In our latest virtual event, The B2B Creative Revolution – part of The Club By Rooster series – we were joined by Orlando Wood, Chief Innovation Officer at System1 and best-selling author of Lemon and Look Out, to explore what it really takes to put creativity at the heart of B2B marketing.
Together, we tackled the big questions: Why is creativity in B2B broken? How can we fix it? What does neuroscience say about grabbing attention and evoking emotion? And how can we create ads that work with human behaviour—not against it?
In case you missed it, here are five powerful takeaways and standout moments from the session.
1) B2B has a love-hate relationship with creativity
Paul Cash, CEO at Rooster Punk, opened with an honest take on B2B’s on-again, off-again relationship with creativity:
‘It’s a dance that swings from admiration to suspicion. When times are good, we have room to experiment and push boundaries. We do bold campaigns and creativity flourishes. But when the economy tightens, the pendulum swings backwards and creativity is seen as a bit of a luxury.’
Post-Covid, there was a fleeting creative resurgence. But with fresh economic headwinds, many marketers are retreating into risk-averse thinking – or what Cash called “a battle on the inside”:
‘In moments of crisis and when markets are tough, we find ourselves at the mercy of the C-Suite to make decisions that are based on instinct and opinion rather than any marketing insight or evidence.’
The solution? More evidence, sharper tools, and louder advocacy for creativity at the top table. As Cash put it:
‘It’s a tough journey, but I think it’s one we’ve got to be prepared to fight for.’
2) Salesmanship has replaced showmanship
Orlando Wood drew on examples from VW Beetle to Specsavers to illustrate how advertising has lost its sense of theatre. Narrative, metaphor, character, humour – once staples of B2B storytelling – have been sidelined in favour of didactic, product-led ads.
This shift, Wood argues, marks the industry’s move from showmanship to salesmanship. The former taps the right brain: emotion, surprise, human connection. The latter leans into the left: logic, goals, reward.
Both have a role. But one is more vital for long-term growth:
‘If you look back at advertising effectiveness and objective setting in the last 20 years, you see how we’ve prioritised the short-term returns associated with salesmanship. In this time, effectiveness has fallen as we have ignored showmanship.’
3) The golden age of ad tech is not the golden age of effectiveness
So what’s the cost of sidelining showmanship?
It’s attention. It’s memorability. It’s profitability.
Showmanship fuels emotional engagement. It makes your brand distinctive, your value proposition clear, your premium justifiable. In other words: it makes you hard to ignore.
Yet, amid the rush of automation and ad tech, creativity is lagging behind. Wood issued a call to arms:
‘As an industry, we’re churning out dull and we need a new creative revolution. We need to retrain that showmanship muscle. You’ve got to project a personality. You’ve got to be interesting, likeable, human.
For growth and profit, you’ve got to put on a show. And your show needs to be more interesting, more arresting and more entertaining than the content that surrounds you.’
4) In B2B, memorability is mission-critical
The trouble with only producing salesmanship-led ads? They’re forgettable unless your audience is already in the market.
‘Salesmanship is not terribly good at capturing attention or generating an emotional response. It’s inherently uninteresting to people unless they’ve already been warmed up to the product or are already in the buying window.’ – Orlando Wood
And in B2B, buying windows are few and far between. As Paul Cash noted:
‘The B2B sales cycle is rarely one and done – it can take years to build a relationship. You have to nurture a lead over a long period of time before it advances into the kind of high-level intent that turns into a sale.’
If your brand doesn’t stick in the memory, it doesn’t stand a chance.
5) AI makes creative bravery more accessible
But how do you make space for showmanship without a blockbuster budget?
According to James Swan, Executive Creative Director at Rooster Punk, it starts with sharper thinking:
‘When your message is sharp and your audience feels seen and heard, you don’t necessarily need a big budget to be effective. But you do need clarity. You need conviction in what you’re saying. Sharp positioning, a clear tone of voice and some simple yet recognisable visuals.’
AI is helping creative teams do more with less – fast:
‘We can use AI to uncover insights faster, prototype rapidly, create mood boards, generate copy variations, or explore dozens of visual treatments in literally minutes – without inflating budgets or burning time. It’s the speed and that scale that allows us to experiment more than ever before.’
And crucially, it’s helping teams keep that creative spark alive:
‘I love doing things old school – markers and gold line layout pads. But you can’t deny that AI is now giving us the ability to let go of the reins, your imagination run free and see where a simple seed of an idea can take you.’
Ready to join the creative revolution?
Drop us a line at hello@roosterpunk.com to chat through your B2B creative challenges.