F bombing B2B

Product marketing should be human, practical, simple and humorous.

Andrew Carrier

Feb 09, 2025

Read on to learn why:

① People should be your first consideration when planning product marketing.

② Product marketing should be practical, simple not dumb, and humorous.

③ Diversification does confer revenue insulation but can be distracting.

④ Break out your tiny violin: The robots are coming for the consultants.

⑤ AI promises to deliver the Holy Grail: personalised marketing at scale.

⑥ Healthy conflict moves a team towards its goals and builds trust.

⑦ If you’re still on Twitter, you’re doing social media all wrong.

📸But first, flashback to last week when we talked about payments on X and I told you trust remains the lynchpin of financial services. This week it emerged that Trump Media is moving into financial services. Would you buy ‘investment products’ from Don the Con? I guess we’re about to find out who would…

What's new

Colin Fleming, CMO at ServiceNow, took to LinkedIn this week to promote the company’s latest explainer video.

In short:

Colin used ‘Is an F* bomb appropriate in B2B marketing?’ as a hook to introduce the company’s new video explainer about AI agents.
But the use of swearing is the least interesting aspect of the video which showcases ServiceNow’s AI agents (“so much more than better chatbots,” writes Colin) and “how they are bringing AI to every corner of a business.”
The video also introduces a cast of characters which are expected to feature in future videos: Patty in IT, Jim in Customer Service, Kate in HR, Dusty in App Dev, and Nick, the comic relief.

Why it matters

The so-called “F* bomb” (that expression always makes me cringe; we’re all fucking grown ups, aren’t we?) is not the story here. Or at least only in so far as it goes some way to making the video more relatable. Instead, this video matters because it’s that rare thing: a piece of B2B product marketing collateral that understands its audience and how to speak to them.

① Marketers who think in terms of B2B or B2C are doing it wrong. Effective marketing is simply H2H, human to human. The ServiceNow team clearly understand this. They think first and foremost about the people who will be buying and using their product, then speak to them like people.

Sure, there’s product language in the video but it’s always framed in terms of how real people will derive real benefit in their real jobs. It explains, in plain language, how a user’s daily life will be improved, what the product does and how it does it - while keeping a smile on the viewer’s face.

Bravo, ServiceNow, bravo! 👏🏻

What to do about it

Take action

② Apply lessons from ServiceNow’s video to your next product marketing video. Make it:

Human: Start with the actual people who will benefit from your product. Reflect them. What are their preoccupations? What do they care about? How do they talk to one another? Marketing is ultimately about making a human connection.
Practical: Show the tangible way in which your product is going to make their professional lives better, easier, or more enjoyable. Throw product features out of the window in favour of plain English descriptions of what the product does for people in practice.
Simple not dumb: Keep things easy to understand but don’t shy away from being technically specific when it helps to provide substance. Viewers want to understand ‘what’ a product will do for them but explaining ‘how’ lends credibility to your message.
Humorous: Do you think there’s no room for humour in B2B marketing? Tell that to the person who wrote "I'll have my agents talk to your agents" into this script. By infusing humour throughout you can make a product video fun to watch.

Get help

Two ways I can help you: as a full-time member of your team or via InMarketing, an advisory service for senior leadership teams in finance and technology.

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Top stories

The other articles that are worthy of your time.

FINANCE

Does Santander’s sprawling empire still make sense?

③ Diversification does confer revenue insulation but can be distracting.

Ana Botín. Source: The Financial Times, 4 February 2025

“Since [Ana] Botín inherited the top job from her father in 2014, the group’s shares have fallen by nearly a third. As other global banks such as HSBC and Citigroup retrench from far-flung markets, there are questions about whether Santander’s sprawling footprint — one that encompasses 10 ‘core markets’, more than 170mn customers, nearly 210,000 staff and total assets of €1.8tn — still makes sense.”
“The bank is exploring a number of strategic options for its UK business, one of which is potentially exiting the British retail market, where it has had a presence since 2004. In the two decades that Santander has operated in the UK, the unit has largely produced steady — but underwhelming — returns for its parent group. The bank argues that the reliability of returns at its UK business allows it to pursue growth in more volatile markets, such as Latin America. […] The weaker UK returns relative to some of Santander’s other markets, coupled with Britain’s ringfencing regime and Brexit, have caused frustrations within the wider group.”
“If Botín is cooling on Santander’s UK arm — a business she ran directly before ascending to the chair — she has warmed to the US. Botín has embarked on a major expansion of the Spanish lender’s corporate and investment bank. In 2021 Santander acquired Amherst Pierpont Securities, a designated primary dealer of US Treasuries, for $600mn, and the bank has pledged a further $250mn to build out the investment bank. It has also recruited heavily from Credit Suisse following the scandal-hit Swiss lender’s takeover by UBS. During the first nine months of 2024, Santander’s investment bank produced €6.3bn in revenue, or almost 14 per cent of the lender’s top line during the period.

TECHNOLOGY

An AI to “kill McKinsey”

④ Break out your tiny violin: The robots are coming for the consultants.

“Operand is building an AI to replace traditional consulting. We help businesses make better decisions by deeply analysing their data across all sources—something consultants can’t do at scale.”
“We’re starting in e-commerce and retail, where the businesses’ high data density and real-time feedback loops allow us to show impact fast. Our first capability is pricing and discount strategy. Operand considers everything—competitor pricing, ad strategy, inventory, and more—to ensure businesses maximise profit.”
“And unlike other AI solutions, every Operand result is verified by human experts, including ex-MBB consultants, so you get actual impact, not just AI hype. We’re already generating 6-figure P&L improvements for early customers.”

MEDIA & MARKETING

Unlocking the next frontier of personalised marketing

⑤ AI promises to deliver the Holy Grail: personalised marketing at scale.

“71 percent of consumers expected companies to deliver personalised interactions, and 76 percent got frustrated when it didn’t happen. When companies get it right, however, they can create significant value. Marketers can embrace two powerful innovations: AI-driven targeted promotions, and the use of gen AI to create and scale highly relevant messages with bespoke tone, imagery, copy, and experiences at high volume and speed. These innovations lay the groundwork for growth.”
“Marketers can establish a solid foundation for growth through personalisation by ensuring these five elements use the latest technological innovations and integrate with each other seamlessly:
- Data: By improving collection and analysis, marketers can gain deeper insights into customer behaviours and preferences.
- Decisioning: To develop new targeted promotions and content through more robust targeting, companies can also benefit from refreshing their decision engines with new AI models.
- Design: Innovative design ensures that content is both engaging and relevant. A sophisticated design layer that oversees two critical workflows (offer management and content production) helps manage the process, fueling both operational excellence and agility.
- Distribution: Achieving true, real-time personalisation requires sophisticated architecture that delivers seamless and consistent messaging to the right audiences at the right time as customers traverse channels.
- Measurement: A comprehensive marketing technology stack requires thorough measurement to facilitate ongoing optimisation and improvement. To validate the ROI of personalisation efforts, rigorous incrementality testing, standardised performance metrics, and measurement playbooks are essential.”
“Success hinges on seamlessly integrated platforms backed by well-trained teams that can fully maximise investments. To improve performance, marketers can focus on operational efficiency, eliminate redundant systems, and establish robust governance.”

WILDCARD

How to encourage the right kind of conflict on your team

⑥ Healthy conflict moves a team towards its goals and builds trust.

Source: Harvard Business Review, 3 February 2025

“There is a difference between healthy and unhealthy conflicts. Healthy team conflict moves a team towards its goals and builds productive, respectful, and trusting relationships. Unproductive conflict, on the other hand, holds a team back. Team members don’t feel comfortable sharing their perspectives, they might even shut down opposing views, judge or blame others, or be disrespectful in what they say and how they act.”
“It starts with acknowledging that conflict is expected and inevitable, and not only tolerating the normal tensions that all teams face, but also surfacing and leaning into them. Here are a few approaches for doing that.
- Just say it’s ok: Tell your team that disagreements are expected and a normal — and productive — part of collaboration, teamwork, and innovation. […] You can also set norms for how you expect people to interact, especially when they aren’t on the same page. ‘We communicate openly and say what we mean and mean what we say;’ ‘we focus on the issues;’ ‘we respect different perspectives.’
- Name positive tensions:
  - Speed vs. quality
  - Inclusive decision-making vs. efficient decision-making
  - Focus on the client or customer vs. the company
  - Innovation vs. leveraging existing core capabilities
  - Details vs. the big picture
  - Purpose/mission vs. revenue
- Depersonalise: One of the advantages of naming these tensions is that you separate the people from the problem.
- Stay calm: Lastly, one of the most critical things you can do as a leader is to display comfort when conflicts arise. If you stay calm, modelling comfort and patience, your team will be more willing to engage in and even surface disagreements and tensions.”

Off cuts

The stories that almost made this week’s newsletter.

The last word

⑦ Sharon O’Dea, Founder @ DWXS and Lithos Partners, on Twitter:

Sharon O’Dea. Source: LinkedIn, 5 February 2025

“Step away from the binfire that is Twitter, and focus on communication strategies that actually reach people, rather than warring bots.
It’s time to cut your losses and run—your audience already has.”

Don’t settle for marketing.

Strive for InMarketing.

Wishing you a productive week,

P.S. Look, Leica just released the most pointless yet desirable gadget of the year.