Can emotional marketing work in B2B?

I was wondering about the relevance of emotional marketing in B2B

Simon Sinek’s book “Start With Why” explains how humans buy with emotions and back it up with logic

To those unfamiliar with Sinek, this TEDx speech encapsulates his message.

How do B2B Brands Speak Today?

However, most B2B brands only speak about what they do, and how they do it.

It makes sense because in high-value deals where committees decide and not individuals, logical decisions definitely trump emotions.

Most marketing collaterals are currently aimed at generating analytical impressions

But isn’t it possible to add some more humanity to our collaterals to sway committees?

We are in an economy where any given product or service has 10 alternatives with little to no differentiation

Pure functional messaging isn’t going to give us much of a headstart (not in 2024)

What’s the alternative?

How about being a bit different, and crafting a messaging that connects directly with audience’s limbic brain?

Now this is not entirely a novel idea of course

IBM already did it in the last century, by sending Watson to take part in Jeopardy (and Won)

And a simple google search of “emotional marketing in b2b” will yield plenty hits on the same

However, considering the nature of the business we are in, maybe B2B brands that risk and take the plunge might be able to claim a head-start in their positioning through emotion-led branding

Let’s explore this with an example.

I’ll make Recotap the lab rat ??

Currently, this is what our website says:

What if in 1 of our collaterals we change it to:

Reduce your sales team’s wish list, by increasing their “Closed Won”

Or?

Rewrite title to ‘fantasy wish lists’ to ‘current prospects’

Yes it drastically changes our positioning.

But to a decision maker this might seem like a fresh breath of air for a second

What do you think?

Emotional marketing in B2B is going to become a norm or not?