How bold should our B2B campaign be?

Creative ambition should serve a specific audience need rather than novelty alone. Judge a proposed departure by who the campaign must reach, what it must achieve and what the business can genuinely offer. Boldness need not mean abandoning the brand; it can mean approaching a familiar communication challenge from a different angle.

Siemens needed technical reports to engage both technical audiences and business leaders, whose levels of understanding and interests differed. The creative response was an interactive web experience that brought Siemens's 3D software to life through easily navigable, layered copy. Readers could access the level of detail relevant to their understanding of the software's benefits. The useful departure was not simply an unfamiliar format: it was a way to capture attention without alienating either audience. Apply the same test to campaign ideas: does the creative choice help the intended audience engage with the proposition?

Audience knowledge and a clear brand point of view help teams decide which conventions are worth challenging. AI can organise messy data, help identify audiences and flag risks, but people still choose which opportunities to pursue and which risks are worth taking. A core brand strategy remains the basis for those judgments.

A perceived weakness can offer a more distinctive idea than another familiar category promise. Avis's historic 'We Try Harder' campaign leaned into its position behind Hertz and turned that perceived disadvantage into a strength. Patagonia's 'Don't Buy This Jacket' campaign challenged expectations by provoking debate about consumerism, the environment and corporate responsibility. Neither example is a formula to copy. The practical question is whether an unexpected idea expresses something credible about the brand and strikes a meaningful chord with its audience.