Singapore – Global B2B marketing specialist Fifth Ring is expanding its senior leadership team with the creation of a new role as the company structures itself to focus on significant growth in the coming year. 

For this, Jennifer Maclennan, who has been an integral part of Fifth Ring for the last eight years, has been promoted to the newly formed role of group managing director.

In her tenure at Fifth Ring, she has held various senior positions, most recently as regional director for Europe, which has seen her perform a pivotal role in delivering key strategic initiatives, leading an ambitious recruitment process, expanding business operations, building strong client relations, and delivering exceptional results for the business.

Speaking on her new role, Jennifer said, “I am truly honoured to take on this exciting new role and continue my journey with Fifth Ring. Being part of this incredible team and contributing to a company I have so much passion for has been a highly rewarding experience.”

She added, “In my new role, I will continue to maintain and enhance positive client relationships, whilst taking on new operational challenges and ensuring Fifth Ring owns the space in global B2B marketing. Together with Ian, Steve and our Regional Directors, Debbie Ho in Asia and Todd Gregory in America, I look forward to growing the company and supporting our talented team to build on the strong foundation and positive momentum we have created.”

Fifth Ring, which has offices in Singapore and Houston, created the role to support its significant growth trajectory and to accelerate further expansion. In this new role, Jennifer will take overall responsibility for all operational activities and support sustained growth and continued expansion into new markets. 

With this move, Fifth Ring founder Ian Ord will focus on global revenue growth, international expansion, and acquisitions, and Steve Milne, group director of strategy, will take overall responsibility for brand projects and strategy for clients on a global basis.

Meanwhile, Ord commented, “We’ve enjoyed spectacular growth over the past few years, and as our business becomes more complex, we recognised the need to expand our senior team. Jennifer’s promotion will increase our leadership bandwidth, ensuring we can continue building on our success. We are excited about the trajectory of the business and the opportunities that affords us to attract new talent and further diversify our client portfolio. We are committed to international expansion, both organically and through further acquisitions.”

In addition to group managing director, Jennifer will also continue her Board role with Business Branding Network (BBN) helping to drive a more powerful, unified B2B agency partnership around the world.

Singapore – B2B campaigns that make a clear customer promise are three times more likely to boost market share and two-and-a-half times more likely to enhance brand health compared to those that don’t, according to research by WARC Advisory, The B2B Institute at LinkedIn, and strategy expert Roger Martin.

The report found that B2B campaigns with a clear customer promise are nearly three times more likely to drive market share growth than those without. These campaigns also showed higher increases in market penetration (44% vs. 36%) and revenue (30% vs. 20%).

Additionally, nearly half (47%) of the analysed B2B customer promise campaigns achieved significant improvements in key brand health metrics, including consideration, preference, purchase intent, and perceived quality. In contrast, only 19% of non-customer promise campaigns delivered similar results, making customer promises in B2B almost three times more likely to create a meaningful impact.

However, the research also revealed that less than one in five (18%) B2B campaigns made a customer promise, whether the goal was brand building or activation. This is notably lower than the 40% of B2C campaigns that included a customer promise.

This is a key area of focus, as the report suggests that making a customer promise presents a significant competitive opportunity for B2B brands. Given that B2B purchases are typically high-consideration and high-risk, often leading to long-term buyer-vendor relationships, the low adoption rate of customer promises is something worth looking into. 

Moreover, customer promises in B2B offer significant benefits for scaling brands or those with limited marketing budgets. The research found that B2B customer promise campaigns are particularly effective even with lower creative commitment—such as smaller budgets, shorter campaign durations, and fewer channels—providing valuable insights for organisations with constrained resources.

Paul Stringer, managing editor for research and advisory at WARC, said, “Customer promises can make brands familiar by being memorable, valuable, and deliverable. They can cut through the noise and messiness of decision-making by offering a clear and simple articulation of the value delivered by a brand to its customers. It sounds simple, but of course, there is a huge amount of work involved in designing and projecting a clear promise to the customer. We hope that after reading this paper, more B2B marketers will see the value of going on that journey.” 

Jann Martin Schwarz, founder of The B2B Institute at LinkedIn, also shared, “Brand is not just a “nice-to-have,” it is an essential full-funnel deal-closing advantage. And, while there are many definitions of ‘brand,’ making a clear promise of value to your customers is the most effective  

way to build your brand. Our research conclusively finds that across every category, a customer promise is far more effective than any other kind of brand promise. Our findings reveal that B2B campaigns that make a customer promise are 3x more likely to deliver increases in market share and 2.5x more likely to deliver increases in brand health.” 

Mimi Turner, head of EMEA and Latin America at the B2B Institute at LinkedIn, added, “The great problem for marketers is not that they don’t know what to do. It is that often they don’t have the money to do it. The huge advantage of putting a clear promise of value at the heart of a campaign is that marketers are virtually guaranteed to get better results without spending any extra money. Marketing is expensive. Customer promises are free.” 

“The findings show that lower-budget B2B Customer Promise campaigns are 1.7x more likely to increase brand health and 2.7x more likely to increase market share than higher-budget ones. For the first time, we are able to offer an effectiveness strategy that is budget-neutral and enhances meaningful marketing metrics,” Turner explained. 

Meanwhile, Roger Martin, CEO, Advisor, Strategist, and Author of Playing to Win, said, “Making a customer promise in a B2B campaign is much more important and impactful than in a B2C campaign across all important dimensions of performance. Yet the vast majority of B2B advertising campaigns are designed to be ineffective. And that creates a doom loop.” 

Singapore – Adobe has announced the general availability of Adobe Journey Optimizer (AJO) B2B Edition. For businesses that sell to other businesses, this offering will activate generative AI to help them engage customers with greater precision and drive profitable growth. 

Characterised by extensive and complex sales cycles, B2B marketing and sales teams have long struggled to identify specific decision makers that collectively sign off on large purchases such as software or hardware. At the same time, it has become a challenge to personalise experiences for each individual, with thousands of variations required across web, mobile, email, social, events and other channels. 

AJO B2B Edition is an evolution from lead-based and account-based marketing, which carry blind spots when it comes to identifying the full set of stakeholders and the products they would be interested in. As a result, sales and marketing teams are unable to engage the right individuals with the right content, lengthening sales cycles in the process. 

Built natively on Adobe Experience Platform (AEP), which provides a single view of customers across every channel, AJO B2B Edition will be able to activate generative AI to identify buying groups, while creating personalised journeys for each individual with AI-generated assets. 

The new offering is a perfect complement to Marketo Engage— a B2B marketing automation solution—which captures and nurtures leads that can be turned into qualified buying groups. 

Amit Ahuja, senior vice president for digital experience business at Adobe, said, “Business leaders purchasing technology on behalf of their organizations have increasingly high expectations for how they are engaged online, creating a paradigm shift for B2B marketers. Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition empowers sales and marketing teams to jointly deliver digital experiences that are highly personalized through real-time and unified data, while driving efficiency and productivity gains with the latest generative AI technologies.”

Singapore – International B2B marketing specialist Fifth Ring has announced the expansion of its Asia team with the appointment of two new marketing specialists and four promotions within the Singapore office. These moves reinforce Fifth Ring’s commitment to delivering industry-leading marketing expertise for clients across Asia.

The firm has welcomed Celestine Quek as account director and Shivani Shinde as account manager to the team in Singapore. Moreover, it has also promoted Parada Sritaragul as head of campaign, Jaralyne Cueto as campaign manager, Disha Puspitasari as senior campaign executive and Carolyn Kok as account manager.

Quek brings a wealth of strategic communication, marketing, client account management and cross-functional team leadership experience. With a proven track record of delivering integrated campaigns for leading brands globally, she will be instrumental in driving client growth and elevating our offering in Asia. 

Meanwhile, Shinde joined Fifth Ring with a broad knowledge of the maritime industry and a strong digital marketing background. She will be a key part of the account management team to deliver impactful marketing campaigns for clients.

Lastly, beyond the campaign team, Carolyn Kok, in her role as account manager, will now oversee client growth, maintain client relationships and provide strategic counsel to clients looking to drive successful B2B campaigns.

For Fifth Ring, its elevation of the global campaign team based in Singapore will enable the team to drive meaningful campaigns for clients regionally and globally. 

Debbie Ho, regional director at Fifth Ring Asia, said of the appointments, “The addition of Celestine and Shivani significantly strengthens our capabilities in Asia. Celestine’s experience managing global accounts, combined with Shivani’s knowledge in our specialist industries will be invaluable in helping our clients achieve their marketing goals and own their space in Asia’s dynamic B2B landscape.”

Meanwhile, Ian Ord, founder and chief executive officer at Fifth Ring, commented, “We are thrilled to recognise the dedication and talent of Parada, Carolyn, Jaralyne and Disha. Their promotions reflect their commitment to excellence and their contributions to the continued success of our global team.”

Fifth Ring’s client base in Asia includes manufacturer of high-value-added products in advanced stainless steel, special alloys, and industrial heating Alleima, provider of ammonia-to-power solutions Amogy, owner and operator of maritime transportation assets and specialised services AET and smart energy solutions provider CHINT.

Singapore – Global creative transformation company WPP has teamed up with global technology company IBM to launch a new business-to-business (B2B) solution powered by IBM’s AI and data platform watsonx designed to reinvent how B2B marketers identify and engage clients and prospects across the buying journey. 

The ‘WPP Open for B2B’ solution will help marketers solve complex B2B marketing challenges, accurately identify and engage buying groups, and improve clients’ return on investment. 

These buying groups are made up of multiple stakeholders with different priorities who influence key purchasing decisions both inside and outside of organizations, which can make it difficult to deliver a consistent message over a long sales period. Traditionally, understanding how to adjust that message across the right channels to guide buying groups to purchase is challenging and often leads to inefficient marketing spend. 

Moreover, WPP and IBM will strategically collaborate with LinkedIn to help brands better understand buying groups so they can market more effectively and reach target buyers.

The solution has a capability called ‘AI-powered Buying Group Brain™’ a WPP AI model that can more accurately identify target buying groups in a B2B client account, built with IBM watsonx.ai and trained on trustworthy data from the client and third parties through IBM watsonx.data. It can also inform how marketers deliver personalized and consistent experiences across channels and across the duration of a long-term influencer campaign. 

It also has the Chief Marketing Officer command center, an AI assistant that serves as a command center for CMOs, bringing forward data and insights and connecting underlying systems so senior marketers can plan and model scenarios, predict results, make more data-driven decisions and execute recommended actions.

Stephan Pretorius, chief technology officer at WPP, said, “Our clients want to get in front of the right people, at the right time, on the right channels, with the right message. However, most solutions in the market today are designed for consumer marketing, targeted at sole decision-makers at a single point of purchase. WPP Open for B2B, and our collaboration with IBM and LinkedIn, will help solve some incredibly complex challenges in the B2B marketing space, using the best of WPP and IBM technology and expertise.”

Meanwhile, Jonathan Adashek, senior vice president of marketing and communications at IBM, said, “B2B marketers have been focused on creating truly personalised, relevant and consistent experiences for buying groups at scale for years. Our collaboration with WPP and LinkedIn provides real-time, actionable insights that are based on trusted data. We are excited to create and use these new, powerful and trusted AI solutions to deliver a force multiplier for B2B marketing.”

Lastly, Penry Price, vice president at LinkedIn, commented, “With success in B2B requiring customers to reach between 6 to 10 stakeholders, building relationships and ‘collective confidence’ among the entire buyer group is key. We are looking forward to working with WPP and IBM to determine how our unique knowledge of buyer groups can help inform WPP Open for B2B and help clients deliver more effective advertising campaigns.”

Singapore – A staggering 98% of B2B marketers in Southeast Asia are already utilising influencer marketing, yet 60% are still not experiencing improved lead generation from B2B marketing activity, a new Ogilvy study shows. 

The research shows that B2B influence is among the fastest-growing marketing priorities in SEA.

In an interview with 550 chief marketing officers (CMOs) across 11 markets, including Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines, from brands including LinkedIn, Dell, EY, IBM, and Samsung, it was shown that 75% of B2B marketers are now utilising B2B influencer marketing. Additionally, 93% of those are already planning to increase influencer activity.

Furthermore, the survey, which polled marketing leaders from across Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the USA, showed that C-suite leaders are already recognising the potential of B2B influence activity in building a credible brand and supporting lead generation.

Half of 49% believe influencers can help their brands be more credible and trusted, while 40% experienced improved leads or sales because of influencer marketing strategies.

In Asia specifically, industry adoption is soaring, with almost 94% of businesses in the region already integrating B2B influencer marketing into their strategies, and among them, 77% have expressed their intention to further increase their investments in this area. With this number, it is expected that those who haven’t formulated a B2B influencer marketing strategy may find themselves falling behind their competitors.

When it comes to influence effectiveness, 66% of businesses found that B2B influencers deliver more significant impact when compared to traditional brand-only marketing approaches. Further adding to this, almost all of the industry executives in Asia consider B2B influencers on social media as vital tools for staying updated and engaging with their respective industries (98%). This surpasses the global average of 90%.

Meanwhile, the study also showed that more than half of industry executives in Asia incorporate insights gleaned from B2B influencers into their presentations. Similarly, over 50% of these executives actively share relevant content with their network.

However, despite these impressive numbers and high usage, the survey also showed a worrying percentage of B2B influencer marketing potential that is still not realised or utilised properly.

The findings of the survey suggested that no teams are utilising after-sales influence to its full potential, despite 47% agreeing there is an opportunity for B2B influencers to have the biggest impact during after-sales when executed correctly. With 60% not yet experiencing improved lead generation from B2B marketing activity, there is also a large opportunity to immediately realise more value from influencer marketing.

In addition, the global research pointed out some missed opportunities for ROI, considering there is a symbiotic relationship between employees and influencers that few CMOs have spotted, with limited numbers identifying that employees can be influencers themselves. 

With this, the global report has pointed out three key imperatives that CMOs can use to improve their B2B influencer marketing strategies.

First, peer-to-peer 2.0, which is a widely recognised marketing channel to reassure prospective buyers and revolutionise digital relationships and professional communication. Second, the holistic growth approach recognises the importance of including influencers in the entire business operation and integrating them into the post-sales experience. Lastly, CEOs and CMOs must recognise their employees as valuable assets in promoting their brand, with each having a network of connections outside the company.

Commenting on the study, Emily Poon, President of PR and influence in Asia at Ogilvy, said, “With 66% of CMOs in Asia saying they find B2B influencers more impactful than their usual marketing activities, a B2B influencer marketing strategy has become a must-have for brands and businesses. Our global research— the first-of-its-kind—with local insights from senior marketers in Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines provides actionable steps for CMOs, communications, and business leaders in the region to turn influencers into the most versatile full-funnel tool in their B2B marketing communications armoury.”

Ashutosh Gupta, country manager and head of online sales for LinkedIn APAC, also added, “B2B companies are increasingly choosing creative ways to connect with their target audience in a more authentic and engaging way. A big reason behind this trend is the trust and credibility that these experts offer. On LinkedIn, we have seen industry leaders carve a niche for themselves as thought leaders in their space, where their opinions hold significance within their network. Thought leaders often provide a more genuine connection than brand advertising thanks to the fundamental trust that is already fostered between them and their network over time.”

Singapore – Global business and employment-focused social media platform LinkedIn has announced a new suite of tools to help its users measure their brand marketing effectiveness on the platform.

One of the tools it has announced included the ‘AI-generated Copy Suggestions’. Said feature uses generative AI to create high-performing intro text and headlines for ad creatives by leveraging data from an advertiser’s LinkedIn Page. LinkedIn is rolling out this feature in a pilot in North America, and plans to increase functionality, languages, and availability in the coming months.

The platform has also announced several tools related to advertising in the platform:

  • In-stream video ads: To support a full-funnel experience, customers can tap into In-Stream Video ads to scale their campaign reach and connect with professional audiences across LinkedIn’s network of publishers. These ads, which will appear on mobile or desktop apps and sites, will play at the beginning (pre-roll) and middle (mid-roll) of long-form video content on trusted publisher sites across the LinkedIn Audience Network.
  • Thought Leader Ads: Thought Leader Ads allow brands to sponsor their thought leaders’ posts, helping them authentically communicate through a trusted voice to build brand equity and stay top-of-mind. Early performance indicators show that customers who participated in the Thought Leader Ad beta saw a 1.7x higher clickthrough rate (CTR) and 1.6x higher engagement rate compared to other single-image ads.
  • Conversation Ads: This allows advertisers to drive higher intent conversations with members in the Focused tab, helping them to increase their reach and maximise budgets with lower frequency caps and cost per click pricing. 

Moreover, LinkedIn is introducing the ‘CMO Scorecard’, a new measurement program through its consultancy, B2B Edge. This will help B2B marketers on the platform benchmark their creative impact and media performance against competitors, and demonstrate how current brand advertising investments improve recruiter, marketer and seller efficiency.

It is also introducing the ability for members to organically connect with organisations through ‘Pages Messaging’. This functionality will enable members and pages on LinkedIn to directly communicate with each other about the topics that matter most to them, like products and services, job listings, and other business inquiries. 

Lastly, LinkedIn’s ‘Audience Insights API’ will help enable agencies and marketing technology companies to build solutions that help marketers discover and understand their target audiences to create more effective, relevant campaigns.

The platform recently launched a global campaign, which focuses how the industry is built for B2C marketers and why LinkedIn is ‘the place to B2B’.

“Sell me this pen.”

When I first came across this line in ‘The Wolf Of Wall Street’, it resonated with me so much for one simple reason – the salespeople in the movie that were tasked with selling the pen were all making the same exact mistake of highlighting the product specifications and benefits. 

“This pen looks beautiful.”

“This pen has an excellent grip.”

“This pen can last you for 3 years.”

That was exactly what I was facing with my sales team at that time. Sitting in those meetings, it was evident that the customers were not keen on taking our products simply because they were carrying other brands that already had the same quality as ours. Then I realised that the marketing materials accompanying the intended sale were no better – it was still all about promoting the quality, the specifications, and nothing else. Ironically, both sales and marketing were aligned and singing the same tune – but we were not just touching the customers at the right places.

Unfortunately, that same scenario in a movie that is almost 10 years old still applies to B2B marketing today – companies still shout on the rooftops how good they are but never truly showing customers that they understand them and their needs. 

Nobody cares about your products and services except you

At present, the sales and marketing dynamics have changed, but it is evident that some B2B marketers are still hanging on to the idea that they should continuously talk about how ‘good’ their products and services are.

The simple insight to this situation – no, you don’t have to.

The truth is – nobody cares about your products and services except you. 

There is a reason why your competitors are called “competitors”. Simply, they offer the same products and services as you and they target the same customer pool as you. This means that whatever you can do, they can do the same equally or even better. Thus, what is the point of telling your customers that you have good products and services?

With the market being so competitive nowadays, you need to ask – what truly differentiates you from your competitors when both offer the same quality and price?

Understanding your ‘B2B’ customers

The biggest misconception about B2B marketing is that we are only marketing to businesses. Well, technically, that is not wrong; however, let me offer you another point of view with this question: who makes the decisions for the businesses? 

That is correct – the key decision-makers of these very companies are still humans. These ‘humans’ you are trying to market to will be the ones to decide whether your products and services ‘make the cut’, and they will do that through a litmus test of these three questions:

Are you able to: 

  1. Take away their pain;
  2. Improve profits;
  3. Achieve their business objectives. 

Once you realise this is the case, you are en route to success!

Winning the hearts and minds

Because we are still marketing to people, we need to target two important areas – their hearts and their minds.

This refers to the roles that both emotion and information play in connecting with your customers. They think with their hearts when they resonate with your products and services and they think with their brains when they know they are achieving their business objectives with them. 

For example, in the decision-making process of a B2B customer, it is clear that while he/she does consider rational reasoning like price and quality, emotional factors do indeed play an equally important role.

You are here to provide a solution, not a product or a service

Your customers know what their problems are and want to find someone they know they can trust. As such, it’s vital that you spend time with your existing customers to find some common answers – and then craft the best marketing communications from there: 

  • What is your biggest challenge?
  • Why is it important that you have this solution now?
  • How difficult is it to have been trying to solve this challenge?
  • What are you looking for to make this challenge go away?

When you’re able to deep dive into the intent, you’re able to speak their language and, thus, resonate with them. They will be able to see you as one of their own: a trusted partner who is here to provide, not a product or service, but a solution. 

The winning ways

Famous business speaker Simon Sinek has created an excellent framework known as ‘The Golden Circle’ which comprises 3 pillars – the ‘what’, the ‘how’, and the ‘why’. 

Traditionally, B2B marketing follows the same exact order just given. Take, for example, a company that sells services to a building owner: 

  1. What – We have security, cleaning, and a wide range of services to look after your building;
  2. How – With a workforce of 1,000 strong, we will be able to help you look after your building;
  3. Why – Choose us because we look after over 50 companies and we have 20 years of experience.

But if we start using the framework where the ‘why’ ultimately drives your proposition and messaging as well as in showing your customers that your products and services are ‘solutions’, it now becomes this:

  1. Why – It takes a lot of effort and time to look after your building. We understand you need to free up resources and time to focus on the more important aspects of your business. With over 20 years of experience helping over 50 building owners maintain their priorities and focus, we are here to help;
  2. How – We first start with understanding your key objectives and priorities. Then we personalise a solution meant to help you achieve it and share insights with you on how to overcome these challenges. Lastly, our 1,000-strong workforce is one of the largest in the country and that helps us dedicate the appropriate amount of personnel to work with you.
  3. What – We have a wide range of security, cleaning, and other solutions for you to pick from and customise according to your needs. You will also expect a host of benefits such as minimising costs by up to 20%, optimising workflow efficiency by up to 15%, etc.

In this way, your customer now has an idea of how you can help them solve their pain points.

BE A PARTNER, NOT A VENDOR

For a B2B customer, the buying journey can have a longer gestation period, therefore it makes even more sense as the B2B marketer to take the time to understand your customers, understand their pain, and give them solutions that help solve their problems. 

Uncover your ‘why’s’ and you will find the purpose in your marketing – that you are not here to simply market your products and services; you are here to be a partner to your customers and support their journey towards achieving their business objectives.

This article is written by Donovan Chee, Head of Marketing & Communications at BUREAU VERITAS for SEA.

The insight is published as part of MARKETECH APAC’s thought leadership series under What’s NEXT 2023What’s NEXT 2023 is a multi-platform industry initiative which features marketing and industry leaders in APAC sharing their marketing insights and predictions for the upcoming year.

If you are a marketing leader and have insights that you’d like to share on upcoming trends and practices in marketing, please reach out to [email protected] for an opportunity to be part of the series.