How to Make a B-to-B Event Appealing With Stronger Punchline

Editor’s note: This piece is part of our Columnist Network series, which explores the tactical thoughts and actions from Adweek’s community of high-level experts. Today, Pinterest's Jim Habig discusses capturing attention. Below, in his own words, he discusses how he and his team looked at driving tune-in for Pinterest's first global advertiser summit. The challenge In the ads marketing space, too often we take for granted the attention of our customers. I’m fond of telling my team: Marketers are people, too. ... and I’m only being half facetious. They have busy days and crowded media diets, and we can’t expect them to snap to attention just because a virtual event invite hit their inbox. A few weeks back, the ads marketing team I lead at Pinterest debuted our first-ever global advertiser summit. It was a multimonth labor of love, but as we crept up to the launch date we recognized that our invite drive felt more labor than love. We had a modest campaign to drive attendance, but I think you’ll agree there wasn’t much in it to reel anyone in. We quickly recognized that simply showing up on social/LinkedIn/customer inboxes and announcing we were doing a thing was not going to cut it. The process After seeing some lackluster performance on those spots, I called the banners first thing on a Monday, and we cooked up some ideas for a revamped approach: We had some great outtakes from our remote film shoots—surely we could do something with that? A supercut of everyone cursing over flubbed lines? (Nah, we’re a family brand.) Target spots only to employees of showcased brands that say, “Hey, your boss will be speaking at this thing”? (Maybe a touch too manipulative.) Then, a lightning bolt: cliffhangers. Let’s take the most novel, poignant sound bites from our sessions and just lop them off. Want to get the punchline? Well, you’ll have to tune in. A not-new conceit, but it felt fresh and kinda fun in a b-to-b context. We regrouped and revamped our promo campaign to amp up the dramatic flair—cutting a series of "cliffhanger" trailers that started to share an insight from the show, but cut off before sharing the punchline. And lo, they ended up being our most performant LinkedIn ads of all time. All thanks to a simple realization: Marketers are people, too. They want some intrigue. The takeaway The campaign ended up not just working, but outperforming all of our other b-to-b media campaigns. Don't assume your audience feels obliged to hear from you. B-to-b efforts needn't be bloodless—even the promotional campaign for a virtual summit can have a narrative arc. If you want their attention, don’t neglect to give them a reason to pay it.