If there's one thing the team at Umault would love to see left behind in 2019, it's the limits that the terms "B2B" and "B2C" marketing put on the creative process (and also vertical cell phone videos but that's not relevant to this post). Businesses don't market to businesses. We market to people. Real ones who thought The Rise of Skywalker was flawed but emotionally satisfying and that more people should watch Jane the Virgin. At the end of the day, both you and your clients go home and want to be entertained by the same movies and shows. So when it comes to video marketing, why do we forget about entertainment? That's why we propose that we all start using B2P marketing: business to people.

In this episode, we discuss why everyone should stop with this "business to business" mindset and remember that marketing talks to humans who want to be entertained. Listen to the episode or read the transcript below to learn:

• How we define B2P marketing and why both traditional B2B and B2C marketers should consider it
• How the changing media landscape is forcing marketers to make this change
• What we can all learn from Apple's recent campaigns
• Why appealing to people's emotions is the best way to get their attention

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Key quotes

"On LinkedIn, there are people that make these graphics about the differences between B2C and B2B, both from the sales and marketing angle. And when I look at these diagrams, I'm like, "Wow, they're just really full of BS," because they're assuming that B2B people are not the same people that would be targeted in B2C campaigns. Meaning: why is it that as soon as I'm at work, I need to be spoken to differently than if I'm at home? And so my theory is that there's actually a category that trumps everything and that's just B2P, business to people, business to person, meaning a business doesn't absorb any marketing messages. Businesses are made up of people. So when you view yourself as B2B and speaking to another business, you're making a big mistake. You're actually just speaking to a bunch of people that are inside of a business. Businesses are made up of people. So really we need to drop this whole B2C, B2B debate and really just start talking to people as people, which they are!" - Guy Bauer

"The way to stand out is instead of talking to people differently at work and home, maybe just talk to them as if they are people all the time with your "B2B message" and see what happens." - Tory Merritt

"Some traditional marketers think, "I add value because my product might add value to this person." But when the person is watching that video or that spot, at that moment, your product is not adding value to their life. Eventually if they buy an iPad it might add value to their life, but we need to be using that video to add value at that moment before they've actually bought your product." - Hope Morley

Resources, videos, and other fun goodies

Our short film about Synchronized Planning and Fulfillment.

You can listen to the episode using the player embedded above, or you can read a full transcript below.

Episode transcript

Hope Morley:
Welcome to So You Need a Video, the only podcast-

Guy Bauer:
That we know of.

Hope Morley:
About simplifying your brand's sales message with video. I'm Hope Morley.

Tory Merritt:
And I'm Tory Merritt.

Guy Bauer:
I'm Guy Bauer.

Hope Morley:
And today we're talking about something that we think a lot of marketers might be interested in because we all know as marketers, we know about B2B marketing and products, business to business. We also know about B2C, which is business to consumer, but we have an idea of a new category that we should found as marketers. And Guy, do you want to tell us what it is?

Guy Bauer:
Yeah, maybe we need to trademark it before this podcast comes out. I'm sure we're not the first people to say this but-

Tory Merritt:
Might be the first people to pay to say we were the first people to say it.

Guy Bauer:
Yeah. All right, so you know what's interesting is if you're on LinkedIn, there's people that make these graphics about the differences between B2C and B2B, both from the sales and marketing angle. And when I look at these diagrams, I'm like, "Wow, they're just really full of BS," because they're assuming that B2B people are not the same people that would be targeted in B2C campaigns. Meaning why is it that as soon as I'm at work, I need to be spoken to differently than if I'm at home?

Guy Bauer:
And so my theory is that there's actually a category that trumps everything and that's just B2P, business to people, business to person, meaning a business doesn't absorb any marketing messages. Businesses are made up of people. So when you view yourself as B2B and speaking to another business, you're making a big mistake. You're actually just speaking to a bunch of people that are inside of a business. Businesses are made up of people. So really we need to drop this whole B2C, B2B debate and really just start talking to people as people, which they are! In the hit ebook I wrote-

Tory Merritt:
Out now.

Guy Bauer:
Out now called-

Hope Morley:
A hit with mothers everywhere and mothers of Guy Bauer everywhere.

Guy Bauer:
It's a hit ebook in my immediate family, it's called Death to the Corporate Video, out now on Amazon Kindle singles. I write about how your customers don't wear their suits to bed. Meaning at night, at 10:00 PM on a Wednesday, your B2B customers that you're using big fancy language to and speaking to in a very boring way, don't have their suit on and aren't talking with their kids like they're in some kind of board meeting. They're on the couch.

Tory Merritt:
Oh, are we in alignment children? Is it time for bed?

Guy Bauer:
Right, exactly. They're in their PJs on the couch-

Tory Merritt:
Circle back in the morning.

Guy Bauer:
With the fire, watching Netflix. So why are you speaking to them in this kind of cuckoo alt language?

Tory Merritt:
Those same people, right?

Guy Bauer:
Yeah.

Tory Merritt:
They all have the same feelings and emotions and desires. They want to feel included. They want to do a good job. Another proof point for this is a lot of recruiters and when they're recruiting marketing and advertising people, they're like, "Well, I want someone who's done B2B." And most of the work that I had done before this was actually B2C and transitioning into Umault. It's all the same principles. Yes, you have to think a little bit deeper about who the audiences are, but at the end of the day, like you said, you're talking to the same people with the same emotions and everybody wants the same basic needs. Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Tory Merritt:
They all need to be met, right? So when you're coming up with messages, this concept of well, we have to talk to people at work differently than we talk to them at home. Is it actually more effective? I can't cite a study at the moment, but I'd be willing to bet not. It's the same thing. And actually the way to stand out is instead of talking to people differently at work and home, maybe just talk to them as they're people all the time with your "B2B message" and see what happens.

Guy Bauer:
Yeah, that's right. And I think I was watching a B2B video, a typical B2B video, we didn't make it, but they were trying to pitch an event and they were like, "Network with your peers." I have never gone to an event and be like, "Honey, I can't wait for this event because I'm going to network with my peers." That's how zero people talk.

Tory Merritt:
Right.

Guy Bauer:
So when you're about to put language like that in your video or just in any marketing or sales message you have, think about it. Do you actually say those words? Does anyone say those words other than boring B2B brochures? You don't network with your peers, you go and meet people.

Tory Merritt:
And when you've heard that in other instances, when you're the audience, has it hit you? Right? Like hearing that-

Hope Morley:
Like, "Well that's speaking to me."

Tory Merritt:
I will stay home-

Hope Morley:
Because I really want to network with my peers.

Tory Merritt:
No. It's more like, "Hey, do you want to learn more about what other people are doing? Whether your business sucks or you're doing the right things." Not saying you should put sucks in it.

Guy Bauer:
You could though.

Tory Merritt:
Yeah, I guess you could. We do sometimes.

Guy Bauer:
B2C, there's a lot of false assumptions that B2C sales and marketing make. Meaning: You've all seen those videos where people are at a baseball game and everybody's just happy all the time.

Hope Morley:
We've all seen the stock photos that we're making fun of women laughing at salad. That's not how anyone actually eats a salad-

Tory Merritt:
I've never smiled at a salad.

Hope Morley:
Or interacts with their food. But for some reason that is what photographers think that people want to sell a salad with or show women interacting with salad. So my point is that people aren't happy all the time. People don't, even if you're enjoying a salad, you don't sit there with the salad on your fork smiling at it. I mean, "Oh wow, thanks salad."

Tory Merritt:
Well I think about this too. So we see all these ads with the dumb dad. But the funny thing is Dumb Dad is also perhaps a partner selling AI solutions. So it's really confusing because when you're talking to the person selling AI solutions, you're like, "I need to... This person knows what's going on in the world. We need to demonstrate that we're a leader in this market and we understand," but yet when he's at home you're talking to him like he's too stupid to know how to vacuum. So it's the same guy. It makes no sense at all.

Guy Bauer:
Yeah, I think it's based on, these are all techniques based on stuff from the '60s, '70s, and '80s when the medium was just new. Right?

Tory Merritt:
Yeah.

Guy Bauer:
And there were just these established rules. All good looking people smiling-

Tory Merritt:
Gender roles, all that kind of stuff.

Guy Bauer:
Right. That's B2C and then B 2B is "With over 30 locations and 750 associates..." Somehow that got into the thing that that's what a B2B marketing message is and I think both of them are BS. I mean, if you look at... Hope will link to this in the notes... Is Apple's new holiday video. Every year they do a holiday video.

Tory Merritt:
Yeah.

Guy Bauer:
The video is actually centered around a sad grandpa who just lost his wife.

Tory Merritt:
Yeah.

Guy Bauer:
And then the family comes and he's actually in a bad mood for most of the spot. And that is not typical B2C marketing. What are you talking about? Someone upset-

Hope Morley:
Especially around the holidays.

Tory Merritt:
We need to be happy, even though the truth of the matter is, the holidays are actually a very hard time for a lot of people. So do you speak to someone who is actually feeling that even though it's not like, "Yeah, rock music," and perhaps make them feel included, or do you just go on autopilot... It's Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, be happy when that's not the reality for a lot of people-

Guy Bauer:
No.

Tory Merritt:
The people that are buying from you.

Guy Bauer:
Yeah. So at the end of this Apple spot, you're in tears no matter who you are, you're in tears because it's such a powerful story.

Tory Merritt:
Yup.

Guy Bauer:
But guess what they're doing while you're crying, they're on their iPad. And so Apple is the genius. Apple, years ago, probably two or three years ago, they came up with a Rock spot, a spot with The Rock using Siri. And when they debuted that spot, they were like, "This is the launch of our new marketing ethos or whatever." It's that we're done making commercials because commercials spread from B2C into B2B. And the whole idea of a commercial, what's interesting is what is a commercial? A commercial is a piece of content that is trying to get you to buy something. It's not serving you in any way.

Tory Merritt:
It's not added value.

Guy Bauer:
No.

Tory Merritt:
It's no value.

Guy Bauer:
No, it's actually— all the value is on the company sponsoring this message, right? And so Apple said, "We're done making commercials. Now all of our content, all of our videos, are going to have a story element. We're going to entertain first and then put our product in it." Right? So in essence it is a "commercial," but check out this holiday video and check out Apple at Work, which is a B2B video.

Tory Merritt:
Yeah.

Guy Bauer:
And I would watch a full season of the show of Apple at Work. That video, I mean it's hilarious but it shows their product, The Rock using Siri. Apple, to me, blends B2B and B2C and to me they're doing B2P marketing. They're the gold standard. Another one that I recommend you check out is go to IBM's channel on YouTube. Oh my gosh.

Hope Morley:
Talk about a traditional B2B corporation.

Guy Bauer:
Yeah. But if you watch their videos just as a human, as a person, they are truly entertaining. And they're all about AI and cloud and stuff like that-

Hope Morley:
Cloud, network solutions.

Guy Bauer:
Right.

Hope Morley:
Yeah.

Guy Bauer:
But they actually make interesting pieces of content. So we need to stop thinking of B2C as smiley, happy people in 30 or 60 second chunks. Those days are over.

Tory Merritt:
Yeah.

Guy Bauer:
30 and 60, what does it matter now?

Tory Merritt:
Yeah

Hope Morley:
So who's even watching your marketing message in a traditional 30 second TV spot anymore?

Guy Bauer:
When was the last time you guys watched TV?

Hope Morley:
No. Live over the air TV?

Guy Bauer:
Yeah.

Hope Morley:
I watched a Bears game.

Tory Merritt:
It's, yeah, sports.

Guy Bauer:
Sports.

Hope Morley:
Sports.

Tory Merritt:
And it's really about adding value. We've got a client that we've done things for. It was somewhat event based for the past few years and in some cases it's just been, "Hey, what happened at the event? Here's a wrap up." And this year we were able to work with them and hopefully find a way to ask ourselves, "Are we adding value to someone in this moment?" So that's what I think B2P really is, is whether I'm in "a consumer environment," because I don't think it's a mindset, it's an environment. Am I in a consumer environment? Am I in a business environment? But at the end of the day, how can I add value for that person where they're at? And that brings in the consumer journey, is understanding where someone is and creating content to add value for them at that point in the journey.

Guy Bauer:
Yeah.

Hope Morley:
And reminding yourself that you... Some traditional marketing messages think, "I add value because my product might add value to this person," but when the person is watching that video or that spot at that moment, your product is not adding value to their life. Eventually if they buy an iPad it might add value to their life, but we need to be using that video to add value at that moment before they've actually bought your-

Tory Merritt:
Entertainment can be added value.

Hope Morley:
Exactly.

Tory Merritt:
Entertainment, information, those are added, for me it's added value. A lot of times people think, "Oh I'm in a business environment. Entertainment isn't an added value. It's a waste of time." And you're like, "Not really." I think most of us would like to have some entertainment and some-

Hope Morley:
Because we're people!

Tory Merritt:
At work. Right.

Hope Morley:
And we like to be entertained.

Guy Bauer:
I can talk about this now because we've received client permission. There is a video we made for, put it in the show notes, for Deloitte Synchronized Planning and Fulfillment, and synchronized planning and fulfillment just sounds like B2B, right? You can just imagine the "Meet Bob, he's a supply chain manager at a Fortune 500 company. He has many different supply chain worries like shipping and whatever. How does he fulfill his...?" You can see it, right?

Hope Morley:
Yeah. And we have seen it.

Guy Bauer:
Yeah. We have seen it over and over-

Tory Merritt:
And fallen asleep.

Guy Bauer:
That if you do synchronized planning, if you're in supply chain, you deserve... You are too whatever to understand anything other than a white paper on video.

Tory Merritt:
Or enjoy anything besides-

Guy Bauer:
Right. If you're in supply chain, you don't want to enjoy this video. You just need the facts. These false assumptions that we put on our personas, our target audience are ridiculous, but that's another podcast. So we'll put it in the show notes, but what we made was a two minute movie, basically. It's like a two minute NASA control room drama.

Tory Merritt:
Right.

Guy Bauer:
There really is no explanation in the video of what synchronized planning and fulfillment is. At no point does anyone explain what it is. All it is is a story and it's based on will they succeed, right? Success or failure story, very simple, done all in a synchronized planning and fulfillment world.

Tory Merritt:
Yeah.

Guy Bauer:
But it's truly entertaining.

Tory Merritt:
Yep. And it's entertaining even for people who aren't the target audience, which at the end of the day speaks to the fact that if you are the target audience, I'm probably even more entertained because you're picking up... It's basically one big analogy. So if you're in synchronized planning and fulfillment, you're going to pick up on that analogy. And even if you aren't, it is so entertaining that it is good enough to stand just as a story. So it's kind of like an inception.

Guy Bauer:
And while I'm thinking about it, you talked about in a previous episode of the show, you have IC-

Tory Merritt:
Yup.

Guy Bauer:
A chronic illness-

Tory Merritt:
Yup.

Guy Bauer:
And you talked about a show that covered and did a plot line around IC-

Tory Merritt:
Right.

Guy Bauer:
But the same feeling that you got when a show made a drama or entertained you around your chronic illness, all these supply chain people got when we made a mini movie, a short film around their little niche of the world.

Tory Merritt:
Right.

Guy Bauer:
It's like, "Whoa." Imagine making an entertaining thing. So that's in the world of the internet, there's now all these micro audiences and B2C and B2B come from a broadcast world-

Tory Merritt:
Right.

Guy Bauer:
Where it's very expensive to reach these people. If you think about B2B, how did B2B videos get distributed? By VHS. They would send a VHS tape in the mail. So of course if it's so expensive to do that, it's got to be all information based, right?

Tory Merritt:
Yeah. Got to get all in for that price.

Guy Bauer:
Right. But now with online there's... We know where these people are. We know their habits, we know how to segment them out. And it's, to me, you can no longer afford to make a B2C video that just has people laughing at salads or a B2B video that's just purely fact and information based. You have to make a B2P video that just is a story.

Tory Merritt:
Yeah.

Guy Bauer:
Go watch the Apple videos.

Hope Morley:
And it's the only way to stand out in a crowded marketplace, right? Because like you were saying, we've all been trained and we've all seen these traditional B2B videos so many times. They are so boring.

Tory Merritt:
Yeah.

Hope Morley:
We've seen them before. Maybe they were interesting 10 years ago when we were first getting-

Tory Merritt:
I don't even think they were.

Hope Morley:
Marketing messages online, but now if we tell a targeted story it's entertaining.

Tory Merritt:
Yeah.

Hope Morley:
Those prospects are going to remember that video and then remember the person that made it.

Tory Merritt:
Yeah.

Guy Bauer:
Correct.

Tory Merritt:
People think too of the... You think of a sales funnel and they think of the top of the funnel and that it gets very wide, we have to cast a wide net. Problem is, if you don't do that properly then that doesn't capture them and bring them down the funnel. So yes we need to keep it wide, but if it's wide but it doesn't capture attention, it's not any better than-

Hope Morley:
It didn't serve its purpose.

Tory Merritt:
Right. If you've made something a bit more targeted that helps bring them down.

Guy Bauer:
And just the essence of it is rather than putting on our suit when we make a B2B video or putting on our shorts when we're making a B2C video.

Tory Merritt:
Yeah.

Guy Bauer:
It's just like... be normal. I don't know, just stop overthinking it-

Tory Merritt:
Yeah.

Guy Bauer:
And just make something that you think would be interesting and your target audience would also enjoy it.

Tory Merritt:
Which is another good example of this, I won't get into details on it, but we had a client who they were looking to bring some humanity, some people-feel to some of their leaders because at the end of the day, just the big overwhelming, "these are the leaders" kind of messaging. It wasn't-

Hope Morley:
This is a very large corporation.

Tory Merritt:
Yeah, it wasn't working. People are like, "I don't feel connected to these people. I know they're the future of the firm, but I don't understand anything about them. I have no feelings for them." Being able to, and this is in a heavily B2B environment, being able to humanize those people. Really we've got a lot of comments that it made people stop and realize, "Oh yeah we're all just people working together, trying to sell and do a good job." That's what made the difference for them and the feelings they've had towards leadership in their firm as a whole, was being able to see these people at the ultimate in suits as normal human beings who have hobbies and talents and fears and goals and dreams that they're willing to share just like the rest of us. And get a hat that says B2P on it made. I'm just wear that-

Guy Bauer:
I wonder if anyone has come up with this.

Guy Bauer:
I'm going to Google it.

Tory Merritt:
Yeah.

Guy Bauer:
B2B marketing is increasingly B2P. Someone made a video, it's Merkle. B2P marketing. What is B2P marketing? Darn it. So it's been already made. B2P marketing is the recognition that businesses aren't actually buying what you're trying to sell. Oh, so this is a thing. So news flash, we just Googled this. And B2P is actually a known thing, so we can't copyright it, but we, trust me, we came up with this on our own. I promise you we did, but it's just been validated that if you go to-

Tory Merritt:
Well-

Guy Bauer:
Here, I'll just read what someone wrote.

Tory Merritt:
It's validated every day, what we do.

Guy Bauer:
I think so. And here, I'll just read from this site, MediaPost back from 2013 actually. "B2P marketing is the recognition that businesses aren't actually buying what you're trying to sell." And that's what we said earlier is that businesses don't buy anything. Businesses are made up of people. People buy stuff-

Hope Morley:
People make purchases.

Guy Bauer:
Yeah. And again, it's the other side of the coin thing. We're not just yelling at you B2B marketers, it's also the B2C folks. We get it. People are smiling and happy around stuff. But if everybody's happy around all of the products, then it's just white noise because you've given us nothing to grab onto.

Tory Merritt:
And we know what the trends and the research lately coming out of public sentiment, everybody isn't happy. So it's just not the reality.

Guy Bauer:
Yeah. Think about, I keep going back to Forrest Gump, the movie, if everyone wanted to be happy all the time, no one would watch Forrest Gump. Because Forrest Gump is incredibly sad at many points.

Tory Merritt:
Right.

Hope Morley:
Or any drama.

Tory Merritt:
Right, like This Is Us. Why is that? You know what I mean? Why is that popular?

Hope Morley:
People love melodramas like-

Tory Merritt:
Dawson's Creek.

Hope Morley:
Timely reference.

Guy Bauer:
But it goes up and down because life is up and down and we love it. It's a roller coaster. Right? So watch that Apple spot, watch their holiday spot from this year, 2019, and you'll see what I mean. Most of the spot is sad and weird. Like, what are they doing here? This is a weird spot.

Tory Merritt:
Yeah.

Guy Bauer:
It's not happy.

Tory Merritt:
What are your favorite movies? If you had to name one or two movies that are your favorites, are any of them just stories that were happy, like kid shows the entire time? Like happy?

Guy Bauer:
No.

Tory Merritt:
Even Finding Nemo, there's bright colors, but his mom is dead-

Guy Bauer:
In the first five minutes of the movie.

Tory Merritt:
He gets lost. Right. You have to grab onto people's emotions because we've all felt sad, we've all felt scared, we've all felt angry or frustrated. Those are human emotions. If you aren't willing to recognize them, people aren't going to feel anything towards you. They don't feel connected at all.

Guy Bauer:
And in unofficial research, we watch all the Pixar movies because we've got a three- and five-year-olds. We've got three- and five-year-olds at our house. I would say in 90% of Pixar movies in the first 10 minutes somebody dies.

Tory Merritt:
Yeah.

Guy Bauer:
And these are movies that kids watch, but it's the dealing with the death and the resulting conquering of whatever that people love those stories.

Tory Merritt:
Overcoming challenges and adversity is where it's at, right? So just a constant thing, here's some services to make your day better.

Hope Morley:
Address the complexities of people's lives-

Tory Merritt:
Yeah.

Guy Bauer:
Correct.

Hope Morley:
Is what we're saying.

Guy Bauer:
Not everything-

Tory Merritt:
Complex human beings. People are complex.

Guy Bauer:
Right. Well, there was a book that came out, Melancholia, did you read that? It was saying how without bad there can be no good.

Tory Merritt:
Right. And it's okay to acknowledge the bad, right? Or it's okay to acknowledge challenges, even B2B. How else do you explain to an audience how you're going to help them if you don't acknowledge the things that aren't going well? You shouldn't be afraid to acknowledge the places, even within your own company, that you maybe haven't done well, but how you're looking to do better.

Guy Bauer:
Well look at Domino's.

Hope Morley:
Domino's.

Guy Bauer:
Yeah, we just thought of that.

Hope Morley:
Yeah.

Guy Bauer:
Yup.

Hope Morley:
And that's been their most successful ad campaign of the past five years-

Guy Bauer:
And what's the campaign, Hope?

Hope Morley:
Their campaign was addressing the fact that their pizza was terrible, that people didn't actually like it and that they redid it because it was terrible.

Tory Merritt:
And their new thing with the insurance, which is like, "Hey, we're not going to say that we're never going to mess up, but we will fix it when and if we do."

Guy Bauer:
Right. It's very B2P. It's extremely-

Tory Merritt:
Even if you drop it... That's the humanity piece we're seeing now that has never been part of it, which is not just if we mess it up, but if you trip and fall and drop your pizza, you can come back in and we're all humans. We get it. We'll give you a new one.

Guy Bauer:
Yeah.

Hope Morley:
So to wrap this all up, when you're creating your marketing messages, creating videos, remember that the person watching your video is a person. It's not a company. You are not talking to a corporation, you are talking to a person and that person will respond to human emotions.

Guy Bauer:
It sounds so simple but it's so hard to do-

Tory Merritt:
It goes against the grain.

Guy Bauer:
It's so scary because especially, and this is B2C and B2B because we played in both, especially when you're doing it for a commercial purpose because there's that idea of risk mitigation and that's where the messages just get rounded out instead of being pointy.

Tory Merritt:
Their edges are softened, beveled or whatever.

Guy Bauer:
Right. But humanity is so messy that-

Tory Merritt:
Sharp corners you can talk about-

Guy Bauer:
Yeah. Your homework is to watch that Apple video on our website.

Hope Morley:
Now that Guy has said that four times.

Guy Bauer:
Yeah, please watch that.

Hope Morley:
The video will be posted in the show notes. Well, thanks for listening to us figuring out what B2P marketing is in this episode of So You Need a Video. For more information and for links to Guy's favorite new Apple spot, you can check out our website at umault.com. That's U-M-A-U-L-T.com. And if you like our show, please subscribe and leave us a review. Thank you Guy and thank you Tory.

Tory Merritt:
Thank you.

Guy Bauer:
My pleasure.