graphics.
00:13:18
Speaker
It's much messier. But we use these examples to highlight that if your brand is forgotten in each of these key deciding moments, you've wasted ad budget on could have been buyers that never end up buying from you. So how do emotions get your brand remembered? Highly emotive ads are three times more likely to be remembered than ads with a weak emotional response. It might seem logical to think that what gets you remembered is by talking about what's important to the buyers. Their problems, what they want, ah ROI, etc. And although the message has a huge impact on this, a problem focused message will be remembered more than a random abstract concepts or super
Emotional Advertising and Word of Mouth
00:13:52
Speaker
generic promises. Communicating it emotionally has an even greater impact.
00:13:56
Speaker
Consider your own personal life. Which do you remember more in detail? The first time you brushed your teeth or your first kiss? The day you filled out your first job application or the first day at your job? The last time you did groceries or the moment you proposed or were proposed to? Yes, I know, we're getting old. Luckily for you, those emotional experiences helped you remember so well it feels like yesterday. Quickly think back on your childhood. Browse through a few memories. We can say with almost 100% certainty that the memories that came to mind were moments where emotions were running high, positively or negatively, and the ones where emotions were felt most, you can remember them in vivid detail.
00:14:34
Speaker
Emotional events are processed more deeply and remembered more so we can guide future behavior in decision making. Baba Thor needs to remember how he almost died from a wolf so he can change his future behavior to survive. Emotions are what make us remember the ad message about the problem. Or as wise old Baba Thor would say, me remember wolf, me buy spear at cavemart. You need B2B buyers saying, me remember problem, me remember you, me buy your solution. Outcome number three, when you communicate emotionally, your ad viewers share the ad with other people that suffer from the problem. Sharing an ad? What? Bet you didn't even think that sharing a B2B ad was something people even did. That's because we're so caught up in trying to figure out why only
00:15:15
Speaker
half a percent of ad viewers pay attention to our boring ads in the first place, that we forget that an ad could be something someone wants to share with others. An ad isn't something people have to suffer through. Advertising plays a big part in marketing. It's one of the most scalable and measurable ways of acquiring new customers. You wouldn't be reading this if it wasn't. But as one of our favorite marketers, Christopher Lockhead says, word of mouth is, was, and always will be the most powerful marketing. Word of mouth generates five times more sales than paid advertising across various industries, according to SEMrush. Why? It's human. We spread word about a solution to a problem to help others, being motivated by a sense of belonging, emotional connection, social currency, etc. The reason word of mouth is so effective is that it gets the right words about the problem you solve into the right minds, the people that suffer from the problem, communicated by the right person, a trusted friend or colleague.
00:16:12
Speaker
Oh, and also it's free. And if you've read the first three of our articles, people buy solutions to their problems. So how does emotion lead to ads being shared? Can any emotion boost sharing? Jonah Berger, author of Contagious, Why Things Catch On, explains how emotions make us share. Berger, well, I hope I'm pronouncing his name correctly, and his team spent years analyzing the New York Times' most emailed list, news articles shared by email. To understand why certain pieces of online content were shared and went viral. From his book, talking to others often makes emotional experiences better. If we get promoted, telling others helps us celebrate. If we get fired, telling others helps us vent. Emotion sharing is thus a bit like social glue, maintaining and strengthening relationships.
00:16:58
Speaker
A simple way to sum it up, we share when we care. As the hypothesis, the content that was ranked as more interesting or useful was shared more than others. But what they didn't expect to find was that emotion and what type of emotion had the biggest impact on the virality of the content. When it comes to emotional communication, there are two dimensions to consider. Dimension one, the most obvious dimension, is it positive emotion or negative emotion? Does it feel good or does it feel
Bobathor's Insights into Emotional Advertising
00:17:24
Speaker
bad? But what's less obvious is that whether the emotion we feel is positive or negative doesn't actually affect its virality. That brings us to dimension two. What does affect virality is the second dimension of emotions. Is it a higher arousal emotion or low arousal emotion?
00:17:39
Speaker
Arousal is a state of readiness for action. It stems from our fight or flight nature. When we feel high arousal emotions, we do things. When we feel low arousal emotions, we do nothing. Take a look at this table. We'll let our guest speaker, Baba Thor, explain how the level of arousal affects action. When me feel excited, me run. When me feel angry, me hit. When me see funny thing, me tell tribe. But when me feel relaxed, me do nothing. Me feel sad, me do nothing. And if me feel nothing, me do nothing. When we communicate with the right emotions, buyers take action. We want B2B buyers to see our ad and say, me see ad, me laugh, me tell network.
00:18:17
Speaker
To easily remember all three of the outcomes of emotional advertising. Be heard. Be remembered. Be shared. Boba Thor yet again speaks his beautifully articulated words of wisdom. Me see wolf. Me remember wolf. Me tell tribe. All tribe by spear at cavemart.
Is B2B Too Boring for Emotional Advertising?
00:18:33
Speaker
When you plan your B2B ads, always think of Bobathor. Wait one more minute. How can we be emotional when our B2B brand, service, or industry is so boring? Perhaps by now you understand the importance of communicating in an emotional way for B2B ads. But you can't quite visualize how it could possibly work for your B2B service. We're not fun. We don't sell B2C products like beer or knitted cat hats.
00:18:55
Speaker
Let's look at one of the most boring possible services to advertise. A search engine. Google's blank interface doesn't quite scream adrenaline junkie. Although it's technically not a B2B example, it is equally boring like most B2B services. At Google, a designer once had to justify why a certain toolbar should use the color blue with quantitative research. That doesn't sound like a typical boring B2B company, what does? And yet Google pulled off one of the most emotional, problem-emotional ads ever created. Despite being an advertisement, it was shared and went viral. Now I won't try to explain the ad, it's best that you see it, so check it out in the article itself. But I will say that the problem-focused message is, we all have unique and situational questions about everything in life and need them answered, and the high arousal emotion that you feel is awe.
00:19:44
Speaker
I have watched that ad several times and it has made me cry. So you'll definitely love it. Crying in a good way, don't worry. Google is not the only one. We've got a whole list of other boring B2B services that communicate emotionally in the beginning of the buying journey. You can check that out in our YouTube playlist we where we analyze pro-emotional ads from brands like Salesforce, Workdesk, Slack, Win.ai, Teamwork.com, Zendesk. So I challenge you to click through, watch those ads and try not to laugh or cry.