Choose stories for the relationship you want to build
Choose customer stories around the specific relationships you want to advance. The Frameworks designed UST's Boundless campaign for specific account relationships, not a mass audience. Real client and partner stories humanised UST's impact, with dedicated content programmes showing what its partnerships meant for people and communities.
The Frameworks argues that focused B2B communication needs audience research to understand people's needs and emotions, including the challenges facing a client's own customers. Apply that approach when selecting a story: identify whose challenge the experience speaks to, which partnership outcomes matter to them and how the story demonstrates understanding rather than simply describing an offer.
An exploratory 2026 study by AIM B2B, focused on Japan and Asia-Pacific and including global roles, found that 25% of C-suite leaders judged content by the relationships it builds, compared with 6% of marketing leaders.
Keep campaign-wide performance separate from account progress. Since Boundless launched, traffic to UST.com has tripled, and 49% of people who know UST say their opinion of the business has improved in the past year. Those are traffic and perception results, not measures of movement within specific account relationships.
Sources: Account-Based Marketing | The Frameworks, UST: Building a brand for boundless impact, Designing an authentic emotional connection