The rules of B2B marketing are constantly changing. What worked yesterday won't necessarily work today. . .or tomorrow. This blog presents information, opinion, and speculation about where B2B marketing is headed.
Edelman and LinkedIn recently published their 2025 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report, which was based on a survey of 1,934 management-level business professionals from a wide range of industries and company sizes. The survey was conducted March 17 - April 3, 2025.
The primary focus of this year's study was "hidden buyers" - people in the buying organization who influence a purchase decision even though they are not a primary user of the product or service being considered.
The 2025 report includes several survey findings for "hidden buyers" and "target buyers," defined as follows:
Hidden Buyers - "People who . . . are a final decision-maker in group purchasing decisions and are primarily involved as a representative of a function that does not require in-depth knowledge of the specific product or service. These functions might include finance, operations, legal, compliance, procurement, and others."
Target Buyers - "People who . . . are both a final decision-maker and are primarily involved as an expert in the service or product being offered."
Here are some of the major findings from the Edelman/LinkedIn report.
Consumption and Use of Thought Leadership
Hidden buyers consume as much thought leadership content as target buyers. Sixty-three percent (63%) of the hidden buyer survey respondents said they spend an hour per week (on average) consuming thought leadership, compared to 64% of target buyer respondents.
Fifty-five percent (55%) of the hidden buyer survey respondents reported using thought leadership content to evaluate potential vendors, compared to 56% of target buyer respondents.
Impact on Marketing/Sales Interactions
Seventy-one percent (71%) of the hidden buyer survey respondents reported having little or no interaction with vendor sales reps. However, 95% said that strong thought leadership content made them more receptive to marketing and sales outreach from companies producing such content.
Attributes of Strong Thought Leadership
Ninety-one percent (91%) of the hidden buyer survey respondents said that a key attribute of high-quality thought leadership content is that it helps them uncover challenges, needs, or opportunities that they hadn't previously recognized.
Two Controversial Findings
The Edelman/LinkedIn report contains two somewhat controversial findings. In this study, the researchers asked participants to rate the importance of several considerations when selecting a vendor.
The following table shows the percentages of hidden buyer respondents who rated each consideration as very important or moderately important.
As this table shows, hidden buyer survey respondents rated "Vendor is the 'safest choice'" as less important than five other considerations.
The second controversial finding relates to the importance of brand. The researchers asked study participants how much they agreed or disagreed with this statement: "In vetting vendors, if an organization produces high-quality thought leadership, it matters much less to me how well known they are." Fifty-three percent (53%) of both hidden buyer and target buyer survey respondents somewhat or strongly agreed with this statement.
The Alternative View
These two findings differ significantly from the results of other recent research. One example of this research is a recent study by The B2B Institute, Bain & Company, and NewtonX (the "B2B Institute Study").
(Note: This study is described in a 2024 LinkedIn article written by Mimi Turner and Jann Schwarz, both with The B2B Institute. I understand The B2B Institute is planning to publish a report or paper discussing this research later this year.)
The B2B Institute Study examined the attitudes and behaviors of hidden buyers and target buyers using definitions of those terms similar to those used in the Edelman/LinkedIn study. The study found that making a "safe" purchase decision is a primary driver for hidden buyers.
Hidden buyers care more than target buyers about factors such as brand reliability and "peace of mind." (See the graphic accompanying "Finding #2" in the LinkedIn article.)
About two-thirds of hidden buyers and target buyers said they would prefer products or services that "provide peace of mind without career advancement" over products or services that offer "business growth that involves potential career uncertainty."
The B2B Institute Study also found that a strong, well-known brand is important to both hidden buyers and target buyers, but is more influential with hidden buyers.
Eighty-one percent (81%) of the study participants said the brand they ultimately bought was known to everyone or almost everyone in the buying group at the start of the purchase process.
Hidden buyers are 31% more likely to reject brands they don't know and 70% more likely to reject brands that aren't well-known to other members of the buying group.
My Take
These two studies present starkly different perspectives regarding the tendency of B2B hidden buyers to make "safe" purchase decisions and the influence that brand has with hidden buyers.
I suggest that most of these differences can be attributed to differences in the focus and design of the underlying surveys. The B2B Institute Study focused on high-consideration, high-value technology purchases by large enterprises. Sixty-four percent (64%) of the survey respondents in this study were with companies having more than 10,000 employees.
The survey used in the Edelman/LinkedIn thought leadership study had very different survey demographics. In fact, 48% of those survey respondents were with companies having 200 or fewer employees.
Several other recent studies have highlighted the preference of most B2B buyers for safe purchase decisions and the important role that brand plays in B2B buying decisions.
Under these circumstances, I think the findings of the B2B Institute Study provide a more accurate picture of real-world B2B buying.
Top image courtesy of Hans Splinter via Flickr (CC).
(This month's Research Round-Up features the Spring 2025 edition of "The CMO Survey" and a new survey of senior B2B marketers by EMARKETER, in association with StackAdapt.)
A survey of 281 marketing leaders at U.S. for-profit companies
99% of the respondents were VP-level or above
58.4% of the respondents were with B2B companies
The survey was in the field January 21 - February 12, 2025
"The CMO Survey" has been conducted semi-annually since 2008. It's directed by Dr. Christine Moorman and sponsored by Deloitte, Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, and the American Marketing Association.
For several years, each edition of the survey has asked participants about overall economic conditions, current marketing spending patterns, and future spending expectations. Here are some of the findings on those topics from the Spring 2025 survey.
Economic Outlook
The Spring 2025 survey found that marketing leaders were less optimistic about the economy than a year earlier. The survey asked participants to rate their optimism regarding the overall U.S. economy on a 100-point scale, with "0" being the least optimistic, and "100" being the most optimistic. The mean rating given by respondents was 62.2, down from 67.0 in the Spring 2024 survey.
The survey also asked if participants were more or less optimistic about the U.S. economy compared to the previous quarter, and only 31.2% of the respondents reported being more optimistic. That was down significantly from 43.7% in the Spring 2024 survey.
Meanwhile, 48.2% of the respondents in the Spring 2025 survey said they were less optimistic about the U.S. economy compared to the previous quarter. That was up from only 25.3% in the Spring 2024 survey.
Marketing Spending
In the Spring 2025 survey, respondents reported that marketing spending represented 9.4% of total company revenue, which was up from 7.7% in the Spring 2024 survey. Respondents also said that overall marketing spending increased 3.3% over the 12 months preceding the survey, and they expected spending to increase 8.9% over the 12 months following the survey.
The relative change in spending on digital marketing vs. traditional advertising remains significant. In the Spring 2025 survey, respondents reported that spending on digital marketing grew 7.3% over the prior 12 months. In contrast, respondents said they expect spending on traditional advertising to decrease by 0.3% over the 12 months following the survey.
Marketing's Role in the Organization Has Grown . . .
The Spring 2025 survey asked participants how marketing's role in their organization had changed over the previous five years. The survey asked participants to rate the amount and direction of change using a numerical scale ranging from -7 (significantly narrowed) to +7 (significantly broadened). The mean value given by respondents was 3.2, which indicates that marketing's role has expanded substantially.
But So Has the Pressure to Prove the Value of Marketing
Sixty-one percent (61%) of the respondents in the Spring 2025 survey said they felt pressure from their CEO to prove the value of marketing. That was up from 51% in the Fall 2023 edition of the survey. Sixty-three percent (63%) of the Spring 2025 respondents reported feeling the same kind of pressure from their CFO, and that was up from 52% in the Fall 2023 edition of the survey.
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As always, "The CMO Survey" contains a wealth of valuable insights, and I encourage you to review the full report.
Based on a survey of 110 B2B enterprise executive marketing professionals in North America
6.4% of respondents were CEOs, presidents, or founders, 14.5% were C-level executives, and 79.1% were executive vice presidents, senior vice presidents, or vice presidents
The survey was conducted during March 2025
The primary objective of this research was to better understand how B2B marketers are allocating budgets between performance and brand marketing, where they plan to invest next, and what barriers exist to additional brand investment.
Here are some of the major findings from the survey.
Brand and Performance Marketing
Over half of the survey respondents (58.2%) said they devote at least half of their marketing budget to lead generation, with paid search and paid social being the top two lead generation channels.
However, 40% of the respondents said they expect to increase their brand-building budgets in the 12 months following the survey. In addition, 45.5% said that if budget weren't a constraint, they would allocate more than half their marketing spend to brand initiatives.
The Measurement Challenge
Sixty-three percent (63%) of the respondents agreed that brand is a critical long-term play, but they struggle to quantify its impact. When survey participants were asked what challenges were preventing them from increasing investment in brand marketing, "proving ROI" was the top barrier identified.
In addition, over a third of the survey respondents (35.5%) said they expect to face greater pressure to demonstrate ROI in real time over the 12 months following the survey.
(This is the third of three posts discussing the use of environmental claims in marketing. The first two posts in the series can be found here and here. This post describes how marketers can make environmental claims more compelling for potential buyers and thus more effective at driving revenue growth.)
Many marketers at companies offering sustainable products or services have been featuring environmental messages prominently in their marketing campaigns, and this shouldn't be surprising. After all, numerous surveys have found that most people are concerned about the environment and support actions aimed at improving environmental sustainability.
But many surveys have also revealed a substantial and persistent disconnect between the views people express about sustainability in surveys and their actual buying behaviors. This say-do gap can be attributed to several factors, including:
The failure of some surveys to capture how important sustainability is to survey respondents compared to other factors that influence their purchase decisions
The higher cost of many sustainable products
How convenient it is to purchase sustainable products (compared to "non-sustainable" alternatives)
While all these factors have contributed to the say-do gap in specific instances, marketers also bear some of the responsibility for the gap because we haven't consistently communicated the benefits of sustainability in ways that produce changes in buying behaviors.
Recent Research Provides Important Insights
Making sustainability an effective marketing tool has been a tough challenge because there hasn't been much research on what kinds of sustainability claims are most appealing to potential customers. However, two recent studies have provided several important data points on this issue.
The Public Inc. Survey
The first study is a 2024 survey conducted by Ipsos on behalf of Public Inc. (the "Public Inc. Survey"). This survey was conducted July 11-24, 2024 with a nationally representative sample of 1,510 US adults and 1,508 Canadian adults.
For this research, NYU and Edelman partnered with nine consumer brands from various industries. The researchers conducted a survey with a sample of the US general population and asked respondents for each brand to rate the appeal of 30-35 marketing claims, which included a mix of conventional product claims and environmental claims.
The researchers used two robust survey techniques to obtain an appeal score for each claim and to identify the combination of claims that produced the maximum overall appeal.
The Formula for Effective Sustainability Marketing
Collectively, the Public Inc. Survey and the NYU-Edelman Study provide robust evidence about the attributes that make sustainability claims appealing to potential customers. They also identify two steps that you must take if you want to be successful at using sustainability claims in your marketing efforts.
Focus on the Right Goal
First, you must always remember that your primary objective is to drive increased sales of a sustainable product or products, not to evangelize the cause of sustainability.
This distinction is critical because it largely determines which sustainability claims you will use and how you will frame those claims.
The focus on increasing sales is not solely a matter of economic self-interest. The surest way to advance sustainability is to increase sales of sustainable products. As the authors of the NYU-Edelman Study report wrote: ". . . consumer demand will be a key driver for companies to scale investments at the pace necessary to combat climate change and other urgent issues."
Recognize the Diversity of Your Target Audience
The target market for your sustainable products - and therefore the target audience for your marketing campaigns - will consist of potential buyers with substantially different levels of interest in, and commitment to, sustainability. So, your sustainability claims must take this diversity into account.
The Public Inc. Survey identified five consumer segments based on the percentage of their purchases that are conscious, i.e., purchases of "products or services made with consideration for social, ethical, or environmental factors."
The researchers found that only 9% of the surveyed consumers made conscious purchases at least 75% of the time. Forty-five percent (45%) of the surveyed consumers made conscious purchases less than 50% of the time.
Three Ways to Make Sustainability More Appealing
Based on the findings of the Public Inc. Survey and the NYU-Edelman Study, there are three steps you can take to make sustainability claims more compelling for potential buyers.
Step 1 - Link sustainability claims to "conventional" product performance claims
The NYU-Edelman Study evaluated the appeal of sustainability claims and conventional product performance claims (which the study report calls "category claims").
In this study, product performance claims were found to be "paramount and non-negotiable" and were more compelling than stand-alone sustainability claims.
However, the researchers also found that claims that combined sustainability and product performance elements extended brand reach and were the most compelling claims tested.
Step 2 - Make sustainability personal
Both the Public Inc. Survey and the NYU-Edelman Study found that sustainability claims were more appealing when they expressed how sustainability provides tangible benefits to the buyer or to the people or things the buyer cares most about.
Specifically, the NYU-Edelman Study found that the surveyed consumers cared most about themselves and their families (health, well-being, etc.), saving money, local farms and farmers, their children and future generations, and sustainable sourcing.
Conversely, both studies found that science-oriented claims like "carbon neutral," "net zero," and "bio-degradable" did not perform well with consumers. The NYU-Edelman Study did find that the performance of science-oriented claims is improved when they are tied to a personal "reason to care."
Step 3 - Emphasize the aspects of sustainability that deliver present-day benefits
The Public Inc. Survey found that consumers are more likely to respond to sustainability claims that focus on immediate or short-term benefits.
As the report's authors put it: "They [consumers] want to know how their purchase makes their life better or easier now, not in some distant future."
A Final Point
Marketers who include environmental claims in their marketing communications must ensure that they have adequate scientific evidence to support those claims. And the same is true for environmental claims used on product packaging.
Without such supporting evidence, you run the risk that your company can be accused of greenwashing, which refers to making false or misleading claims about the environmental impacts of a product or company to make it look more environmentally beneficial than it actually is.
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission is the federal agency primarily responsible for regulating environmental marketing claims, and all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have laws prohibiting false or deceptive advertising that can be used to combat greenwashing.
Equally important, the number of private class-action lawsuits involving allegations of greenwashing is increasing, and some have resulted in the award of substantial financial judgments against companies found to have engaged in greenwashing.
The important lesson for marketers is: Only make an environmental claim if you have the evidence to back it up.
The top image is a version of the universal recycling symbol and is in the public domain. Accessed via Wikimedia Commons.
(This is the second of three posts dealing with the use of environmental claims in marketing communications. In my first post, I described the current political backlash against some ESG-related policies, but I also noted that public support for protecting the environment remains widespread, according to recent research. This post discusses why environmental claims in marketing haven't worked as well as some research findings suggest they should.)
The current political backlash against ESG-inspired policies and programs is prompting many marketing leaders to question the wisdom of including environmental claims in their marketing campaigns.
Beyond the political risk, marketers must also determine whether the use of environmental messaging will improve marketing performance and drive revenue growth. On this issue, the available evidence paints a mixed picture.
Sustainability Marketing Is Working . . .
The Sustainable Market Share Index(TM)[1] (the "CSB Index") produced by the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business provides compelling evidence that marketing products as sustainable results in substantial market share growth.
The CSB Index is based on sales data from Circana for 36 categories of consumer packaged goods (CPG) products (excluding alcohol and tobacco). Collectively, these 36 product categories accounted for approximately 40% of the total US CPG market in sales from 2013 - 2024.
The 2024 edition of the CSB Index found that:
Products marketed as sustainable held a 23.8% market share of the total US CPG market, up 2.6 percentage points from 2023, and the market share of sustainable products has increased 9.2 percentage points since 2013.
Products marketed as sustainable achieved a 5-year compound annual growth rate of 12.4% vs. a CAGR of 6.8% for the overall US CPG market.
Products marketed as sustainable were responsible for 41% of the growth of the total US CPG market for the period of 2013 - 2024.
While the CSB Index only tracks data for selected CPG categories, it nevertheless suggests that using environmental/sustainability claims in marketing can drive significant market share growth.
But a Substantial "Say-Do" Gap Exists
David Ogilvy, the legendary advertising executive and founder of Ogilvy & Mather, once said: "The trouble with market research is that people don't think how they feel, they don't say what they think, and they don't do what they say."
Many of the surveys addressing public support for environmental sustainability demonstrate that Ogilvy's famous quip is at least partly true because they reveal a substantial say-do gap. A say-do gap refers to the disconnect that often exists between the views and intentions that people express in surveys and polls and their actual behaviors.
As I noted earlier, recent surveys have consistently shown that public support for actions aimed at protecting the environment and improving sustainability is widespread, and similar findings have been appearing in surveys for most of the past two decades.
However, numerous surveys have also revealed a substantial say-do gap between people's stated views and attitudes about sustainability and their actual buying behaviors. For example:
In a 2024 survey of more than 3,000 US and Canadian adults conducted by Ipsos on behalf of Public Inc., 76% of the respondents described themselves as "conscious consumers," but only 38% of the respondents' actual purchases were made with consideration for social, ethical, or environmental factors.
In a 2025 survey of more than 5,000 consumers in Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, the UK, and the US by Blue Yonder, 78% of the respondents said sustainability considerations are somewhat or very important when shopping, but only 29% had switched their brand loyalty to companies they perceived as exhibiting more sustainable practices.
The say-do gap is not a recent development. It's been appearing in survey findings for at least the past 15 years. For example, in a 2010 survey by Cone Communications (described in this Forbes article), 80% of the respondents said they were likely to switch brands to one that supports a cause, although only 41% said they and purchased a product in the previous year because it was associated with a social or environmental cause.
Causes of the Say-Do Gap
The sustainability say-do gap can be attributed to several factors.
Social Desirability Bias
First, some surveys may have overstated public support for sustainability, at least to some extent, because of the social desirability bias.
This bias refers to the tendency of survey respondents to answer survey questions in the manner they believe will be viewed favorably by others rather than the way they actually think or feel.
So, when a survey asks participants whether sustainability is important to them when making purchase decisions, some respondents are likely to perceive that "yes" is the "right" answer.
Failing to Capture Relative Importance
Many surveys also fail to capture the importance of sustainability in relation to other factors that influence purchase decisions. For example, a survey respondent may truthfully say sustainability considerations are important when making a purchase decision, when the reality is that sustainability is less important to the respondent than factors such as product quality, cost, and convenience.
This phenomenon is evident in the findings of a survey of 1,000 US consumers conducted by McKinsey & Company in March of this year.
The McKinsey survey asked participants to rate the importance they ascribe to seven factors when making purchase decisions. As the following table shows, 72% of the respondents said perception of quality is extremely or very important, and 70% said the same for price. However, only 33% of the respondents rated environmental impact as extremely or veryimportant.
Effectiveness of Environmental Messaging
The size of the sustainability say-do gap is also affected by how effectively marketers communicate the environmental benefits of their product or service. The persistence of a large sustainability say-do gap indicates that marketers need to make their environmental claims and messaging more persuasive.
In my next post, I'll describe the four attributes that make sustainability claims more compelling for potential buyers.
[1] - Sustainable Market Share Index is a trademark of the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business
(The political backlash against ESG and other aspects of so-called "woke capitalism" is creating a conundrum for some marketers. On one hand, the backlash is real, and marketers would rather not attract the attention of anti-ESG partisans. On the other hand, recent research continues to show that a majority of people are concerned about the environment and generally support actions aimed at improving sustainability. In this post, I'll discuss the current state of support and opposition to ESG, and in my next post, I'll describe how marketers can make sustainability messaging more effective.)
The ESG Backlash is Real . . .
The political backlash against ESG, the practice of using environmental, social and governance factors to assess a company's performance and impact on society, is undeniable.
Earlier this year, President Trump issued an executive order requiring federal agencies to shut down diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and end DEI performance requirements for federal contractors and grant recipients.
At least 21 US states have enacted anti-ESG laws in some form.
Several high-profile US companies - including Meta, Walmart, Target, McDonald's, Ford, Citi, Harley Davidson, and Tractor Supply - have scaled back or otherwise modified their ESG policies.
While various versions of "corporate social responsibility" have existed for decades, the modern ESG construct entered the business mainstream following the publication of an influential 2004 UN report titled "Who Cares Wins."
In the following decade, numerous research studies were published showing that sizable majorities of consumers and business buyers were placing great importance on the environmental and social track record of companies when making purchase decisions.
As a result, some marketing leaders became enamored with "purpose marketing" and began incorporating environmental and social claims and themes into their marketing campaigns.
It's not surprising that the current political environment is causing many marketing leaders to question the wisdom of using ESG-related messaging in their campaigns.
While a healthy dose of caution is warranted, most companies should not abandon ESG-related messaging altogether. That's because not all ESG-related marketing messages are equally polarizing.
But It's Not Universal
ESG is an umbrella concept that covers a wide range of issues and initiatives, and public attitudes toward those issues and initiatives vary greatly. So far, the most intense public opposition to ESG has tended to focus on social initiatives such as DEI.
In contrast, several recent research surveys have shown that most people are concerned about environmental issues and want to buy products and services that are environmentally sustainable. One of the more recent and most robust surveys I've reviewed is the "2025 Conscious Consumer Report" by Public Inc. (the "Public Inc. Survey").
The Public Inc. Survey
The Public Inc. Survey was an online survey of more than 3,000 adults (ages 18+) in the United States and Canada conducted by Ipsos on behalf of Public Inc. The survey was conducted July 11-24, 2004 among a nationally representative sample of 1.510 US adults and 1,508 Canadian adults. Survey data was weighted by age, gender and region using the latest available census data for each country.
The report states that the precision of the survey was measured using a credibility interval and that the survey is accurate (overall) to within +/- 2.0 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
The results of the Public Inc. Survey reveal broad interest in environmental issues and widespread support for sustainability.
76% of US respondents agreed that climate change poses a serious threat
70% of US respondents said that companies should be doing more in terms of sustainability and ethical best practices
79% of US respondents believe that being purposeful in how they spend their money is one of the best ways to motivate companies to change
68% of all respondents agreed that sustainable products improve the health and well-being of their children and family
65% of all respondents agreed that sustainable products improve their own lives
58% of all respondents said they would pay more for products and services that are ethical and sustainable
Perhaps most important, fully three-quarters of the respondents identified themselves as environmentally conscious consumers.
At first glance, these survey findings suggest that using sustainability claims in marketing should be an easy decision. Unfortunately, however, these findings don't tell the whole story.
First, it's important to recognize that these findings may overstate the breadth (or at least the intensity) of public support for sustainability. And second, other findings in the Public Inc. Survey suggest that the sustainability claims marketers have been using have not been all that effective at driving increased sales of sustainable products and services.
I'll address these issues in my next post, and I'll describe four attributes that will make sustainability claims more effective at driving revenue growth.
(This month's Research Round-Up discusses the 2025 B2B content consumption report from NetLine Corporation. NetLine publishes this report annually, and it consistently provides a wealth of real-world insights about how business professionals actually consume marketing content.)
Source: NetLine Corporation
Virtually all B2B companies now use content marketing in several forms, so understanding how business professionals consume content has become critical to marketing success. The 2025 State of B2B Content Consumption & Demand Reportby NetLine Corporation provides valuable insights on this vital issue.
NetLine operates a content syndication platform, and this report is based on data from 7.9 million content registrations on the platform in 2024. The NetLine research is particularly valuable for two reasons.
First, it captures the real-world consumption behaviors of business professionals. The data used for the report was not derived from surveys or interviews, but from actual engagements with B2B content.
And second, the report is based on first-party data. The business professionals who use the NetLine platform voluntarily share information about themselves and the organizations they work for in exchange for access to the content resources available on the platform.
For these reasons, the report contains a wealth of detailed information about content consumption behaviors, and I encourage you to review the full 36-page report.
Content Consumption Continues Rising
As measured by registrations on the NetLine platform, overall B2B content consumption in 2024 increased 27% compared to 2023 levels. NetLine's data shows that total demand for B2B content has grown 84% since the 2019 edition of the research.
Content consumption by C-level executives is also still on the rise, growing 27% year-over-year. In 2024, C-level executives accounted for 13% of the total demand on the NetLine platform.
Demand for content about artificial intelligence grew dramatically in 2024. The explosive growth began in 2023 when demand for AI-related content increased 6.6x compared to 2022. In 2024, demand for such content increased 2.9x compared to 2023.
Most Popular Content Formats
The ten most requested content formats in 2024 were:
eBooks
Guides
Cheat Sheets
White Papers
Articles
Research Reports
Tips and Tricks Guides
Book Summaries
Webinars
Newsletters
In 2024, content registrations for eBooks increased 71% year-over-year, and the report observes that eBooks represented more than half of all content formats requested on the NetLine platform.
The report also notes that eBooks are a very efficient content format. Every eBook asset uploaded to the NetLine platform in 2024 generated 983 registrations. In contrast, white papers generated only 60 registrations per asset.
The Consumption Gap Widens
One of the more useful insights provided by the report relates to the consumption gap, which NetLine defines as the time between the moment a content resource is requested and the moment it's opened for consumption. This data point is important because it provides a guide for timing follow-up contacts with potential buyers. After all, it makes little sense to contact a potential buyer about a content resource before he or she has reviewed the content.
In 2024, the average consumption gap was 39 hours, up from 31 hours in 2023. The consumption gap has varied over the years. Before 2024, the largest gap recorded by NetLine was 33.3 hours in 2021, and the smallest was 27.1 hours in 2018. The lesson here is that you should wait at least two days before you try to follow up with people who have requested your content via NetLine.
Content Consumption and Buyer Purchase Intent
For the past few years, NetLine's research has suggested that the content format a potential buyer chooses to consume is a good indicator of purchase timing. In the latest analysis, NetLine identified five content formats that are more likely to be associated with a buying decision within the next 12 months - playbooks, infographics, case studies, trend reports, and buyer's guides.
One format that is notably absent from this list is eBooks. Despite being the most frequently requested type of content last year, eBooks were not strongly associated with shorter-term purchase intention. This shouldn't be surprising because most eBooks are designed to appeal primarily to potential buyers who are in the earlier stages of their buying journey.
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Again, the NetLine report contains several other valuable findings, and I recommend you take the time to review the full report.
Many marketing pundits are advising B2B marketers to connect with potential buyers on an emotional level. And at first glance, this advice appears to be sound.
In their often-cited paper, "The Long and Short of It," advertising effectiveness gurus Les Binet and Peter Field wrote: "Emotional campaigns . . . produce considerably more powerful long-term business effects than rational persuasion campaigns."
But emotional messaging alone is not a guarantee of marketing success. While most successful marketing messages will evoke an emotional or psychological response in potential buyers, not all messages that induce an emotional response will produce desired business outcomes. Here's why.
Emotional Marketing that Missed the Mark
Budweiser's 2015 Lost Dog Super Bowl Ad
Budweiser's Clydesdales have become one of the most iconic images in U.S. advertising. The Clydesdales debuted in a TV ad during the 1986 Super Bowl, and they've appeared in numerous Super Bowl ads since. Dogs (and puppies) have also been prominently featured in many of these classic ads.
Such was the case with the "Lost Dog" ad that aired during the 2015 Super Bowl. This ad featured the Clydesdales and an adorable yellow Labrador puppy. Here's the ad.
Source: TrueColors via YouTube
The Lost Dog ad took top honors in USA Today's Ad Meter poll for the 2015 Super Bowl and made Budweiser a back-to-back winner. The 2015 ad was a "sequel" to Budweiser's 2014 Clydesdale/puppy Super Bowl ad, which won the USA Today poll for that year.
Given the popularity of the Lost Dog ad, you would think Budweiser considered it an overwhelming success. Well, not quite.
In a 2015 article in Advertising Age(subscription required), Jorn Socquet, then the USA Chief Marketing Officer at Anheuser-Busch InBev, offered this assessment of Budweiser's 2015 Super Bowl ads: "Budweiser aired two very different spots in last February's Super Bowl, and we learned that content focused on the quality of our beer was most effective in generating sales."
Socquet went on to say that while everyone loved the puppies, "they have zero impact on beer sales. Those ads I wouldn't air again because they don't sell beer."
Coca-Cola's 1979 "Hey Kid, Catch" Ad
Coca-Cola's "Hey Kid, Catch" TV ad debuted in the fall of 1979 and was re-aired during the 1980 Super Bowl. It depicted an encounter between the Pittsburgh Steelers' Hall of Fame defensive end, "Mean" Joe Greene, and a young fan. Here's the ad.
Source: stiggerpao via YouTube
This ad ranks high on the emotional content scale, and it was highly regarded in professional advertising/marketing circles. The ad won a Clio Award for being one of the best television commercials of 1979, and it has been listed as one of the top ads of all time by multiple sources. The ad gained international notoriety when it was re-filmed in several other countries using local sports figures.
As with the Budweiser ad, you would think Coca-Cola viewed this ad as successful, but again, this assumption wouldn't be accurate.
Sergio Zyman was the Chief Marketing Officer of The Coca-Cola Company when the Hey Kid, Catch ad was aired. In his 1999 book, The End of Marketing As We Know It, Zyman explained his decision to pull the ad off the air.
"America loves it! People talk about it for weeks. The critics rave about it. . . The ad is so hot that Coca-Cola marketers all over the world want to translate it . . . The company should run it forever, right? Wrong. Coke doesn't run this ad forever. In fact, Coke pulls the ad altogether and launches a new campaign . . . Why would Coke do that? . . . The answer is simple. I know because I am the person who did it. My job as a marketer for The Coca-Cola Company was to get people out of their houses and into restaurants and stores to buy more Coca-Cola products - and the ad just wasn't doing that."
Why Didn't They Work?
What went wrong with these highly popular and critically acclaimed ads? Both were designed to touch viewers' emotions, and they clearly succeeded. So, why didn't they drive increased sales for Budweiser and Coke?
Why Motivation Is Critical
The short answer is that they were high on emotion but low on motivation.
The Budweiser and Coke ads illustrate a principle that is often underappreciated by marketers: Emotion can be a powerful tool in marketing, but emotional messaging without a motivational message won't produce the desired business results.
Basic concepts from the decision sciences explain why motivation is so critical to marketing success.
The Science of Motivation
Recent advances in the decision sciences have established that motivation is the primary driver of all human behavior.
The American Psychological Association defines motivation as "a person's willingness to exert physical or mental effort in pursuit of a goal or outcome." In a business context, a goal can be to solve a problem, satisfy a need, or get a particular "job" done.
As humans, we are motivated to pursue a goal because we expect to receive a reward if the goal is achieved. Neuroscience research has shown that the human brain has a "reward system" that's activated when our brain processes sensory inputs that signal a reward we value.
Research has also shown that our brain automatically scans our environment for information that aligns with our goals. So, in essence, our brain causes us to pay attention to information that's closely related to our goals.
Goals can be categorized in several ways, but two categories are particularly important for marketers. First, goals can be functional or psychological.
Functional goals relate directly to the core task or job a potential buyer wants or needs to get done. If my computer printer dies, my functional goal will be to determine what kind of printer I need and acquire a replacement. Functional goals can usually be described in terms of the features or attributes of an existing product or service category.
Psychological goals are more general and arise out of basic psychological needs that humans are always motivated to satisfy. Such basic needs include security (safety, trust, etc.), autonomy (success, superiority, power, etc.), and excitement (adventure, fun, etc.)
Goals are also either explicit or implicit.
Explicit goals are those we set and pursue at a conscious level.
Implicit goals operate at a subconscious level. We are motivated to pursue implicit goals even when we aren't consciously thinking about them.
Implications for Marketing
These principles of human motivation and decision-making have major implications for B2B marketers. The most important lesson is that the ability of any marketing message to resonate with a potential buyer is determined not by how emotional the message is, but rather by how closely the message aligns with the buyer's goals.
Therefore, your most critical job as a marketer is to craft marketing messages that will build mental associations between your company/brand/product/service and the goals of your potential buyers.
Using emotion in marketing messages is powerful because it makes your messages more memorable. That's particularly important in brand marketing because at any given point in time, most of your potential buyers, usually more than 90%, aren't actively engaged in a buying process.
You're communicating with these "out-of-market" buyers in the present, and you're hoping they will remember your message at some point in the future when they're ready to begin a serious buying process.
The bottom line is that effective marketing will convey the right motivational message in an emotionally engaging way.
An Example of Motivation Well Used
W.W. Grainger, Inc., the Fortune 500 provider of industrial MRO supplies, is currently running TV ads that illustrate how marketing messages can effectively tap into the goals that drive human motivation in an emotionally engaging way.
Several Grainger ads use the same overall theme, and some of the ads are available on YouTube. I've included links to a few of the ads at the end of this post, and I suggest you take a few minutes to view these videos. Here's one of the ads.
Source: Grainger via YouTube
To be clear, I have no relationship with Grainger, nor do I have any "inside information" about the strategy that led to the development of the ads. My comments are based on an analysis of the ads themselves.
The most important feature of all the ads is that front-line maintenance personnel are made the "heroes" of the narrative. The visuals show men and women in blue-collar working clothes, usually wearing hard hats, not executives or managers in business suits.
In the above video, the hero is portrayed as someone who always sees the big picture, not just a maintenance job, and who is capable of handling "whatever comes his way and has Grainger on his side."
This narrative appeals directly to the human psychological goals of being viewed as competent and having one's value to his or her organization fully appreciated. The ad also directly links Grainger to the achievement of those goals.
The tagline used in all of the ads - "For the ones who get it done" - captures the central theme of the ads in a memorable, concise, and effective way.
The key point illustrated by the Budweiser, Coke, and Grainger ads is: Emotion will make marketing messages memorable, but motivation is what makes them commercially effective.
I've been advising and supporting B2B companies for over twenty-five years. I work with clients to evaluate major strategic issues and initiatives, develop effective business and marketing strategies, and implement operational improvement programs.
In the B2B marketing space, my primary focus areas are strategy development, content development, marketing process improvement, and marketing performance measurement.
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