139 | Why the future of B2B agencies lies in strategy

Jon Busby: So, welcome again to another episode of the Tech Marketing podcast. Uh, I'm joined again by two podcast veterans that we've had previously, uh, of course from the Get Aside, uh, Minaz, who has been no stranger to the Tech Marketing podcast. Um, but also very, very pleased to be joined by Joel Harrison, uh, who joined us a couple of years back talking about the, the awards.

Um, so Joel, your founder of the. B2B, um, of B2B marketing and host of the, I'm gonna try and get this right from one podcast host to another, the trust and influence in B2B Marketing podcast as well. Um, really excited to have you back. Um, yeah, thank you for joining us again on the Together Tech Marketing podcast.

Joel Harrison: I'm so delighted to be back. It's, it's been too long and I'm lots of exciting stuff to talk about, so thank you. I'm very flattered to be invited.

Jon Busby: So much stuff has changed since we last caught up. Um, I mean, I think we, we had that conversation back in maybe 22 or 23, and I, I'd like to describe my role as being relatively easy back then in the world of, of being a CTO in, in a tech marketing agency.

And now everyone just wants to come, come to me and talk about ai. So I think we're gonna talk about that a lot today. But before we go into, into what's happening in the B2B. Ma Agency and marketing space. Let's talk a bit about, bit about you. Like you change, you've shifted roles as well since we last spoke.

So you are now editor in large at B2B marketing. What, what does that mean? What does an editor in life

Joel Harrison: do? I've shifted it again, actually to more of an ambassadorial role. I mean, so the, the, the, the kind of, I'll try and tell this story as succinctly as possible. I, I was one of the founders of B2B marketing.

21 years ago. We launched a magazine. Can you remember? Magazines, you know, were great. Um, everyone loved them. For about the last until about 10 years ago. Um, but we, yeah, we, the business changed dramatically and the magazine's not stopped being so relevant. We reorientated the business, uh, around the time of covid around our community called propolis, which I hope we're gonna get a chance to talk about later on.

Um, and um, we also got a CEO. I've been joint managing director. We've got a CEO and who's. Richard O'Connor, he's fantastic and he's driving the business onto great commercial heights, and I, I was spent, I spent 21 years at the coal base, you know, pulling all the levers, being chief product officer, chief content officer, chief edit, you know, editor to the magazine.

Producer, ambassador, everything. And it was just like, I ha I've done it. I've been there and I've done that. And Richard needed some space to run the business by himself. Um, and, and I needed some op not opportunity to do exciting things. So I've been given kind of time off for good behavior. So I got the chance to go off and, um, um, and do my own thing and get back to doing what I enjoy most, which is, um, kind of being a, a content.

Generator. A, a creator, I hate the word, but it, but it's the one of the least words that you could use where I'm generating my own stuff, around my own podcast, writing a book, just doing, going to events and reporting and what I see and hear. Um, and it, and it's great.

Jon Busby: It's, it's, uh, yeah, I, I mean it, especially in a world now going undergoing so much change, um, it must be really interesting, especially, you know, we, we've started life as you, as you mentioned, creating print magazines and now that feels like a, a distant memory.

1. Um, even though that was only a few years ago that we were probably still buying them. So Yeah. Really, really interesting. So we, we, we've got a load of topics to go through today. Everything from, I think, influencer marketing, how to get the best out of your marketing agencies, like together, other marketing agencies are available, um, and some of the other, some of the biggest topics such as brand.

I'm trying to think where we get started, but I guess what's going through my head, uh, and I mean as I'm gonna bring you in here as well, is the only way I can really describe it is. It feels like the wheels have fallen off a little bit recently, um, in our world, um, partly driven by a ai, partly driven by probably other geopolitical events that are happening.

Um, what do you feel feel the future looks like, Joel? Like what, from your side of the fence, having seen all these different B2B agencies, uh, evolving and changing over the last few years. Like firstly, what have you seen change and where do we think it's going?

Joel Harrison: Well, it's, it's a great topic. Scary one, but a great topic.

John. I think you described it really well. It's like a bit of like a perfect storm. You've got this kind of geopolitical uncertainty, but at the same time, AI's arrived this, you know, and I think that we're all a bit sick of hearing about ai, but actually you can't really underplay how fundamental it is.

And do you remember when marketing automation came in and kind of like the mid noughties, the late naughties and it, we, we were all like. First of all, we were really scared about our jobs and things like that, and it was gonna, um, you know, and it was, but when we realized that actually it took, didn't take any less market to use marketing automation properly, so actually just kind of carried on as we were.

So this is really like a, just a transformational moment in, in, in B2B and, you know, it's, you kind of har it back to the kind of industrial revolution properly. Um, and I think that what's happened is you've got, you've got the backdrop is the kind of geo geopolitical stuff and economic uncertainty. Um.

What, what that means is kind of embolden clients who think they can well, or, and then, and then, so there's this, this kinda like, do we need to spend on marketing and ai, AI comes in and that you've got these, there's inherent group of people in top of companies who think that marketing's easy and they can do it themselves.

And AI has only just kind of emboldened them and given them kind of more fuel, more more kind of power to their elbow. Um, so, um, so that, that means that, yeah, that, that's kind of, I've given them more kind of license to take a hatchet to budgets and, and, and. Actually hollow out marketing teams in many instances in the technology sector.

Not all, but we've seen a lot of it and it still seems to be going on. I thought we would've bottomed out by now, but it still seems to be going on. And I think that obviously impacts on agencies, right? Because you know, agencies obviously, if, um, if clients get, if clients sneeze and agencies catch a cold as to paraphrase, well, well hacking.

Um, quote. Um, and I think what happened in many instances, and I'm not gonna gonna prescribe say this together, was guilty of this, but I know a lot of agencies were what a lot of agencies gave away strategy for free, but they made money outta production and campaign execution. Right. And then what, so what happened is that AI meant that a lot of this production and admin type functions could be reduced or eliminated.

And so agency models. Actually have, are having profound, or those agencies that utilize that model are having to profound change, you know, to change profoundly. And then it's reorient their value around the services, around strategy. And some of them have already done that. Some of 'em are doing that beginning, but others, this is gonna be a, a hard thing to do.

And some of those are gonna be in only in a tactical execution game. They won't have that strategic staff to pull back on. I guess the silver lining for all this, um, uh, is that, um. Uh, you know, there's the, the because of, because you are losing, um, because there's been a, a lot of redundancies at senior level in, in certainly a lot of tech companies actually.

There's never been more of a need for strategic advice and input. Right. So there's a greater vacuum for agents to step in though, step into if they can get it right. Um, you know, there, there may be so. I guess the question is, is this a short term blip or is this a kind of a longer realignment of client agency relationships and structures with agencies having to become kind of leaner and more strategic in the nature and an inevitable bias towards, um, senior staff?

'cause typically agencies had that very pyramid structure, didn't it, where there was a lot more kind of junior people. Um, and, and a few, and sorry John, I'm just gonna just, I'm nearly, I'm nearly done, but you are

Jon Busby: got a list of questions we gonna jump on. Keep going, Joel. This.

Joel Harrison: I'm, I'm, I'm nearly there. But I mean, think the, the thing is, if you are gonna be Darwin about this, you might say, well, you know, um, what kills you doesn't, doesn't make you stronger.

That's nie rather than Darwin, isn't it? But, um, you might say that the, um, the sector that will emerge from this kind of transitional process will be, um, leaner and fit for purpose and relevant to its environment that it's in. Right. Um, even if that's true, uh, there's likely to be a lot of pain along the way.

Um. And I think that the, the biggest, so, you know, there isn't a readjustment taking place we're seeing here. I think the bit that's probably kind of most. Worrying about this, I think probably is that whilst I think that we, we can and we will adjust and, you know, client teams will, will adjust and agencies will find the right niche and engage 'em.

'cause I think that that need for external third party guidance is really important still. And the role agencies play is absolutely critical. And, and it's such an important part of the ecosystem. But the da, the danger, well the, the kinda longer term danger for me is that what it means is that. If we, if we are saying that the agency's changing structure and you have is more senior and less junior, that means that you are employing less junior staff and that will kind of fle the supply of talent into our sector.

And I think we've all seen that agencies are brilliant at bringing in talent. Um, and then, and you kind of, you don't have any choice but to learn everything really fast at an agency and to understand the full gamut of what campaigns actually do. Um, and I, and I think that's a shame. I think that, that, that, that, um, that will be a a, that will be a problem for the industry, which has never been great at recruiting new talent anyway.

Um, so that, that's a bit of a worry long term. I'll

Jon Busby: stop. Yeah, no, there's a lot there. And just to carry on on that final, that point, and Minaz, I'll let you jump in 'cause I know you're probably eager to jump in on a few of those, but I heard the same analogy or comparison being used for things like 3D design companies like Pixar, right?

The, the, the lower tier. I think if, if we let this play out in the way that it is, we're gonna see a big succession planning problem across the board where we're gonna see a lot of senior people when they're, you know, eventually when they. Retire or go off into the sunset. Um, and we're not gonna see the same level of talent rising up from the, from the ranks is, is my concern.

Um, and you, we've already started seeing it with 3D production and animation where now AI can do all the grunt work, which would normally be done by interns and junior staff. That's gonna, it's gonna start to impact, impact everything in the long, in the, in the long term. So, yeah. Completely agree. Minaz, I'm gonna let you jump in 'cause I'm sure you've got a view here.

Minaz Tejani: Yeah, yeah. Load there, right? I think, um. A couple of the points I just scribbled down, which is sort of, I mean, you know, on that point, um, I mean the latest news is about, um, is it, uh, mt There was like basically two very, very prolific post-production houses in soho that have had to close their doors. Now it's not just because of ai.

I think AI has probably been the nail in the coffin. There's a bunch of other issues there. But at the same time, what we've seen over the last, you know, five years, I'm someone who grew up. Advertising a huge sort of love of it and, and an aspiration to look at agencies like, um, you know, y and r to look at JWT, to look at mcc.

And over time just seeing these icons of the industry just fall away and that all be, you know, merged together to create something new, which is always, you know, progress is good. But I think that has had an effect on the industry in general of not having these sort of cornerstones that guide people and bring them in.

I think we need to create the next tranche of, of cornerstones is, is critical because if you lose that, you, you know, you lose all the talent that wants to kind of come and work for a Pixar. You know, in the same way tech people in the nineties were like, oh, I wanna go and work for Google and, and, uh, and whatnot.

So, absolutely. But I think one of the things that's interesting, Joey talked about the, the idea that agencies have always through accident, really kind of. Best Will in the world have given away strategy and thinking and creative because you make the money off the production. Now, is that wholly different to the earlier days of advertising where, you know, I wasn't around then, but from what I've heard.

You know, it sounded more like it was, creative ideas were given away for free because they made the money off the media. So what they were pitching for in Mad Men was not the Kodak creative, it was the Kodak media program because that's what really brings the money in and the creative is, is the, is the crown jewels that brings them into, into the.

It is what we're seeing. Just another tectonic shift in the way that advertising and marketing and value needs to work. And the value exchange is just shifting back in different directions, which happens over time. I mean, with all the tools that are available nowadays, you know, obviously. It's, it's, it's democratization.

But for me, democratization is the birth of mediocrity, right? Uh, I'm a music producer myself. Everybody Having these cool tools that you can start to write tracks at home means that you get a sea of, shall I say sameness or shall I say, as just a sea of shit that really comes out because everyone can do it.

The, the levels and quality immediately goes down and, you know, we, we get into where we get into. I happen to believe that where we are now, we are in that sort of birth of that, that process that we will see over time and probably a lot quicker than we think. What needs to stand out is the amazing work that can't really be done by ai and people will then start to understand that now AI is just a tool for me to be able to get, uh.

I'm replacing you with a platform. That's awesome.

So, yeah. Well, I mean, that was, that was, that was kind of me. That was, that was the I space to, to, to kind of respond to, to that. I can give you a bit on, on the future of agencies as well, though, where I see it going. Let's go to the

Jon Busby: futures in a moment. 'cause there's, there's more I want to dig into here and Min to kind of build on what you've just mentioned.

You know, and, and Joel, you, you mentioned this kind of hollowing out of media teams inside, inside companies. Like I'm, I'm trying to picture like, is that. So this is something that I'm quite passionate on and I'd actually, Joel would love to see if I get your help to complete this research. 'cause this is, it's been difficult to try and put it together, but we all have seen those, you're talking about the rise of MarTech that you mentioned.

We have seen the, the meteoric rise of MarTech platforms and MarTech budgets. I think if, if we're talking back to 20 20, 20 21, 20 22 from about the year 2016 to to mid 20 mid, um. Two or three years ago, basically budgets were going up by about 35% a year. Um, platforms were almost doubling. I think there must be over 10,000 platforms on the chief MarTech canvas now.

Um, you know, it's, it's thousands of different software tools. So if you track that, that rise, but then you track at the same time marketing effectiveness. It hasn't increased by anywhere near the same percent. Certainly, and I would even say in some cases it's slightly dipped. So may you know, I'm gonna take a slightly different angle.

Are we seeing an A correction now and just AI happens to be part of it? Or are we seeing the correct or, or is the hollowing out those marketing teams or the reduction those marketing teams and us leaning up actually reaction to AI instead, or a bit of both?

Joel Harrison: Can I come in there on that one? Yeah,

Jon Busby: go.

Joel Harrison: Yeah, I think, I think it's fast.

I think that's a really fascinating point, John. Um, I guess what, so the why is, why do all that investment in Mar MarTech not really impact on effectiveness? And I guess, um, I, I haven't got the data to compare with that, but I, but I suspect that one of the problems is just, and this is probably what how we're gonna talk about later on around is the, is media proliferation and, and.

Lack of and trust is that we're, we've all been generating more and more content, you know, and, and more, more marketing. It's harder and harder for anyone to make a decision, and it's more and more confusing, um, and less certainty, less trust and everything. So, which we've just been investing more and more and, and staying a, a kind of a similar, uh, le level, I would suspect that's probably, there's, there's probably lots of reasons why, but that's what occurs to me there.

And I, um, uh, yeah, it's, it's fascinating. I do think the MarTech thing has come off though in the last. Three or four years. I mean, for example, we had a, we had an event at B2B marketing called MarTech. We actually stopped it this year because we couldn't see enough of a difference between, um, what, who was using MarTech, who would come to that event?

The stories and the, the dialogue to tell that event versus our big, our big event in the summer Ignite. So just think, well, why are we trying to compete against ourselves for this event? So, uh, but Lowe's to pick up on there, John.

Jon Busby: Yeah, I, I, it's something that's really stuck with me as in the, in this, you know, we, we haven't seen a meteoric rise in, in effectiveness.

And like you say, I think it's actually dropped off in recent years, and I, I can't, I'm, you know, I. The AI race at the moment is being kind of compared, in fact, I saw a graph comparing it to the uh, dot com bubble. Um, you know, the, the, if you overlay the tool on top of each other, they're very similar. So I, I'm sat there saying, are we seeing a correction now to some of that MarTech failure in some of the B2B buyer changes that we're seeing, or, or, you know, is there a bigger bubble yet to come?

Um, and it just, it may, it creates a huge, yeah, continues to create a huge amount of uncertainty for us on the, on the production side of things. Um, I. But I think you are, you are spot on. And your point around clients would rather pay for strategy and, and, you know, production is now gonna be, now gonna be outsourced a lot.

So let's, let's move on to the future for a second then. Like Min, as you mentioned, you've got some thoughts around the future. What are your thoughts there?

Minaz Tejani: Yeah, I mean, one of the things that sort of just link to the last, last conversation, but, but comfortably to the next, I think as well is, um, you know, we're seeing a lot of, a lot of mergers and acquisitions taking place and.

Meetings of minds coming together, you know, it is happening, kind of, you know, all the time there's new entities being produced. And I, I think, I think to myself like, is that, is that really the best example of, of Darwinism really hitting our industry where it's not, you know, obviously like a lot of people, uh, the conception that, you know, survival of the fitness is the strongest, but actually it's like the flamingos in the water, you know, with the longer legs.

And it is, it's like, are we seeing. Actually the best parts of certain agencies coming together to actually give birth to sort of new services and new skill sets off the back of all of it. All this, or are we actually just seeing a lot of organizations coming together for safety and I think for me, that's a really interesting area to look at who's going to then continue to survive as agencies?

Because if you can identify. Given the democratization of a lot of things and the trends that they're moving towards of people being able to do things in house and where does the value sit, where value and value really comes together, produces more value. And I think what we're gonna see in the future is more agencies sort of finding really their pathway of where their voice and.

Being an entity that does something and being an entity that does something and then coming together to just do the same thing is, is not a long-term strategy. And I think this is where the sort of survival of the fittest will kick in. And actually those have those that have evolved, you know, will continue to thrive.

And those who don't will ultimately probably not be here in the next sort of, you know, x number of years, I think.

Joel Harrison: Can I, can I comment back on that one, John?

Jon Busby: Yeah. You, you just keep going. Don't wait for me.

Joel Harrison: I'm, I'm being, I'm being, I'm being, um, uh, respectful to share Right as I, as, as I often am. Um, I, I think it's really, really interesting points and I, I, I really, it's a really good conversation.

I, I wonder if, um, uh, there is an element of, um, uh, the challenge we've got at the moment is some of the agencies that are, um, that I've really put their. Stall out on creativity, being bold at a point where, um, your marketing budgets are most under pressure. Um, and it's hardest to sell a cr a really bold, creative solution that doesn't have a demonstrable route to revenue is it's gonna be, it's it's hardest point right now.

So those, so I suspect that some of those agencies. That, uh, have really set their stall out around creativity might be finding it hardest. Um, and I, I can think of one that's had a, for example, I'm not gonna mention any names right now, but one is that that's kind of gone through a merger process. Um, so it, it might, it might just be that there's a pragmatic aspect of this, which is that where everyone's just gotta do what it was required to do to survive.

A tough period and hope that things get better at the o at the other end of it. And there'll be more latitude for creativity, assuming there's somebody in the box seat at the client to actually be able to commission that great marketing and advertising and, and great creative. And that's the thing that worries me the most is, is that the bit that the progress that I think we had to, that we've made, um, over the last 20 years in terms of getting a generation of, um, of B2B marketing leaders who can genuinely.

Get the respect to the CEO and the CFO and the CSO to, to allow to give them to the latitude to do great work. That has been a lot of, that's been removed by the de-skilling that we've had here because just to be really, my, my biggest bug bear here is that the biggest problem B2B marketing isn't the lack of creative thinking or bravery or boldness.

That's a symptom of the problem, which is the lack of respect for B2B marketing at that top level, at that top tier, and that is. Gendered in a position of confidence where marketing leaders have got the confidence and the ability to build that respect over time and demonstrate they understand and align with the organization's success, and then they can start pushing those creative solutions.

There are exceptions to that of course, but that is, that's the biggest problem being to be marketing market. I mean.

Jon Busby: Loud, loud and clear on that one. Joel, uh, like you kind of touched on why that might be like, let's just, let's, I wanna pick your brains and make this really clear for me by listeners. Like, what is the, what is that gap and, and why CMOs are not being respected and being given the, the freedom to do great creative.

Joel Harrison: Well, I think some of them are, some of them have been. Um, I think it's easier when you are a cm, a genuine CMO of a global organization because they understand, they, they inherently understand brand a bit better. They're less likely to be knee jerk and reactive. But that's, that's the, that's the problem.

It's the, it's the D difference between B2B and B2B two C is the nation of, you've got to demonstrate that, that CEOs and CFOs are thinking and CSOs are thinking. I've got a quarter, I've got to get to my re my number at the end of the quarter and marketing's gotta be contributing to that. I'm not saying this is right, by the way.

I'm not saying this is, this is the, this is the thing that makes a good business. I'm just saying this is reality. Right? Um, and, and so and so, all those big, those great plans, those grand plans are fine when things are going great and you can see a clear line to the end of a quarter, end of the half when things are tough.

They, they re, they kind of knee jerk and er revert to, to type. And they go, well, what are you, what are you doing to move that opportunity from, from, you know, to, to closure. And they want you to focus on that and, and then stand up in front of 'em and say, you know, I wanna spend, I wanna spend. Hundreds of millions of pounds on something, which will, which has no clear delivery timeline of, of results.

You know, it's a, it's a believe. If you believe it, they will come thing, you know, that's very hard to do in that environment. It's easy to do when things are going well.

Jon Busby: I, I would say it's a, it's a really interesting point, and I've got a, a client who has been a. Guest on this podcast before actually, and if you're listening to this, you'll know exactly who, who, who you are.

Um, who I know has taken some of those challenges right up to the top, the highest level of their board. Um, and there, and I think it's now got fingers crossed, right? It's now got so bad and so challenging in some spaces. Boards are starting to recognize, you know, CEOs chairman, it's starting to recognize that they have to think differently.

Um, because I think we've, I've been saying this for, for a long time on the podcast that the Wall Street, I think has, has got a lot to answer for when it comes to marketing. Like it's really driven us to this quarterly driven mentality, which has meant, you know, it's, it's driven down the importance of brand to to, to a point that.

It's very difficult for many, many people to invest in it. Um,

Minaz Tejani: I thought you had say, I thought you were gonna say greed is good then. That's right. You know. No, that's,

Jon Busby: but it's, but it does mean, you know, I think it's now got so bad that they're realizing how everything looks the same and feels the same.

And if we don't do something to step out of it and, and be bolder, which is you say is a symptom of some of that. Um, we, we, we're gonna end up just kind of backing if all, all. Looking well all end up looking the same basically, aren't we? Um, so, yeah.

Minaz Tejani: Uh, do you, do you think as well, I guess the, the way that I see it is that if anything though, in a time at which marketing budgets are reduced and pressure is increasing and the need to be noticed is more and make more sales.

Really that is the one time to be as bold and creative as possible, because being safe is the riskier situation. However, you counter that with decision makers who are sticking with what they know and safety keeps them in a job. I feel that meeting of, of, of that situation. Is in effect the carbon dioxide that's gonna restrict the fire, if not extinguish it.

And I think that is a problem.

Jon Busby: Yeah. We are humans though. We're, we're instinctively wired to think like the rest of the community. That's how we, that's, that's how we're wired. It's in our, it's in the sea of sameness. Problem is in our DNA. Um, but Joel, what's, yeah, what's kind of, what's your reaction to that?

Joel Harrison: I think, I think man is right in that this is the time to stand out and when everyone's zigging you should zag and all that kind of stuff. Um, and I think boldness all will always pay off. It just may not pay off in a timeframe. That's, um, that's aligned with your career expectations and

Minaz Tejani: Yeah. Yeah. But they say, they say fortune fold favors the bold, so that must have come from somewhere. Right. I.

Joel Harrison: Yeah, it does. It just, it is just contextual, isn't it? Right. Yeah. Um, and, and I just think, um. Uh, I do feel that historically I think it's great that we've been, had the confidence and maturity as an industry to talk about brand in a way the last about three years that we haven't done for the previous kind of 20 or so that, or or 18 that we were since we existed.

'cause when we used to B2B market, we launched, there was nothing here. It was a, it was a wasteland of, of advertising with fe with, with features of products on it. Right? That was what was going on. And it's changed and grown so much in agency like together. Been absolutely instrumental in that. Um, so, um. I completely lost the thread of my point there.

I got lost in my, my own dialogue. Now

Jon Busby: you are making me think back to the days of what, yeah. When that, when that was, we're talking kind of press ads with a, with a switch in the corner and talking about speeds and feeds. Like it has come a come along a, a long way. It just,

Minaz Tejani: yeah.

Jon Busby: I,

Minaz Tejani: I would, oh, sorry. Go, go, go ahead.

I, you know, I would say looking back without, without turning this into like the nostalgia hour and everything turns, everything turns c.

I, I definitely think in my earlier career, and this is for the listeners as well, in my earlier career, the brands we were working with, so Nortel, you know, Adobe of the world, they were a lot bolder than they are now. Some of the work that we were doing once we broke out this speeds and feeds type of ideas, you know, the, the sort of, I'd say, you know, 2005 to 2015.

I, I feel like was a good trajectory path. Some pretty amazing work coming out of B2B brands that were there was just, there was probably more money in the industry and there was less to lose, so people took risks. I mean, you know, we've done some pretty amazing stuff earlier in that time and we're still doing some good, good things.

Don't get, don't get me wrong, but I would say, yeah, going back to that earlier sort the 2010, I think there was just, there was just an appetite. To do something without the risks of it going wrong. And I think now everyone's so risk adverse and just is frightened about doing something that's too, not even big and bold, but just a bit more adventurous, you know?

Because I think bold's a very subjective term anyway, but I think something that's a bit more adventurous, that's gonna be take a few risks and see if, if we can uncover and unearth something really special. I don't think that really happens much.

Joel Harrison: Yeah, I think, I think the, just in terms of the kind of trajectory of, again, I don't wanna be the CPR, either I'm a Cpr f myself, um, but the, um, but the, the, um, you know, I think the marketing automation.

Wasn't great for creativity because again, it pushed everything back to being, you know, that was when the, the birth of the MQL problem and that which is the kind of affliction, which we're still not, we're still struggling to get, get away from. Um, but, but that, that was, that was there. Um, John, I, I don't wanna derail the conversation completely, but I just wanted to go back saying that Vanessa said right at the very beginning of the, of the conversation about the point about, um, about kind of everyone having the tools to do this and end up being a rush towards mediocrity.

And I, and I agree with that to a large extent. But that, but, and, but when you're talking about the music angle on that, the thing that I keep coming back to, I can't help get away from my head is, is punk. Right. That's a great analogy. Which, which conflicts with what you said there. 'cause what punk did is it said to everyone, you can do this.

Um, and gave you the instruments and, and said, just it's all about attitude. Go off and do it and be creative. And it did drive creativity. So that DIYA aesthetic. Did create a form of creativity. Um, so I don't think Democrat democratization in inherently wrong. Um, but the, the thing that, that the agencies do that.

The average person marketer with a, with a, um, an AI platform can't do is have that true understanding, creativity and pushing the boundaries under in the context of it, you know, and, you know, everyone could create a nice image, but that's the difference. It's that real, the depth of the, it's that, uh, the under, under aligning the strategy with the creativity, um, and to, to, to, to create.

Amazing images. And I think the exciting thing is that, that one of the barriers historically that we've been a lot of negativity, let's do some positivity. One, you know, one of the barriers historically in B2B marketing was you were limited by by what you could afford to produce. Right. What you could what, but now you are not limited by anything.

Right. I mean, I mean, as I, I, I interested your point there about other things, which AI. Couldn't or shouldn't do or look wrong, but there are, theoretically, there are no limitations. I mean, there's stuff with like Keanu Reeves falling out of a plane in fire and things like that. You know, is there exa, whether you like that or not is still, is still amazing.

Example.

Jon Busby: I couldn't agree more actually. And it, and it's, but it's an interesting, interesting journey to go on with that. 'cause I, I, slightly, one thing we were, I think we were talking about this before, we always need to have some disagreement. We can't just all agree with each other. One thing I would say, I disagree with you, that on there, that Joel is, it has made us more creative, but some of the legal frameworks, some of the other challenges haven't caught up yet to make custom agent it.

It's a big problem we've got as an, as an agency right now is we can't use those tools. To develop the images for our customers because the, the right legal and indemnity frameworks don't exist.

Minaz Tejani: Right, exactly. Yeah, that's a big problem. You know, it's the kind of the battle between enviable versus viable, right?

You can be amazing work that everyone wants a piece of, but it's not actually viable yet to get out into market, which we. I'm sure every agencies, you know, fall short. And that's not,

Jon Busby: not to do with the creativity, it's just to do with, with some of the legal elements around, you know, protecting our craft essentially.

And it's, but it, we are now seeing a point where we've gotta accelerate through, um, and, and find, find a route out the other side. So I think that's gonna be one of the biggest challenges facing many agencies is how they deal with the, the slightly duller side of a, of, of ai, which is managing the risk and, and reward ratio.

Minaz Tejani: Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Joel Harrison: But, but that, that does play exactly. Back to your point, what point made just now about people don't want to, there's a legal risk, but there's a career risk as well. So, you know, there is, there is inherent risk in this transformation we're going through.

Minaz Tejani: Yeah, there is. Yeah, definitely.

And I think that sort of links to, I suppose, you know, where we started this conversation around, you know, AI just being one of the, the, um, I suppose igniters if you like, or catalyst change amongst the value of. What we're hearing from a lot of clients as well. And, and Joel, you know, you obviously deal with a lot of agencies.

What we're hearing from, um, sorry. A lot of, a lot of brands, um, what we're hearing from a lot of them is their prediction of what they require from an agency in the future is much more geared around creativity, strategy, insights, thinking, you know, putting the blueprint so then they can go and activate it potentially internally.

Now, there is one caveat to that as well. And the same word keeps coming up every time, and that's flexibility. They want the choice to be able to use an agency for the whole campaign or con producing content or strategy or ideas. They want to be able to choose. I feel like up until this point, a lot of brands haven't had that choice.

You go to an agency and you buy the creative strategy, content activation, maybe some media. Agencies held all the cards. We held all the cards on going, if you wanna grow and you wanna make money and you wanna drive more leads, you have to use us as much as possible because we make money outta that, and you're kind of at the mercy of us.

What we're seeing now is a shift where clients really just want the choice, want the flexibility to choose. What I take from you as an agency, and it's gonna be the valuable stuff, like the creativity, the ideas, and the thinking. It might be some content, it may not be the activation emails and social ads and production.

And I think time and time again, the conversation comes back to like finally, clients have a bit more choice. And I don't think personally agencies have done the industry a lot of favors. Of keeping everything behind these closed curtains and a slightly more cloak and dagger. We don't reveal too much or give much away about how we do it, how the factory works, and I think a lot of agencies are now having to answer for that.

Where are my fees being spent and who are they being spent on and what am I really paying for? And that's an, that's an interesting time for me. I think it's not a bad conversation to be had really him.

Joel Harrison: It is, it is really interesting. I hadn't, that's the fact I hadn't considered, I'll be honest. So that I, I hadn't seen that, that, that, that dynamic of play.

But I, but given I'm looking at the outside of the agencies and I'm not, they're not allowing me to that conversation, but I, and I don't, I'm I'm actually saying I'm, I can't even, I wanted to say I don't believe it. I, I, I can't 'cause I'm not part of that conversation, but one thing I do know is inherently true and it, it doesn't just apply to agencies.

It applies to. To B B2B marketing as a business, you know, great, um, chemistry and collaboration and great relationships and respectfulness of each other's businesses is absolutely critical to partnership. You have to have a And it's a partnership, isn't it? You can't, you know, it's not, I, I, I think I believe in flexibility to a point, but I also think that you've gotta, there's gotta be a respect that you are that, that these are economic entities that have to exist and they've, they, they employ people and they've gotta have the degree of.

Robustness and robust forward plan. So I I, I don't know how it could work if, if it became so flexible that, that you could just switch them on and off at a moment's notice. That's just not, that, just it's not in the spirit of good, of good partnerships and, and good and good chemistry to make that partnership work.

Minaz Tejani: Yeah, no, just, oh, just to sort of clarify that point. Sorry. When I mean flexibility, it's probably less flexibility to switch an agency on and off because they should be a strategic, should be an extension to your business an. Loves your objectives and keep those your objectives. Keep them awake at night is really the recipe for success.

I mean, flexibility actually within the services that they procure from you, whereas else before it was content production where you made your money, you know, now it's more like I want the flexibility to be able to ize strategy, thinking, partnership, however content you could then guide our internal content team now, um.

You could work with our media agency or a specialist, and it's this sort of collaborative kind of effort with the client. But I think again, if a client is a true partner of yours and you're a partner of theirs, that's a grownup honest conversation that you can have and work. How do you work together for mutual benefit Really?

Joel Harrison: I think there's, there's different models already. We're seeing, aren't we? I mean, we're seeing the rise of the outsourcers, right? Um, you, you're seeing these kind of like marketing factories in the Philippines amongst other places. Um, you know, uh, we, you know, we're increasingly, if you look at, we had a round table for agents and they were saying actually the.

Most people who said the growth is in the mid-market and that they don't have much of a marketing engine. And that's part of the nature of the how they're funded. Often they don't wanna build it, build a big marketing team. So they're inevitably be going to probably still rely on agents as a bit more, whereas the corporates, as you say, either, either insource to a greater extent or.

Possibly outsource to a marketing factory. I'm, I'm, this is, I'm doing very huge generalizations here with no factual basis whatsoever. Just instinct

Jon Busby: who are the fact, like the factory thing is really interesting. I describe them as like the rise of the premium fiber, like we're all familiar with fiber five.

Yeah. And then there's people, there's companies that have created these like much more premium offerings that say like, is that, is that who you are describing when you think of that Joel? Like it's those.

Joel Harrison: Yeah, it's, it's, it's, I guess it's like that, I mean, it's the, it's, it's that they've got a load of bodies in a very low wage environment, and they are, are very good at doing, um, repetitive low, low to moderate level tasks over a longer period of time.

You know, and I guess it's, you know, the lowest level, it's lead generation, right? That's, its very, very lowest level. But it definitely extends up the pipeline from there. But it's, you know, it's unlikely to be getting some real deep. Great creative or great strategy. 'cause it just does not inherently, no matter how intelligent those people are, the alignment with the organization just isn't gonna be there.

Jon Busby: I, I think that's one of the risks though, to kind of coming back to it is, is agencies today, the, the rise of these premium Fiverr brands as I'm gonna call them, uh, you know, they are starting to dive into at sprinkling a bit of ai, which it optimizes your margins for one side, but also starting to, to, to.

Use that to build creative. Um, and that's something that, you know, on the more traditional agency structure side, we've, we've gotta evolve to meet, um, because yeah, I, I know when AI first started coming out, wheels looked at it and said, well, this means we can do a job in half the time and make more margin.

And now that I, I think that that question can even be asked, like, we've gotta pass that saving on.

Yeah, but I'm kidding. I'm that, that's also changed a lot. Like even this week, what we are recording this on, what the 28th of March, even this week, uh, four O's released a new, uh, a new, uh, image generation model, and it's blowing other things out the water. Um, so it's crazy, uh, how fast this world is moving.

Let's just on your point, sorry, John, before we move on

Minaz Tejani: to the next point, um, Joel, sorry. Um, I do think as well, I mean as a, obviously as an agency.

Being used in the right way to arm people to be, you know, super supercharged if you like to use a, a classic cliche business term, um, supercharged to be better people, better campaigns, better creative. But I do think to your point about the punk thing as well.

You know, when the Sex Pistols made their album, their one and only album, and, you know, subsequently, I know my lack of punk knowledge will come through here is that there are a lot of other punk bands that, that really inspired and, and, and exploded the scene to be, you know, democratized. Everyone can do this, can pick up a guitar, but there was a lot of crap that came out before bands like Nirvana suddenly took that sound.

Took it into a new place and all of the amazing iconic bands. There was still that imagine a short period where like everyone was doing it and it was pretty, it was, wasn't great, wasn't as good as it could have been. I just think that maybe we're in that. A while until we are gonna realize that sort of like the democratization of some of those tools will put out a lot of the same content, will put out a lot of the same ads, and those ads will just become the norm.

So how do we make sure that we're stepping out above and beyond it, which is gonna require human spirit, emotion, understanding and thinking, you know, which is hopefully where we come in

Joel Harrison: and great salesmanship from agencies as well.

Minaz Tejani: Yeah, that's, well, yeah. Yeah. We got, there's, there's plenty of that.

Agencies, I'll tell you. It's not short of it. But, um, before we move on topic.

Joel Harrison: No, I, I think that's great. I think it's great. I think we're in seeing the same, same page. I mean, you know, my, not the musical punk, uh, analogies aside. It's, um, yeah, we, we've, we've got the opportunity to, there, there are great things that came out of everything, uh, different, different, um, areas and areas.

So, um, there, there are, there's great AI driven con given, um, content emerging and creative emerging. We just, but we're just adjusting something new. We've talked ourselves out of this bad place, haven't we?

Jon Busby: Yeah, we have, we have definitely talked ourselves out of it. Although I keep coming back to a conversation I had at, with a sale, a German sales guy, um, one of our clients back in January, and he told me that there are, I think a very precise, like 16 or 23 different.

Brands of punk, punk or sub genres. It was such a precise answer. Um, but I, it, I'm, I keep comparing that in my mind as you guys have kept, kept coming back to punk, which is, there's probably the same kind of thing for agencies and for all of us. Yeah. We talk about being, uh, a, a specialist agency in one space, but I think that's all we, we are seeing the reverse of that now, which is a lot of this is coming down to.

To just doing good marketing again, as opposed to, I'm a comms agency, or I'm a PR agency, or I'm a, I'm a creative agency. Um, I think we're gonna see that, that democratization calls us to kind of allow more fluidity between those paths. That was a very long answer, but hopefully that made some sense, um, connecting those things together.

Uh, let's go, let's go onto brand for a second. 'cause, uh, 'cause we, we, we touched on this, um, minaz, we have this term called the growth trifecta, don't we? Like, can you, can you give a bit of background on the growth trifecta and really how that leads into some of the stuff we've, we've, we've used on today with brand?

Minaz Tejani: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So, um, I think, you know, as an agency it's a, it's a, it's something that we've. And also on a personal level, like super passionate about that actually, you know, a good growth strategy for an organization. Um, up until this point, lemme just, lemme just roll that back a little bit.

I think up until this point we've really seen that like brand will live amongst the brand teams. We've got demand generation teams that will be focusing on high volume, you know, sort of more wider top of funnel, kind of once in many types of demand gen. And then we have a BM over here. Actually the recipe for a good growth strategy should be bringing all of those together.

So, I mean, Joel, we've spoken before, previously around, um, the kind of brand to demand, um, brand to demand story. Um, and it's really about how do we bring. Brand demand and a BM as a singular connected journey if you want to really drive growth. So how we bring in customers and making them love your brand.

Understand the brand equity, have the confidence to buy from you, which is then directly linked to your demand generation programs. And then subsequently within the demand generation programs, how are you taking key account?

We're building programs for clients that have all of those three elements all combined together under one creative concept, under one connected strategy, and everything's talking to each other and seeing some really, really good effects with that as well. So yeah, that's, you know, if we were given a blank canvas by any brand, that is our growth trifecta.

You know, if you then bring in your channel and partner audiences and then your alliance strategies into it, we think you've recipe. Solid marketing plan at a very top level. But yeah, that's kind what we mean. I dunno if that's something that's being talked about in the industry or you, you sort of resonates with you.

Any thoughts on that, John?

Joel Harrison: I, I think it, I think it, it comes back to, we said earlier, we touched on this before. Um, so, you know, I think, I think it's really helpful me how you expressed that, and I think that's really clear and really compelling. Um, and I'm not just blowing smoke up, you know, where, um, but, but the, um, the, you know, there's a, a much more of a conservative because I conversation about brand and B2B marketing recently, which is great, but I think most B2B marketers accept the fact that you build the, it's, it's never, it's never a choice of one or the other.

It's either it, they're all together, you know, at the same time you've got to build. Your brand as you are doing demand activity. And what I mean by demand activity is, is I'm, I'm talking about a BM within that. I appreciate you define that slightly differently. Um, so I don't, that's for me, that's not a, that's not a discussion.

It's not debate. Right. It's, it's just, it's how it is. And it's prac pragmatic reasons as well. You have limited budgets. You've often got to do both things at the same time. Um, and you've just got to do, kind of get the best out of your activity. Um, and I, I like the idea of the, the, um, of, of the kind of you, of the kind of.

Broad, broad brush demand approach with a white glove service for the, your best customers where there are, cus there are a lot of brands out there, for example, who, who, who don't, for whom they, they are only targeting a handful of small customers, a small handful of customers. So a BM is the only game in town for them.

And, and, you know, a BM, the power of a BM is in tremendously compelling. I think that the downside of A BM though is if you look at the campaigns that we get in the BT marketing awards, which are, which are reflective of what's going on, um, in a BM is the creative. Isn't. Really that com exciting. And I don't know why that I, I, I have, my suspicion is that it kind of gets kind of, it's death by a thousand cuts, you know?

And it, because it has to go through this kind of commercial sales channel scrutiny, it just gets watered down to something really bland. And that's the really disappointing bit about account-based marketing, um, because it is successful. It is about, it's a transformational thing. You know, I realize that I got our, our A BM conference in November at how much.

This conversation about go to market, you know, strategy globally. It allows you to have that conversation and talk about this whole organization about how you're driving revenue. Um, if it's, if it works, the, and this is the bit I that I fall over, right? If it, if it works, the creatives still crap. Does that matter?

Um, because I, I just, I feel like we should all be pushing for great creative and it, and it, and adopting a strategy where creative isn't good is, is, is it disappointing? But at the same time, it's all about the result. At the end of the day, it's not about the creative is the means to the end. And I'll shut up there,

Jon Busby: but, but no, but let me, let me respond to that.

'cause I, as a. Technologist and Right. I started life in B2B as a developer, not as a ccra. Not didn't. Whenever I came up with creative ideas, I was normally laughed at the room. Um, back then he was, yeah, trust me.

Minaz Tejani: Yeah.

Jon Busby: Uh, but I remember having a, a, a, a very, uh, ener energized argument or discussion. Let's say with one of our creative directors back in the day where, you know, he didn't see what we did as as creative.

So I've always had this view that like anything can be creative. And it doesn't, it's not necessarily just the headline or the image or the combination or the strategy. Um, you know, you use an example there to say, if it works, maybe that's, maybe that's good enough. Like I, I could, I could see examples today where you knit together existing stories and elements.

You know, we know 81%. B2B buyers wanna perform their own research, right? Uh, are they, does the, does the headline really matter if you've, or is it more important that you are taking them on a journey, on a path to you using some of your existing elements and using some new ones to, to plug some gaps that helps them feel comfortable buying your solution?

And that's the most important part. I know that that could apply to more than just a BM. And, and that's just as creative as a new headline. I don't, I don't know. I'm gonna flow that one out there and see what people think. And if you want, I can go back in my box if you want. Yeah.

Minaz Tejani: Secretly, I think I might have the answer Joel, as to why, potentially an opinion on why creativity and a BM specifically and having sort of been involved in it pretty, you know, very heavily over the last sort of five or six years.

I think a BM is very much a victim, and I know this is a separate, just could be a podcast in itself is a, is a victim of what the B two pretty badly. Emperors new clothes, right? Everyone. It's probably the same thing. Why the MarTech situation happened as well. We believe our own hype. Something comes out into the media, everybody jumps on a particular trend and it explodes.

Nobody looks at each other to ask, ask each other like, are we, you know, should we be doing this? Or Why are we doing this? We just know we need an A BM program. We know we need an MA platform. You know, you're not using Eloqua. Oh my God, I can't believe you're not using e. Whatcha using it for, I dunno. You know, we just need to have it.

Same thing with a BM. I think in a lot of programs there's so much of a focus on an BM program needing to have. Industrial levels of deep insights. You know, needing to have a targeting strategy, needing to have the right ABM media strategy. There's so much noise going on. Creativity and creative becomes just one of those pillars that they end up not putting up sort of that high enough.

The ranks of where and the of what makes a strategy. All our presentations.

Creative first you have, we're in an attention economy, so we have to build programs that put creative thinking, to your point, John, so it could be technical, all creativity to grab that attention right at the forefront. Everything else is, is, is a bricks in the house because. Ultimately you can have the best targeting strategy, but if you, your creativity is not bold, it's not standing out or really speaking to that person.

It'll just become another a BM program. It might hit the KPIs, but will it smash them? And I think our aim should be to smash those KPIs. But,

Joel Harrison: but so I, I think I, I love that. I think that's, that's fantastic. And I, and I, and I admire you guy for, for, for, you know, sticking to your guns and, and, and believing in the, the product, which is a creativity essentially.

My, my comeback to that is having sat in a lot of, a lot of sessions about sales enablement, um. And sales alignment and the reality. And, and one of the things that comes across every time is you've gotta get them in the room from the very, very start. Um, and you've gotta make them believe that, that they have got stake in this because otherwise they'll just bloody ignore it when it comes to the conversation.

They'll use something from six years ago that's even not even on brand anymore. Um, and they won't, they won't. Use your resources. And so my, my, my, my caveat would be because, and mean as you've been in the sharp end of this, much more than I have, would, would be, that sounds absolutely great, but if your creative output isn't something that the sales team buy into, there's no, it, it's, it's kind of, it's not pointless, but it, but it actually, you'd be better to have a run of the mill creative that they did buy into and they really got on board and they developed and they lived.

Even Nirvana is both right. Is is an engaged delta. Great creative. Yeah.

Minaz Tejani: Yeah. Of course. I. My two sense is that they're much more intrinsically linked than we give salespeople credit for. I've sat through more meetings with sales teams. They get excited about us sending a Lego box to their top 30 customers for Salesforce and wrapping it in a really nice message that they're gonna send to them, and then a social campaign that they get excited about.

I've lost count of the.

Insights. You can't tell me I don't anything I don't already know about my customer's content. I've got content. I just need it quickly. What they really buy into is, okay, so how are you gonna grab the attention of the CIOI wanna get a meeting with when I can't do that. So are inviting Goldman Sachs to a dinner in a VIP place in London where we're gonna curate, uh, or, you know, a menu and grit, a Spotify playlist, and create something special.

That's what salespeople are really interested in 'cause it's something they can't do themselves. But again, that's just a world according to. Probably a biased,

Joel Harrison: it's the right, it's the way it should be. Menez and I, and I can't speak for you, but I'm, I'm, I'm not totally convinced it applies everywhere.

Right. And it's partly to do with the nature of how the conversation starts, but it's how it should be. You know, they, they should get excited about it. It should be positioned in such a way, I guess the logistics sometimes of that can be very challenging. But, but again, I think this, you, you're doing, you guys are doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing, which is championing that creative and, and saying that it makes a difference because we all know it can, and it, and it should.

Jon Busby: Just, just, yeah. And moving us on. Joel, I can see you've been, your inner podcast host has been coming out a few times throughout this. I think that that's really, that's really due to well, which thank you for, uh, today because it's a Friday afternoon when we're recording this. So I always need, always need a bit of help.

Um, but from, from one content creator to another, you are also very passionate about your community and. Uh, and thought leadership. So, you know, I wanna make sure we, we give, have a little bit of time to talk about that. So tell us about propolis. Firstly, like what is, you mentioned it right at the start and we met and talked about how it'd be good to, to have a, a, a brief moment.

But what is propolis, what role is it doing with B2B marketing?

Joel Harrison: So, um, if you don't know of B2B Marketing magazine as was and B2 marketing.net, we launched 21 years ago as the PR to, to really formalize and put place for B2B marketers to come together to align around and to, to, to share information with 'em, et cetera, et cetera, in that old model, but around covid, as I said, we that.

The magazine was long out of time. We still did lots of events like the BT Marketing Awards. We needed a move focus for our business. We, after lots of conversation, we launched business a, a comm, a community in a community intelligence platform called propolis. Propolis, by the way, means first city. Um, in Greek.

It also is the, um, it's the glue that bees is the, is the res and the bees. Create in order to build their hives. So it's multifunctional as a reason B makes, makes a lot of sense. What it is a community for, uh, for client side marketing teams. And we have members like PWC, like IBM, ServiceNow, people like that.

You know, uh, um, Siemens joined us recently. Bt, you know, some fantastic brands. They joined us, a marketing team. There's loads of resources, activities, expertise, content benchmarking, um, and events to help them, uh, and, and very, very strongly. Um. Customer service ethos to help them address, understand, and address their challenges as a team and to be more effective marketing function.

And it's transform transformative, right? It's an, it is an amazing service. It's, it's having incredible results for people. Uh, and it, and it's the center of our business now, um, is a cl by, by net, by nature what it is. You know, it carries a, a, a, you know, not an not sign, not insignificant price tag, but it's very good value compared to certain US based.

Analyst firms that I could mention, but I won't on this call for obvious reasons. Um, so, uh, so yeah, it's very, very powerful and it works very well for, for, for US marketing teams. And that's the center of what we do at B2B Marketing. Now, the insights that come out of that, uh, you'll see from, if you subscribe to follow our feed, you'll, you'll see all the stuff, the great stuff that comes from that.

Jon Busby: It's, um, I actually, I've had a chance to go to contribute, I think, to a few things on propolis, uh, myself. I, and I was in a fantastic workshop a few years back talking around agencies and it was, you know, I could, I could see the value that, that can, that can create it. It's almost like making a, a comparison to what we talked about right at the beginning, you know, that move from being a one way.

Uh, communication stream to a community, to something being two ways is almost analogous to what we're seeing with agencies, right? We're moving, uh, in some ways to being much more democratized. Um, and it's almost democratizing some of B2B marketing, so it kind of feels, feels like a natural journey to be on.

Joel Harrison: It's a collaborative exercise. Sorry. Sorry, Menez. It's a very ative exercise. People want people actually, the power that you get from learning from each other's or from comparing perspectives, which is a hard thing to do if you are potentially competing with people is, is incredible. But it's a very hard thing to facilitate.

So we work really hard with that. Sorry, men.

Minaz Tejani: I was just gonna make a completely pointless point then actually, that I didn't really realize, realize the name Propolis was to do with the, the sort of first City, which now makes sense where Superman and Metropolis comes from. Then

who's your favorite? Who's your favorite

Jon Busby: Marvel? I'm joking. Um, and, and Joel just kind of giving you, you know, you are writing a book at the moment, which. By the way, I think is, I, I, I'd love to pick your brains about how you've, how you've started that journey of writing a book, but I think it's a whole other podcast in itself.

Like, what are your, what is your passion that you're writing about and why do you think it's so important with B2B marketing?

Joel Harrison: So thank you for you obviously to talk about this, though. I'm writing about thought leadership, which I think is a phenomenal subject. Um, and it's something which has been, it's a, it's one of those things that's been around a B2B for I was coined in 1994.

We had it as a category in the ward for a long time. But, and it's in incredibly powerful thought leadership in this era, as we said, of media fragmentation, lack of trust, um, geo due to geopolitical stuff. And AI is where AI is adding to that proliferation of content. Something where you can have genuine thought leadership and you can, um, and with, with, and, and really drive that authority and build a relationship of a long period of time, surface internal thought leaders and, and, and drive that out and then use that as a.

To engage a creative particularly to how to, to prompt or, or align with, or even, or, or integrate creative ideas is incredibly powerful. Only 17% of the age of the entries in the B2B marketing awards. Said they had a thought leadership component to them. And we know that some of those probably won't be thought leadership.

There'll just be content marketing. 'cause there's a bit of a, um, there's a kind of a, a disconnect between that. It's, it's like as a bit like Nan just saying, oh, you really thought leadership? Well, no you don't. That's just a content marketing piece. The level of authority, robustness, and uniqueness that you are required to do.

Thought leadership just isn't there in so many cases. So I'll get off my soapbox now.

Jon Busby: No,

Joel Harrison: I'm, look, when, when are you, when's the book due out? Oh, blind me. Don't ask me that. I was called my publisher yesterday, and I, and I, I've not had enough time to allocate per day, but I, I need to wrap that up. So I'm hoping it'll be out by the end of the year, but, but, you know, watch this space if you, but if you'd like, I'm sorry for another plug, John, but, um.

As recommended by a publisher, I, I've launched my podcast Trust and Influence and B2B for the very reason that actually the podcast be to the book. And it provides a kind of touch point of activities that's going on. So that's why I've done that and it's allowing me to interview great people, but also really get like all of that insights out surface, all those that content, great content into the world.

Jon Busby: No, it's awesome. And yeah, we hope to get you back on the podcast when you've released the book. Um, we'll hold you to that deadline. Um, so we'll see. Yeah, we, we, we'll get you back on to talk about, talk about the book in the future, but it's, uh, yeah, very much looking forward to it. We keep, keep checking in on that novel, Joel.

Yeah.

Minaz Tejani: How you doing? Quote, A family guy.

Jon Busby: Um, but it's been a real pleasure having you on the podcast today, Joel, uh, again for the second time. Hopefully we'll get you back for the third. Um, and yeah, and fingers crossed that we're all still here as agencies and we not been replaced by robots In the meantime,

Joel Harrison: I, I've no doubt, I've really enjoyed the conversation.

Thanks for inviting me.