B2B advertising has long been a victim of outdated thinking, thanks to the pervasiveness of a rational, feature-led approach to communication that overlooks the fact that business people are human after all. Recent research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute has uprooted this view. The ‘95:5 rule’ reinforces the importance of mental availability, and driving fame amongst a majority, ‘out-of-market’ business audience. We believe that this work from Amazon Business stands apart as a textbook demonstration of this theory in action, showing how exceptional brand storytelling can deliver both short- and long-term business effects in a B2B context.

With discussion about AI monopolizing the zeitgeist, it’s all too easy to assume that corporate America is in the grip of technological revolution. But the reality in most US businesses could not be more different. Far less than half of American companies have taken full advantage of the power of technology to automate their operations and transform their prospects. Procurement, an unassuming yet essential function of any enterprise, is particularly overlooked. So for a brand like Amazon Business - alone in the business supplies market amongst brands like Office Depot and Staples with roots in traditional, bricks-and-mortar retail - times like these offer unparalleled opportunity. The following work was developed to demonstrate how Amazon could bring its technological and logistical know-how to bear on outdated business practices, transforming procurement into an engine for growth in difficult times.

Rome in a Day, the 30” TV spot at the heart of our campaign, takes an age-old origin story - a parable of growth, achievement, and the value of time - and turns it on its head. Tasked with delivering the construction of one of history’s great wonders, our hero - Rome’s founder - turns to Amazon Business and its suite of smart buying tools to streamline procurement and make light work of such an immense challenge. We look on as, with the help of key product features like guided buying, scheduled deliveries and spend analytics, he conjures a glistening metropolis of marble out of thin air - and all before sunset. With a deft allegorical touch, the film breaks free from well-worn category tropes to establish in very human terms what Amazon Business is and why it matters.

Amazon Business was launched in the US in 2015 to provide a more comprehensive solution to the procurement needs of medium to large (>$25m) enterprises. Beyond the benefits expected of an Amazon service, such as wide-ranging choice, good value and speedy delivery, Amazon Business offers procurement professionals a smarter way to buy, enabled by data-driven features like spend-management and buying analytics. Despite these advantages however, only 3% of buying professionals had any idea it existed by the start of 2023. And those who did had trouble differentiating its value proposition from Amazon. We were briefed to make Amazon Business famous in its own right amongst the business community, boosting awareness and explaining what set the brand apart.

Buy Smarter. Dream Bigger made an immediate impression, with Rome In A Day recognised by Campaign as their ‘ad-of-the-day’. This initial impact translated into a raft of significant business effects: - Traffic to Amazon Business’s website increased to 240k monthly visitors, an 8.6% increase compared to before the campaign. - Amazon Business’s association with being a ‘strategic partner for business’ climbed 1800bps. - Unaided awareness climbed by 552bps and 516bps respectively across medium and large enterprise audience segments. Consideration also improved, with 4 in 5 procurement pros surveyed now saying they’d think about choosing it as a supplier. Intent to buy from Amazon Business over a 3-month horizon climbed by 772bps. For confidentiality reasons, Amazon won't share sensitive commercial & financial data, but the campaign’s ROI outstripped Amazon’s own, stringent, internal performance benchmarks by 100%.