Why B2B Marketing Is Starting to Look More Like B2C | Canon

In this episode of Connected Thinking, we’re joined by Gareth Crew, Social Media & Digital Communications Lead at Canon EMEA. With experience working with some of the world’s most renowned companies, Gareth has driven strategy and innovation across both local & global markets.

We're chatting about:

→ Why Canon has shifted away from a campaign-first mindset
→ Building a consistent brand identity across multiple platforms
→ The future structure of social teams within brands
→ Why creators and storytelling are reshaping “traditional” B2B marketing

Plus, plenty of thoughts on social strategy, audience behaviour and how brands can stay culturally relevant.

Stay tuned for more episodes of Connected Thinking, our series of chats with standout voices from the world of marketing, where we unpack what’s trending, what’s shifting, and what’s coming next...

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Connected Thinking, our series of chats with standout voices from the world of marketing, where we unpack what's trending, what's shifting, and what's coming next. I'm Tom, your host and social media director here at Scene Connects. Today I'm joined by Gareth Crew, social and digital communications lead at Canon Amir. Gareth has extensive experience working with some of the world's most renowned companies driving strategy and innovation across local, European and global markets. So welcome Gareth. So to kick things off, do you want to tell us a little bit more about your role?

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Absolutely. So yeah, um I work at Canon. I've been um on the social and digital lead for about a year. I've been in social media since it started. Um I was a journalist um many, many years ago working in print, print forever. And um then I transitioned to social media, and I've been very lucky to work for brands such as Tui, Garmin, Microsoft, and now McCannon um leading the social and digital across AMEA and looking at how we can change our approach to social and digital and how we can kind of stay that one step ahead of our competitors and engage with our audiences.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Amazing. What a good history as well. Um so we'll jump into some of the questions now. Um we've got a real good kind of mix here and we're speaking from both your experience but also just bits around more industry stuff. So we'll get right into it. Um Canon speaks to both professional and consumer audiences. How do you think about balancing B2B and B2C messaging within one of the social ecosystems?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

It's a really big challenge. And one of the things that's really interesting and really challenging, as you quite rightly said, is that we talk about everything. We have cameras, which is can be consumer. So people are going on the weekend, taking pictures, taking pictures of their kids, up to the professionals who are taking pictures of like um sport and events and filming films, doing movies. That's one element of it. And then we have our B2B space, which is printing, but like printers that are filling a room, uh, printers for Amazon. So a lot of the books now are actually printed on demand, which we're involved in, and then medical activity. So from a marketing, from a social media perspective, we want to speak to all of those voices. And we have what I like to call the standard sort of social media platforms. We have Instagram and Facebook, we have LinkedIn, we have TikTok, and the perception across the business that we're looking to kind of develop is that um people think LinkedIn is for the B2B space, people think Instagram and TikTok is for the young people, people think Facebook is for the in-betweens, which obviously it isn't. And it's about how we can look at what that means. Now, what I like to do, well, there's two elements. The first bit is about looking at the data and looking at those audiences and looking at how people consume. But that's quite, you know, tactical in the fact that when we um we are getting into the weeds about what our brand is, but there's also the bigger piece about looking at it from a consumer behavior perspective and thinking about um what human beings actually do. Because um we know that the lines of B2B, B2C, they're not how it was. And people don't really want to consume an infographic or be chased for leads when they're on their phone looking at LinkedIn, as opposed to just being on TikTok looking at um puppies swimming in a lake, you know. That is something that we have to kind of consider. And that's part of what my role is from leading the social media is trying to understand about and trying to educate the business about what that content is. And it's essentially talking about people and making sure that you can explain how they would actually um consume that content and how you can take them on that journey to convert. Those elements within LinkedIn are still there and still valid, but it's how you get them on the journey. So we do use um LinkedIn for B2B and B2C, so for brand awareness at the top of the funnel, and then for that conversion piece, specifically on the on the bigger print side. But we also look at how our brand in Instagram, in TikTok, and Facebook can help support that um uh that B2B and B2C journey, and then use the data and attribution models to actually kind of take that on the journey, improve it, and explain to people, or the senior leadership team. They are people too, by the way, about what that journey is and why this actually matters. Because one of the big things about social media, and you know this as well, everyone thinks that they can do it. Yeah. And everyone has an opinion, and it is also so visible. So we've all had those um texts from our boss or from one of the directors at 10 o'clock at night, seeing this picture going, Well, what's this? You know, we should have keep calm, carry on, it's only printing. So it's about how you can educate them and take them on the journey, and that's what we're doing at Canon, and that's kind of how we want to use all of our channels to kind of um take that story.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Yeah. I feel like it's so interesting as well, the way in which I've seen it from an agency standpoint, and then my time working in social as well. The shift in the way in which just brands and as a whole approach channel strategy has changed so much. But like we said as well, I think it really just speaks back to that piece as well that people don't necessarily just want to go to one platform to see one type of content, and it really speaks to that. Like on LinkedIn, you can have a reactive piece of content that does better than it would on TikTok. It's insane, it just depends on the content and what you're putting out there. Um, so it's really interesting as well to kind of hear how you guys are really utilizing it, not just from a B2B standpoint, but also B2C, because the consumers are both there, regardless if they're going to be buying today or next week. It's that piece of social. We see it so often, I think we said this before this as well, that with social now, it's not necessarily the piece where you're like just there scrolling for an hour and that's it for the day. You're scrolling all throughout the day and at all different times. So actually having those touch points are so important. So it's really nice to see like how you guys are approaching that as well.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Yeah, absolutely. And and the additional point is everyone is doing it. Yeah. So it's how you actually can distinguish yourself. You know, Canon is a heritage brand, it's Japanese owned, and we are, you know, by very nature of the products, conservative.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Which means that um the content will reflect that and the brand identity will reflect that. How would you actually make it sing? How would you make it like be thumb stopping? Either that be on Instagram or LinkedIn. And how can you do it in a way that stops people, you know, it it goes against the brand values and the identity of the business? And and I think as you said earlier on, is that you know, people buy from people, and that's what we're trying to do. And if you like that person and if you abscribe to their values of what they have, that's even better.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Taking us on to our next question. So B2B marketing has historically been and been seen to be a very corporate and traditional kind of space. How have you approached B2B social content and made it more creative for Canon?

SPEAKER_01 7:17

We're just trying to empower from an advocacy perspective our influencers, our senior leadership, and trying to educate and inform them about what social is. I couldn't agree with you more. Um I've been in roles where it has just been create an infographic, uh, you know, do a video, all this sort of stuff. And it's it's back to the previous point. People are people, and they're consuming that content, and they'll just scroll through it.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

What we are we are on this journey too, and I, you know, I don't think anyone's cracked it completely. And, you know, making sure that our brand identity is correct is to think about first of all how you can optimize for the platform. So LinkedIn's a great example, is moving much more to video. Everyone's going reels. We say reels, but everyone's going, they're doing reels, and trying to put use our data and insight that know that people like faces, they like events. So we're going to lean into that more. We're going to move away from just like having a picture of a big printer and someone standing next to it looking at this printer because it doesn't mean anything. It's about what that application and what those stories are behind it from like a storytelling perspective, which is relevant to those audiences, but also about how it is actually going to help people and how it's going to make a make a difference. So we're shifting our whole identity and we're working, we're very lucky to be working with LinkedIn for them to support us to make sure that you know we're much more video optimized, we're going to have much more people. And I really want to explore and lean harder into the influencer and B2B influencer space because people are more comfortable buying from those sort of people and being inspired by that. And LinkedIn, by its very nature, has those people involved with it. So that's an area that we are definitely exploring too.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

I think also it's really interesting to see from a B2B standpoint as well, how so many brands that are traditionally just seen as that like B2B, though very infographic, very almost boring in some sense, are now really shifting as well in terms of their tone of voice on social as well, and really utilizing like comment jacking, all of the things that we've seen, like the shifts in social, to really actually start to tell the brand story as well. So not just being in the sense of the content. And like you said, having those faces there as well, they tell the story of the brand, and actually getting the right faces there is so important, especially with that influencer piece. And I think the B2B influencer space is growing so massively, and we're seeing such a rise in like LinkedIn influencers and people that actually genuinely like are creating content there, and it's so great to see that kind of evolution of creator that it's not just being that one-trick pony of sitting right, but only going to do video content on TikTok about this. No, it's now like going across all platforms, which is really good to see.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Yeah, and an additional point in that, uh you reminded me as we're talking, is that it doesn't have to be polished. Yeah. And this is a challenge for a brand that wants to create the best cameras in the world. And I get it completely, but um it means when you're creating and creating this content, when you're you know behind the curtain, the lead times, the reaction, the approvals, that takes a very long time to get to that point. Whereas it doesn't really have such an impact for the audience as you would expect.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

I think it really is that as well. We've seen like people, the perfectionism of social is almost a bit of a dying breeze in some respects. It's really interesting to see that shift in the sense of I think people wanted to be so polished and have these beautifully created like feeds. And now we're kind of shifting towards this I don't want to say like audience demographic, but almost this audience demographic. Actually, you know what, it's not necessarily all about the aesthetic, it's actually about the content. And people care more for what they're digesting rather than oh, this looks really amazing all the time, and it's really a good shift to see as well from Canon as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Absolutely, and from a brand and from a Canon perspective, it's like what that ROI is. Yeah, you want to live and die by the actual data that you have. And if you look at the fact that this investment that you're putting in is X, where you've got Y, and the in some cases, the one that is, you know, quick and dirty is actually going to perform better. That's how you actually do it. You should be data driven in that creative solution.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

And it speaks to that piece on testing as well. If you can do something and it's not 100% perfect, but you can get it onto channel quicker, you can learn much quicker, and then you can actually think, okay, now we can do this and we can apply it 10 times over. This is something that we do quite often with our clients, especially when we're starting out with new clients. We say, let's do the first couple of months as like a test and learn phase. We'll test so many different formats, so many different types of content. So one of our clients is Studio London, which is Supertrug's own brand of makeup. And what we do with them to basically get them going is we were like, let's just try so many different things with them. Let's do reactive social, let's do education pieces, let's do product focuses. And then we literally was able to pull so much data, like you've been doing with Canon. And actually, now we can say, okay, as we head into this year, what do we actually need to do? What do we need to double down on? And how are we going to be able to grow from that? So it's a really good way to just test. So going on to our next question, if you had a piece of advice that you could give to brands on balancing B2B and B2C content within their strategy, what would it be? It's people.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

People and phones, actually. All people are the same, and um they will consume things and they will either purchase or move towards the things that um they like and that they actually enjoy. So you need to think about how they would actually uh how they would consume that sort of content and what they would actually be interested in seeing, and also the identity of what your brand is on a device compared to everybody else and compared to that platform, it's completely blurred. As we were saying earlier on, it's all the same formats, it's all the same content. Um, so what you need to think about, uh and the advice that I would give is you need to think about who that audience is, you know, not just as an industry or saying, you know, like this is pharmaceutical, this is this, this is all that sort of stuff, but who, you know, what age demographic, what wider audience piece that you're thinking to reach, and then try to get across the key elements, but also try to be think about more it's more that it's just a consumer sort of ideal. It's you can't, you don't want to just be this really like stuffy thing because it's just gonna be isolated into the content that they'll actually consume. That's the huge challenge because you could have like a really um dense email or infographic or white paper, and they're gonna be looking at different elements and they'd be consuming different elements throughout their day or throughout their week. And that isn't gonna really stick. So that's the big advice is kind of thinking about what those people actually are.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

So do you approach content for platforms like LinkedIn differently now that the B2C style of storytelling and creators are increasingly appearing there?

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Uh yeah, definitely. And um, we're going more into that. We're probably leaning harder into that um in uh LinkedIn than any of the other platforms, I think. LinkedIn is our is our best channel, we have our best engagement on it at the at this current point. What we're striving for is to to do more, to get more, and to think about really what those what those objectives and metrics are. Is it just about engagement? So we're looking at reaching impressions because we're trying to take them um along in a journey, and what sort of content are people actually wanting to consume? So we always try to think of content for the channel specifically. That content is part of the targeting apparatus for each piece, which is a heavy lift sometimes, but it's more it works better. You get better content, you get better performance from this. So from LinkedIn specifically, we really spend a lot of time analysing our data, looking at what those um audiences are reacting to and trying to take advantage of that. An interesting point as well from the uh the Canon infrastructure is that we have one channel. So, from a European perspective, we service all of the multiple languages across Europe with geo-targeting. So we need to think and be aware of what that content actually is. One of the real interesting challenges with the passion that we have is that we have a lot of um employees liking and commenting on that content. So you almost have to kind of strip that area away from um thinking about that performance piece as well, so that you can actually really see what the um what the actual true performance is. So when a product comes out, all of our advocates and our teams love it. Brilliant, we absolutely love that. But you're not comparing oranges to oranges about how that's actually reaching the correct audience and how it's actually resonating. So, yeah, we spend a lot of time on LinkedIn trying to think about how we tailor our content and how uh the response to the different sort of posts that we actually do across Europe, how they kind of react to that.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Yeah. When you're developing campaigns today, how do you ensure that they translate across multiple social formats, creators and platforms, rather than just living as a one-off activation?

SPEAKER_01 16:55

It's a difficult challenge to have because social, by its very nature and by the very much of algorithms, it's very it creates its own campaigns, really. Because, you know, seven minutes on TikTok, one and done content possibly on Meta, etc. So we we as a business, we try not to talk about campaigns at all. We have launches and we have activity. So we always try to think about um how we can um how what what the point is of this content, what the actual um where it'll actually sit, how we can actually extend its life, and how we can kind of keep returning back to that piece of content as well. Um one of the challenges that um I observed when when I first started at Canon that we're changing is a lot of the content just came up and then it was never seen again. And what I mean by that is it was published and then they published another one, they publish another one. There was no idea about what that content actually meant or if it was successful, you can use it four or five different times. So um, for us, what it's almost like a language piece internally that we just eradicate that word as campaigns. We have concepts of what our marketing activities are and what our launches are, but we try and think about how we can support that as opposed to saying we we have a specific campaign that will actually last.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

It's that piece as well that you don't almost want your content to be like a one and done. Without a doubt. Without a doubt. And yeah, it is exactly that. You kind of think if you're always in that campaign mindset, you can lose actually the essence of what you're trying to do. And I think there's so much opportunity, especially with like having that almost more always-on model to it, of that then one product doesn't get ignored and it doesn't get forgotten in the kind of ethos. There's so much content out there. Um, and also there's so many products as well. We know that across all brands, there's so many products and there's so many things that you can touch on. So it's really nice to kind of have that role in there, and also there's so many channels now. As marketers and people that work in social, we have so many channels that we can play into. So it doesn't mean that also, like you said, that you have to just have one piece of content that brand as goes across all of the platforms. You can actually use that one asset, but you can reframe it six different ways and get amazing results for all different reasons with different hooks as well. Indeed.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

And then it also leads to the fact that editorial calendars don't exist anymore. Um, because you can't have a spreadsheet with this product, there's you know, this this activity on Tuesday at nine o'clock, this piece of content on Thursday at three o'clock. It people don't will not be served that content at that point. So even the very essence of um product launches or activities that are happening because the product is available at that point. So if your camera's available or whatever is available at three o'clock on the on that Tuesday, the 11th, or whatever, it doesn't mean anything because people are being served that content three weeks later. Um and in you know, my previous life, the um Dina Resport was a really big challenge with that, because you announce it and then it comes out and never really, it never really married up. So that is also going back to like, you know, the essence of what we're trying to do at Cannes is that education piece as well. So you don't treat social like a magazine, you treat social like social media, and what that means is thinking about that consumer and how what their behaviors do to consume that content. My favorite thing, which sounds a bit odd, but I love it if I can catch people looking at Instagram on the train because you can see what their algorithm is and how they scroll. You can actually, you never really get that chance to see how what people are actually doing. And it's just it's about thinking about what other people are doing because you can be very inward thinking this content looks good, this is what the profile looks like, this is what my manager likes, all this sort of thing, whereas it means nothing because they'll never see it, and they're that experience is completely just for them, whereas you need to think of experience for everybody else.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

One of our clients is Naked Smoothies, and what we've just done with them is they're obviously like much more B2C, they're really direct in terms of like they really want to be punchy, like it's in the name, like they want to be really brash on social. Um, but what we've just actually started doing with them is we've given them their content calendar with a set kind of couple of assets in there, and then the rest of the month is all reactive. So we just basically say to them each week, this is what these are the trends that we were gonna do with you guys, and then we go from that. So we kind of have the product's focuses in there, but actually we can then just really put work to what actually is going on on platform. That comes from working really closely with the client and a client that really trusts us. That actually gives me palpitations for you just saying that.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

And then I caught myself thinking that is actually what it should be. So I I get that as well. Yeah, absolutely. It you need and the key word that you said is like working closely in the confidence, yeah. And A lot of this within social is people having the confidence to be able to do the right things because they are informed and they know what this is going to do, and that the powers that be are comfortable with that as well. And that if they see it or don't see it, that's okay. Um, it reminds me of a story um of a previous role where um there was a little bit of money left in the pot of paid every month, and this was basically to help promote it so some of the senior leadership could see the posts. And this was a big brand, right? And that was the job that this money was doing so that they could actually make sure that everyone was happy. And it kind of kind of goes with that point, actually, right? Is that you need that confidence to be able to do those cool things.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

So taking us on to our next question. So social media now covers so many disciplines creators, community, paid me, paid media, brand storytelling, and even customer service. How do you see the structure of social teams evolving within brands?

SPEAKER_01 22:57

I don't think a social team will exist in a traditional sense. I don't think you will have a model of a social media manager and say four social people working for that and creating that content. You can't create content and you can't activate in isolation. And the way that and social is so important. I know I would say that, but it's true.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

I agree. Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

But it's more about how that works with all the levers in your marketing business because this historically it was an addition, but now it is the go-to. It is the most important part of it. It is um the opinion formers, it's where everyone talks about political activities and it talks about any sort of element that's happening within the world, it's on social media in one form or the other. So, what that means for us as brands is that as a role, it has to be intrinsic in everything. It has to be intrinsic for a designer, has to be in for senior leadership to understand it so that they can do it. Um, the storytellers and content creators need to think about that first. By its success, it means that it doesn't exist, but it does exist and it has to be kind of plugged into everything. And as the role of the social media person is the stuff that we've been talking about, I think. It's about being able to help educate, to evangelize, to support, and to consider what those different elements are. The standard sort of classic of reporting, posting, throwing it on Hootsuite, happy days, leave us alone, they're gone. What you need to think about is how it can kind of be embedded directly into the core of your marketing department. And that's what social media will be and will forever be now.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Couldn't agree more. So do you think that social teams are becoming more central to the overall marketing strategy rather than sitting as a separate channel?

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Yes. Absolutely. Yeah, um, as we just said, they're really important. I mean, their their identity is different, but it is incredibly important and they have every single aspect of that sort of marketing journey.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

I think with social, we're kind of now the first touch point to the consumers. So actually, it is so important. And any brands that I would say maybe don't see that, they need to have a long, hard think about that. Because actually, I think the way that social can get you in front of your audience so quickly is so important.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Yeah, and I would even add to that, it's not the first touch point, it's every touch point. Yeah. So you've got, you know, it that you'd be the first time that you're going to be aware of it. You could be on a a journey of purchasing it. Um, you could either say that they're good or bad, and then you could have that um that brand affinity with them. It is, and that it's every point, yeah, you know, from you know, TikTok to Instagram to Trustpilot, Google Reviews, all of that, read it, it's all of it is social media, then, and that is the whole scope of what we're dealing with.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Quick fire round. Okay, are we ready? So your favorite book or podcast that you'd recommend?

SPEAKER_01 26:05

My favorite book. Oh. It's Great Expectations. Okay. Um, fun story. I've probably only read about five books in my life, and my wife always says, just imagine how much smarter you would be if you actually read books. Um, my favorite podcast is obviously Stephen Bartlett, which is supported by Canon. So, you know, he's just the best, and I think it's really good. I actually consume probably my most content on podcasts um via TikTok, and I actually just kind of just like scroll through things. So I I'm I'm more of an algorithmic-led podcast consumer on the video format.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

What an answer. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

That's not that quickfire though.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Um, next one is the best piece of advice you've ever received.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

It was from someone who used to um run a Formula One team. And he told me before I started work, he said, work is really easy. You just have to keep everyone happy. I didn't really understand that as the starting point. Um, I just thought if you could just be an entertaining human being, that was enough. But it isn't. But the more that I learn, the more that I work with different people, he was so right. It is just about your stakeholders, your team, your peers. If you do the right things and that you can help them and you can keep them happy, that's all you need to do. It sounds really simple, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Well, sometimes the most simple things are the best things. And that takes us through our session. So thank you so much, Gaff, for joining us on Connect to Thinking. It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Thank you. Thanks so much.