Many view B2B as an extremely specialist part of advertising.
I consider it advertising.
It's aimed at the same group as consumer advertising; human beings.
Whilst they're at work, not at home.
It's the same process:
Pick the best thing to tell people about your company.
Distill it to its simplest form.
Execute it in a way that gets the most attention.
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Tructyre is a little-known part of the Michelin empire.
A B2B business.
They offer a breakdown service to commercial vehicle fleets.
Their problem was that the category was seen as a commodity.
So fleet managers chose purely on price.
Tructyre and their competitor's marketing was indistinguishable.
All stating a version of "we get to your breakdown quicker than the others".
Never any evidence.
It felt like that’s what you had to do if you did marketing in that category.
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How do we separate Tructyre from the rest?
Ideally above the rest.
An offhand remark in the briefing was intriguing.
Although there are hundreds of thousands of vehicles being covered, over 80% of the market is decided by just over a hundred people.
So let's forget the hundreds of thousands of drivers, let's zoom in on the cheque signers. (Are cheques still a thing?)
Change their views of Tructyre and we'll transform their business.
One, Tesco, has a fleet of over 10,000 trucks alone.
That focus changed everything.
All the marketing from Tructyre and its competitors felt like it had been written by guys with oily hands.
Mechanic to driver.
Very blue collar.
‍Our audience is white collar.
Office-based folks, more familiar with balancing the books than the wheels.
Let's talk to them like we're equals.
Show we understand their issues and what makes them tick.
More profit and loss, less nuts and bolts.

Their current logo looked homemade, amateurish, not business like.

You can’t imagine any of the big businesses they were aiming at having such a logo.
We needed a logo that wouldn’t be embarrassed to mix with their logos.
Not clever-clever or fancy, distinctive and businessy.
We settled on this one.

Clean, elegant with a nod to their business with the nut in the ‘C’.

They’d previously talked about being mobile.

And being nationwide.

We looked at saying something similar, but with more pep.

It sounded better, but didn’t say much.
We were told that Tructye had wider coverage than the competition, so looked into how to phrase that.

Straight maybe, but competitive.
Too competitive as it turned out - almost impossible to substantiate.
So we tried implying it.

It still made the legal people nervous.

A little vague.
Plus, shouldn’t we be talking business?

Better.
Sounds cool.
Sounds serious.
Just seems a bit flip.
A conversation with the client (hi Stuart!) revealed something Tructyre did that the competition didn’t.When their technicians attend a breakdown they are encouraged to check over the vehicle for other potential issues, like low tyre pressure.
Nipping problems in the bud.
Competitors don't do it because it increases the time of each call out, risking irritating the driver for holding them up.
To Tructyre, it was an investment.
Reducing the number of call outs each year.
We framed this as ‘de-risking’.
Then linked it to Britain to give a bit of scale and stature.

It felt differentiating.
And it was certainly relevant to those signing the cheques.
But it looked a little sedate, it needed energy - we're talking about emergencies.
What colours look urgent?

Better.
And more distinctive, particularly on the vans.

It became a strong visual glue, connecting all elements of their business.

Their website.

The website idea had come from this early doodle.

We now needed more.
Talking about business, via our de-risking platform.
Ideas that remind fleet managers that breakdowns aren’t just irritating to their department, they affect all departments.
From damaging reputations to reducing profits.
In a way, we were celebrating the importance of their role.

As the campaign became more familiar with our audience, we switched from explaining to reminding.
Top of mind was now key, reminding is simpler than explaining.
We talked about de-risking in a more playful way; why trust luck?

It was felt that we should be across social media, with films.
But who, in their right mind, would go to Youtube, Instagram or wherever to watch a short film about the joys of commercial vehicle breakdowns?
Even fleet managers may swerve them.
Sometimes, being this honest about an issue, presents the answer.
Don't try to force people to watch content they don't want to, give them content they want to watch.
What would people choose to watch?
‍Interesting entertainment.
How do we create ‍interesting entertainment from 'Tructyre. De-risking Britain's fleets'?
Focus on de-risking.
Even the most interesting businesses, movies, music, architecture have to deal with risk.
Let's interview the leading players from a wide variety of industries about de-risking.
Brought to you by Tructyre, the guys who are de-risking Britain's fleets. (Examples at the top of this thread.)

The campaign didn’t change the amount of calls, quotes and contracts.
It changed the quality of them.
Bigger, more business-like companies were now approaching them.
Why not?
Present yourself as more business focussed and you attract the more business focussed.
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