What you need to know: 

• Paul Hirsch is the Jury President for the first ever Creative B2B Lions award at this year's Cannes Festival. 
• He says most advertising is boring, with notable exceptions, and there is some gold among B2B campaigns that deserves to be recognised. By recognising good, other marketers will be emboldened to do better. 
• It is harder to do good B2B marketing than good B2C marketing, Hirsch says. 

Creative key

Paul Hirsch has a simple equation in his mind when judging awards: “Oh shit, that’s cool. I wish I did that”. He's the Jury President at this year’s Creative B2B Lions awards. 

A former Havas Executive Creative Director, McCann San Francisco ECD and now Chief Creative Officer at Omnicom-owned B2B agency Doremus, Hirsch says it’s long overdue for some of the creative accolades to flow towards B2B marketers. In B2B, it’s harder to push through good creative – the perceptions of heavy demand generation are “fairly true” – but it is fertile ground, ripe for a creative overhaul. 

“There are creative solutions that can be brought to bear for any of [marketers’] problems in the proverbial funnel, from brand to demand gen. You need to do it. I think it's a fool's errand to think that incremental change is the way to go,” he said.

“To me, that is like pennies in your checking account – that's interest. Those are things you should be doing anyway. If you want to make change, if you want to make an impact, which I think I hope all marketers do, you got to do something more than that. And I think creativity is the key.”

Hirsch has inspected half of the entrants to the Cannes Lions 2022 so far, and has been impressed by what he’s seen. A lot of advertising at the moment is not good – he flags Leo Burnett Chicago’s Change The Ref campaign as a powerful exception.

“There is a dearth of great work out there. I mean, people say B2B is boring to a certain extent. I would make the case that there's just a lot of boring shit out there in general,” he said.

“Being a creative in B2B is tougher. There is usually a longer lead time, there are more clients out there who are looking at the bottom line than elsewhere. … there is a degree of difficulty on the B2B side that isn't there on B2C, no doubt about that. To me, I think to win a Lion at B2B is harder than doing it elsewhere. It is far more well-earned on the B2B side.”

Weighted brief 

The Creative B2B Lions are weighted like this: 30 per cent to the creative idea, 20 per cent to the strategy, 30 per cent to the execution, and 20 per cent to the results. Awards can be criticised for rewarding spark over substance, so does giving results a minority weighting undermine the B2B Lion’s credibility? Despite the weighting, results will be a key factor, Hirsch says.

“Just because it's a great creative piece doesn't mean it's going to win… I think the creativity has to be in service of something that helps the business or the brand achieve X,” he said.

“I hate to say this, but I think kind of sometimes results get a little squishy. When agencies submit that stuff. But I do think you can ferret out what is real versus what isn't.”

The Cannes Lions have been going on since 1954 – almost 70 years ago – and in that time, some agencies have nailed their award submission regime. That takes some effort to wade through, Hirsch said.

“They know what to submit, they know how to package it, and they know the assignment. And I do think you have other agencies who may come from somewhere else who may not have the budget that other agencies had to submit - but they do it. It's expensive,” he said.

“So hopefully as a jury we can kind of flatten it out and separate the faff, the rubber from the road… it's been really fun going back through some of the archives and seeing work and kind of going does this merit? Does this not? Have I seen something like that before? Is this new? Is this different? Is this fresh? Does it make an impact? Those to me are all the things that I'm looking at that are going into how I'm judging a piece.”

NAB is one local company understood to have entered this year's first global B2B Cannes round. LinkedIn Australia and New Zealand's Managing Director, Matt Tindale, said the company was backing B2B globally at Cannes to improve and bolster the B2B marketing community.

Last week, LinkedIn released global research finding Australian B2B marketers were some of the most upbeat in the world that 'creative confidence' is growing in their sector. Globally, talent is harder to find in B2B but the majority said B2B was producing campaigns that rival B2C creative. That, Tindale said, is what the award is aiming to reward. 

"I really hope it contributes to B2B advertising and marketing getting the place and attention it deserves," he said.

"Only five per cent [of B2B customers] are in market most of the time... B2B often takes a back seat to B2C advertising, especially around creativity.

"What we’re doing is - a couple of things. Researching and providing tangible data and output to increase the effectiveness of B2B advertising, and also celebrating the creativity and importance of B2B marketing community. Those are the outcomes we’d like to see and support." 

Purpose limitations

Advertising is trending towards more purpose-led work – the Change The Ref campaign mentioned above, for example. B2B marketing is no exception to that trend. And that has added a layer of complexity in award judging, Hirsch said.

“How do you, as a jury, decide what purpose is better than another? How do you award that? It gets a little tricky when you say, especially when it's purpose work, ‘this is more deserving than saving the planet’. Or ‘this is more interesting than human rights, [or] Greenpeace’. Because I do think work like that plays extremely well in award shows. Big stuff with logos plays well with awards. It's a tricky thing to navigate.”

Ultimately, Hirsch is hoping this is the big shift that reframes B2B marketing as a highly creative sector where good work is rewarded. Highlighting great ideas gives others a goal. 

“I hope it inspires first and foremost marketers to be like, ‘I want to do stuff like that’,” he said. This gives B2B marketers “a kind of a home”.

“To me, that's super exciting. It's really fucking hard to win at award shows. I've been fortunate that I've worked at some other places. I've been lucky to win some stuff. It's great… That stuff is hard. So I love the fact that there is a place that celebrates B2B.”