Why B2B needs Don Draper

B2B marketing has a problem. It’s become repetitive, overly rational, and hyper-focused on the short-term. What B2B needs is to go back to its roots. What B2B needs, is Don Draper.

Don Draper is to marketers what Father Christmas is to children. Legendary. And he wouldn’t recognise the B2B marketing industry if he were here today.

There’s been a shift across B2B marketing, a move to focusing on the short-term prioritisation of sales. People want to run a campaign and see the immediate ROI of their campaign. But in our haste to short-term results, we’ve lost the ability to look to the future, to create brand equity and understand that it might take longer to see the ROI, but when it does come in – it’ll be worth it. There’s also been a misunderstanding of what ‘emotional advertising’ really involves.

What Don Draper believed in was the power of advertising through emotional connection. He intuitively knew that storytelling and finding that human truth to connect with your audience was the real golden ticket. And when you tell a story that no-one forgets, your brand is front of mind your customer is ready to buy, and that’s the most potent sales opportunity there is.

It’s one thing to list the problems in B2B, but it’s another to give the solutions. And if you’re interested in those solutions then check out our co-founder, Richard Parson’s episode of The 414, a video podcast, where he chats with James Rostance on why B2B needs Don Draper – the issues in the industry and how the solutions are just in front of (or behind) us. All we need is human insight and creativity to bring it to life.

With a deep dive into the pitfalls of B2B’s overemphasis on the short-term and how we can overcome this to refocus on long-term brand success; they discuss the empirical evidence behind the benefits of fame, dominating a market’s share of mind, and a real-life example that showcases the power of memorability.

Check out The 414 ‘Why B2B needs Don Draper’ for more