Let’s take an example of a B2B telecom company that wants to brand and market its solutions. Its strength lies in flexible architecture and reliable infrastructure. The company hires a generalist, read it as an advertising agency, and briefs them about its values, vision, competition, solutions and a bagful of industry terminologies like ‘multi-level redundancy’, ‘intelligent real-time call routing’, etc. It is very unlikely that the agency head is going to give the new B2B telecom account to his best team that produces award winning works like ‘mint with the hole’ or ‘citi never sleeps’. Nor the agency will display the same level of enthusiasm as working on automobiles or gums or soaps or any other consumer product. Most consumer agencies would love to strategize and promote intangible benefits. They would want to fantasize and fascinate people. They would want to see their work all around them – print publications, TV and radio. The choice is clear for them.

B2B branding should be entrusted to B2B specialists who have seen it and done it before. Specialists who read the same industry trade journals as you do; spend sleeping hours on industry trend reports and research papers; and finally understand complex business operations if not as much as you do.

The right B2B Specialist is the one who can produce strategic and tactical messages around the pains of a business buyer in a creative and coherent manner. That results in leads and profits for the seller and not awards and agency commissions for a generalist.

agency commission architecture B2B telecom company intangible benefits multi-level redundancy print publications radio strategic messages TV