Like a slow boiled frog, creativity is dying a slow death in B2B.

1. The slow death
of creativity
in B2B
Everywherebrand 2014

2. In fact it’s not just B2B but marketing in general.
Everywherebrand 2014
B2B
Marketing is
in trouble

3. “[marketing] is run by accountants,
it’s lost its way and purpose”
(So says Steve Henry, one of the 40 most influential
people in British advertising over the last 50 years.)

4. It’s not pretty:
Everywherebrand 2014 Image: American Werewolf in London

5. “Marketeers have become technicians
capable of servicing their client’s
advertising boiler, when they thought
they were architects”
(Matthew Charlton is the CEO of Brothers and Sisters)

6. Everywherebrand 2014 Image: Dark Alley by Hideyoshi

7. For the last few years
marketing agencies have
been wrestling with how
to remain relevant.
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Then... agencies starting
trying to compete with
the £x=y results that you
got from Google PPC.
Then... agencies had
access to all the big data
now so needed to talk
like they knew what to do
with it.
Image: Dark Alley by Hideyoshi

8. Truth was that Big data
was like teenage sex:
everyone talked about
it, nobody really knew
how to do it, everyone
thought everyone
else was doing it, so
everyone claimed they
were doing it.
This is a stolen quote that we’d attribute if we knew who it was from.
Image: Porkys

9. Agencies chose the wrong way to
attempt to remain relevant.
In devaluing creativity - whilst pretending to have a
formula for results in an effort to be relevant to results
orientated businesses - they killed the golden goose.
(or if not killed then at least fatally wounded it)
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10. The only hope for agencies
is to reverse up.
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We messed
up, go back.
Agencies need to prove they can deliver insights
into human behaviours, be the emotional
intermediary between business and their
customers, not the accountant.

11. But after talking results for the last few years
big agencies can’t admit that they’ve chosen
the wrong route.
Instead they keep on adding to the mistakes.
Everywherebrand 2014

12. Mistakes like jumping on technical answers like programmatic (or native)
But native advertising is a poor and ugly replacement for insight.
It works on the premise that you don’t really have to worry about having the human
insight to make people want to read it, as you can just stuff it in their face
time and time again until they can’t not read it.
And what do you think happens?
Too much info = the ability to switch off and visually exclude stuff.
Ever wondered how waiters are so adept at ‘not seeing you’?
Because they know you’re there.
Insight driven work catches people off guard
by giving them something they didn’t
expect or know.
But after talking results for the last few year big
agencies can’t admit that they’ve chosen the
wrong route.
Instead they keep on adding to the mistake.
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13. Everywherebrand 2014

14. “Advertising should
grab you by the throat,
should choke you, your
eyes should water, your
heart should race, and you
should almost pass out.”
That’s from George Lois.
The only person inducted into all of the following: The Art Directors Hall of Fame, The One Club Creative Hall of Fame, with
Lifetime Achievement Awards from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Society of Publication Designers, as well as a
subject of the Master Series at the School of Visual Arts.

15. Only radical creativity can deliver
the experiences that make people
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to look,
to read,
to listen,
to engage with brands.

16. It’s time for agencies to return to their roots:
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17. It’s the difference
between being driven to
connect with audiences
compared to wanting to
“capture” them.
Math men set out to capture.
Mad men set out to connect.
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18. Who’s
championing
great work?
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Who’s
being
radical?
Where all the
amazing
ideas are?
Where all the
creative has
gone?

19. Bad things happen when good creatives do nothing
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20. For help/advice/joining the revolution
info@everywherebrand.com
And while B2B
creativity is dying a
slow death, are you
passively watching,
fighting the
revolution...
or do you have a
knee on its throat? ( )
Everywherebrand 2014