B2B marketing has a stick up its butt.
Yes, I really just said that.
Today I run high performing marketing and SDR teams at global B2B marketing agency Unbound IA. I used to helm the global technology agenda at WPP’s SJR the generative content agency network that seamlessly straddles consumer work and hard-core science and technology B2B marketing. Before that, years of my life were spent pouring my passion and energy into the customer experience design of some of the world’s biggest consumer brands. Think Unilever, Diageo, Ford. Spotify. HSBC. Pfizer. And yes, even ExxonMobil, and BP (gasp).
Outbound • Inbound
So safe to say I’ve seen my fair share of strategic thinking, creative vision, and real-world experience design where those lofty platforms come to meet their audience.
What I have noticed across B2B leaders of many types be it CMOs, brand strategists, creative directors, or even campaign managers is a haughtiness about the world of consumer marketing.
Funnily enough, I spent 4 years marketing yoghurt. Our food innovation lab in Barcelona innovated Danone’s yoghurt pots, whilst our team in London collaborated with tech giants to develop on-pack promotion digital experiences that drove a 34% increase in self-reported understanding of the gut microbiome in just one engagement. I personally ran product development workshops with Danone’s microbiologists to figure out how a humble daily dairy moment could meaningfully improve regular folks’ health across Europe. It is a saturated market, a commoditized product, and an unforgiving wall of same at the supermarket.
To market yoghurt is to be humbled. Maybe it’s time B2B marketers took a spoonful.
The argument broadly goes: B2B marketers have a harder job because business-to-business tech products are hard to make look seductive, have longer sales cycles, and involve larger buying committees. Ergo, it’s harder than selling a consumer product. Besides being reductive and unhelpfully tribal, it’s also missing key learnings all B2B marketers can get from consumer brand marketers. Here’s what I learned after over a decade of doing both and how as a B2B leader you can stop othering and start learning right now.
01
The best consumer brands are obsessed with their customers.
F&B CMOs know everything about their customer’s day and where their product fits into it. Clayton Christensen’s masterclass on what role a fast-food milkshake plays in the daily commute of the average American is required viewing for any marketer, consumer or B2B. Give it a Google.
02
The entire customer experience is designed, and nothing is left to chance.
Forgotten a mate’s birthday? Fashion giant Zara lets you send a gift directly with a video message, delivered as a QR code inside the parcel with no invoice slips in sight. On a long-haul United flight, a simple DND function lets crew know whether to wake you for food service obvious in hindsight; intentionally designed by a customer experience professional to reduce cognitive load of tired traveler’s.
03
Consumer knows that organic referral is the growth engine of dreams.
Exponential growth happens as CAC tumbles in direct correlation the stuff of marketing dreams. Direct-to-consumer brands like Glossier understood that making it easy and joyful to share the product experience would work harder than any paid campaign. When so much word-of-mouth happens in “dark social,” making it easy to boast about the product and refer friends becomes core to GTM strategy.
04
Consumer brands that thrive hero the customer as a tastemaker.
Luxury has played this game for over a century, but the rise of the millennial-targeted aspirational brand turned taste into a status symbol for the masses. When Casamigos transformed a commodity product tequila into a moment of glamour, they won an already saturated category. The lesson isn’t about luxury. It’s about identity as a competitive moat.
05
Brand is a key driver of trust, and trust drives stickiness.
Especially in regulated categories healthcare, insurance, financial services, cybersecurity, manufacturing the burden of figuring out whether the other guy can be trusted is enormous. A trustworthy brand brings new customers in faster and keeps them longer. I still save with the Royal Bank of Scotland, where my mother opened my first account at age 3. Yes, I have Monzo, Revolut, and Wise. But my salary doesn’t go into any of those neobanks.
B2B marketers are doing a huge job and never more so than in 2026. With brand-building top of the agenda in a zero-click, agentic world, and pipeline pressure relentless, leaders have to do more with less than ever before. Those winning are straddling both worlds: building brand and demand simultaneously.
There is so much growth to unlock by applying core consumer brand-building lessons to the B2B marketing cycle. We just need to get down off our pedestals first.
