B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth

Fear gets attention. But what happens when every vendor in your category uses it, all at once, all the time? In cybersecurity, the answer is a market that sounds identical, feels ominous and gets tuned out by the very people it is trying to reach.

In episode 83, Benedict Buckland tests the provocative claim that fear as a device in marketing doesn't work. Karl's answer is nuanced: it can work in the short term, but decisions made out of fear tend to be reactive, and when everyone says the same thing all the time, audiences switch off.

In this episode:

– Why fear earns attention but loses impact when it is used continuously

– Why a hard truth needs a route to action if buyers are to act rather than ignore it

– How humour, from a school field trip to a deliberately boundary-pushing idea called Pants Down, helps a brand stand out in a heavy, dark category

– How The Hard Truths thought leadership platform fed the creative and moved interested buyers into the demand cycle

– Why Karl calls the need to keep educating the board and executive team the CMO tax

Karl Van den Bergh is Chief Market Officer at Illumio, the cybersecurity firm specialising in breach containment.

B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth is brought to you by alan., the B2B brand agency. Find more episodes at alan-agency.com/podcasts

00:00 – Why Karl is a chief market officer

00:15 – Introducing Karl and Illumio

01:39 – The CMO role, short tenures and the CMO tax

06:11 – Does fear in marketing work?

09:22 – Fear needs agency

10:00 – A sea of sameness in cybersecurity

11:26 – Cyber as the guardrails for AI

13:22 – Prevention versus breach containment

16:15 – Using humour to stand out

19:16 – Pants Down and getting bold work signed off

24:38 – The Hard Truths thought leadership platform

30:05 – Will AI multiply fear or galvanise action?

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Legora went from zero to $100 million in annual recurring revenue in 18 months. Its Senior Vice President of Brand and Communications, Stuart Shingler, joins Benedict Buckland to explain why that speed didn't come from the product alone, but from a marketing team that abandoned the traditional rulebook of strategy-then-execution in favour of doing everything in parallel. Shingler breaks down how Legora built its Jude Law campaign around an idea that couldn't go out of date, why the script was still being finalised on the day of the shoot, how the company hires for "high agency, low ego" and what incumbent marketing teams need to unlearn if they want to compete with AI-native challengers moving at this pace.

01:19 – The provocative truth: scale-ups win on marketing speed, not just product

02:14 – Why fast product development is a double-edged sword

03:45 – What "moving faster" actually looks like for a marketing team

04:03 – Going from 1 to $100M ARR in 18 months as an AI-native company

05:43 – Onboarding culture: flying every new hire to Stockholm

09:19 – "Don't do things in sequence that you can do in parallel"

10:27 – The Jude Law campaign: the one thing that couldn't be rushed

11:21 – Building the campaign around an emotional constant, not the roadmap

11:49 – Dropping in the product details a week before filming

12:12 – Why marketing has to move independently of the product roadmap

16:04 – "Building the plane while flying" – and why that's now a good thing

19:26 – "We can't cut any corners" – craftsmanship as quality assurance

21:51 – Onboarding 214 new hires in a single month

22:32 – Hiring for "high agency, low ego"

26:00 – Advice for incumbents: does this process still serve us?

29:25 – Is slow-moving marketing now an existential risk?

31:15 – "Do you think marketers need to start breaking more rules?"

B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth is a podcast by alan. agency. MD Benedict Buckland speaks to CMOs and marketing leaders to uncover the most uncomfortable truths in the world of B2B.

Subscribe here and be the first to know when new episodes drop.

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AI can analyse vast amounts of data, identify patterns and produce answers faster than any marketing team could manage alone. But can it really explain why customers behave the way they do?

In this episode of B2B Marketing:The Provocative Truth, Benedict speaks to Frances Fenemore, Vice President of Global Demand and AI Transformation at Delinea, about why human judgement and emotional intelligence remain essential to customer insight.

Frances shares the thinking behind Delinea’s “Nothing Happening is Everything” campaign, which began with conversations with CISOs, customers, analysts and other people across the cybersecurity market. While much of the category focused on speed, productivity and growth, those conversations uncovered a more human tension. For a CISO, success often means that nothing happens: no breach, no disruption and no crisis.

That insight gave Delinea a more distinctive and emotional story in a market where many brands were saying similar things. The conversation explores why data can show marketers the what and the how, but often struggles to uncover the why. Frances explains where AI adds real value, where human input remains essential and why the strongest teams will combine both.

She also discusses Delinea’s move towards becoming a more AI-native marketing organisation and what that could mean for the structure, skills and influence of marketing teams.

This is a thoughtful conversation about where AI genuinely helps, where human judgement still matters and why the future of marketing will depend on knowing the difference.

00:02:40 – Why Delinea started with customer conversations

00:03:40 – The thinking behind the “Nothing Happens” campaign

00:06:55 – How Delinea uncovered a more emotional customer insight

00:08:40 – The difference between an interesting finding and a useful insight

00:10:00 – Turning the insight into a creative campaign

00:11:10 – Why data cannot always explain the why

00:12:20 – Combining AI with human judgement

00:13:35 – Delinea’s journey towards becoming an AI-native marketing team

00:14:20 – Why Delinea hired an AI marketing manager

00:17:00 – Why AI transformation will reshape marketing roles

00:19:20 – What feels promising and uncomfortable about AI

00:22:40 – Why AI could make marketing more strategically important

B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth is a podcast by alan. agency. MD Benedict Buckland speaks to CMOs and marketing leaders to uncover the most uncomfortable truths in the world of B2B.

Subscribe here and be the first to know when new episodes drop.

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A few months ago, Annabelle Atchison posted something many agencies would probably rather not confront. The Head of Communications and Product Marketing at IONOS Group had just built her own media-radar tool – covering markets, journalists and potential pitch angles – in around ten minutes, for pennies.

So she called on agencies, and any others willing to listen, to tell their clients honestly how AI was already changing the work their retainers paid for. Not eventually. Now.

When Benedict asks how many of her own agencies contacted her afterwards, the answer is none. That post became the starting point for this episode of The Provocative Truth.

It is not an entirely comfortable conversation for agencies, alan. included. But Annabelle is not arguing that every retainer should automatically become cheaper. She is arguing that clients should be able to see what has changed: what is now faster, where the time saved is going, whether more experienced people are getting closer to the work and whether AI is producing better outcomes rather than simply protecting agency margins.

AI can already accelerate research, drafting, reporting and production. What it still cannot do is read a room, hold a project together when priorities shift, manage the relationships that make work land or recognise when an efficient-looking answer is quietly the wrong one.

Organisations are still messy, political and human. They still need people who can interpret context, align stakeholders, exercise judgement and lead work through to completion.

Ultimately, this is a conversation about what clients should expect when AI strips time and cost out of agency work – and why the answer is not simply cheaper output. It is greater transparency, more ambitious experimentation and more investment in the strategic judgement, creative thinking, leadership and relationships that make the work worth paying for.

00:02:54 – The LinkedIn post that put agencies “on notice”

00:03:36 – What happened when Annabelle’s agencies were asked about AI

00:05:02 – The ten-minute media tool that changed her view of agency work

00:07:05 – Why traditional agency billing models are under pressure

00:09:59 – Why clients expect agencies to be ahead of the technology

00:12:14 – Is anxiety preventing agencies from making bigger changes?

00:13:02 – How IONOS approached AI adoption internally

00:16:01 – Which marketing tasks AI can already accelerate

00:16:51 – What clients still need from agency partners

00:17:41 – Why project leadership still matters in an AI-enabled world

00:22:53 – Why agency relationships need to become more embedded

00:26:00 – How AI could increase the value of senior client service roles

00:28:07 – Where clients may be overestimating what AI can do

00:29:47 – Why AI hype still needs to become craft

B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth is a podcast by alan. agency. MD Benedict Buckland speaks to CMOs and marketing leaders to uncover the most uncomfortable truths in the world of B2B.

Subscribe here and be the first to know when new episodes drop.

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For decades, the legal sector has been built around deep partner relationships, reputation and specialist expertise. But buying behaviour is changing – and the traditional model is under pressure.

This week, Benedict speaks to Tricia Weener, Chief Marketing & Business Development Officer at Linklaters, about how law firms are adapting to a more complex, competitive and procurement-led market.

As clients become more global, more formal in how they buy and more demanding in what they expect from their advisers, reputation alone is no longer enough. Law firms now need to show the breadth of the whole firm, build multi-level client relationships and demonstrate expertise across sectors, practices and jurisdictions.

The conversation explores how business development and marketing are moving from reactive support functions to more proactive strategic partners inside law firms. Tricia explains why clear client strategy, segmentation, governance and data are becoming more important, and how marketing and business development teams can help partners focus resources where they will have the greatest impact.

This is a practical conversation about growth, relationships and the changing role of marketing in professional services – and why the future of legal marketing will depend on becoming more connected, more strategic and more aligned to the business.

00:01:30 – How legal buying behaviour is changing

00:05:30 – Why reputation alone is no longer enough

00:08:20 – Moving from single partner relationships to wider client coverage

00:12:15 – Why client strategy matters in law firm growth

00:17:30 – Balancing entrepreneurial partner relationships with firm-wide priorities

00:22:20 – The role of governance in deciding which opportunities to pursue

00:26:00 – How marketing and business development are becoming more proactive inside law firms

00:31:40 – Why data and talent both matter in earning credibility

00:36:10 – Changing the perception of marketing from service centre to business partner

00:42:00 – Why marketing can act as the glue across the firm

00:46:30 – What the future of legal marketing could look like

B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth is a podcast by alan. agency. MD Benedict Buckland speaks to CMOs and marketing leaders to uncover the most uncomfortable truths in the world of B2B.

Subscribe here and be the first to know when new episodes drop.

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In B2B organisations, "one brand voice" often sounds straightforward. In practice, it is far more complex - especially in firms where reputation is carried by people, expertise and relationships.

This week, Benedict speaks to Paola Garbini, Head of Marketing Europe at Oliver Wyman, about the realities of building brand coherence inside a global consulting business. As Oliver Wyman strengthens its alignment within the wider Marsh ecosystem, Paola explains how the firm is navigating the balance between consistency and independence.

Rather than enforcing rigid brand rules, the discussion explores a more pragmatic idea - convergence instead of consensus. The episode looks at how organisations can create shared direction without suppressing the individuality that makes professional services valuable to clients.

Along the way, Paola reflects on the role of personal brands in consulting firms, why marketing needs to move upstream in business conversations, and how teams can measure the commercial impact of brand work more effectively.

This is a grounded conversation about brand as an organisational capability - not just a communications exercise.

• Why "one brand voice" is harder in professional services
• The logic behind Oliver Wyman’s expanded brand model
• Why independence still matters inside a larger brand ecosystem
• Convergence vs consensus in brand transformation
• Balancing consistency with individuality in consulting firms
• The role of personal brands in professional services
• Measuring marketing impact and return on marketing investment
• Why marketing needs to be involved earlier in business strategy

B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth is a podcast by alan. agency. MD Benedict Buckland speaks to CMOs and marketing leaders to uncover the most uncomfortable truths in the world of B2B.

Subscribe here and be the first to know when new episodes drop.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the first episode of the Special Edition: Law Firms podcast, where we speak with CMOs and senior marketers at leading law firms about how brand actually drives growth in legal services. Law firm marketers speak about differentiation, but most still communicate trust, expertise and experience in near identical ways.

The underlying buying behaviour has not dramatically changed. Legal services remain a repertoire market – clients default to firms they already know, then ask for recommendations. That reality makes memory, awareness and perception commercially decisive. Yet many firms still behave as if reputation alone will do the work.

In this conversation, Benedict speaks with Lee Grunnell, CMO at Womble Bond Dickinson, about what actually moves the dial. Drawing on brand tracking data and two decades inside professional services, Lee explains why homogeneity persists, why culture is both the truth and the trap, and why research – not internal consensus – is the only credible route to a defensible position.

They also explore why law may have more permission to be bold than it assumes, and how firms such as Hill Dickinson and Mishcon de Reya are resetting expectations for the category.

This is a conversation about brand as commercial infrastructure in a high trust, low frequency market where standing still is not neutral.

• The inherited risk aversion of legal marketing
• How legal buying actually works in practice
• Why awareness matters in a repertoire market
• Trust is table stakes – what sits on top?
• The culture paradox – true but impossible to define
• Using research to force clarity
• Womble Bond Dickinson’s “point of view”
• Are law firms finally prepared to be braver?

B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth is a podcast by alan. agency. MD Benedict Buckland speaks to CMOs and marketing leaders to uncover the most uncomfortable truths in the world of B2B.

Subscribe here and be the first to know when new episodes drop.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brand architecture is often treated as a structural or design choice. In reality, it is a leadership decision with emotional, political and commercial consequences.

Benedict Buckland hosts Ify Jibunoh, Group CMO of Cassava Technologies, to discuss house of brands versus branded house through a human and change-management lens. Jibunoh explains that Cassava’s brand architecture decision was a leadership stewardship choice, balancing future ambition with decades of equity in established brands across 30+ African markets.

Although internal sentiment leaned toward a branded house to signal modernity, research on awareness, trust and customer relationships supported maintaining a house of brands, with Cassava as the ‘endorser brand’ to share portfolio equity.

She describes mixed board reactions, underestimated emotional resistance and lessons on earlier stakeholder engagement. Post-decision challenges included governance, brand roles, internal storytelling, go-to-market redesign, training and behaviour change, emphasising that brand architecture is business transformation, not just marketing.

00:00 Welcome

00:37 Why brand architecture matters

02:24 Cassava context

05:45 Why ‘branded house’ was a temptation

08:03 Choosing a ‘house of brands’

12:28 Boardroom resistance

14:49 Managing emotions and buy-in

16:40 The change management playbook

24:28 Breaking silos across teams

alan. MD Benedict Buckland speaks to CMOs and marketing leaders to uncover the most uncomfortable truths in the world of B2B. Listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Subscribe here and be the first to know when new episodes drop.

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ABM is still spoken about as a silver bullet. A way to open doors, personalise at scale and finally align sales and marketing. The problem is that most organisations expect it to behave like magic rather than work.

In this conversation, Benedict speaks with Lauren Daly and Andrew Shepherd from Palo Alto Networks about where ABM breaks down in reality. Drawing on experience running ABM in a large, complex organisation, they unpack the gap between how ABM is sold internally and what it actually demands operationally, culturally and commercially.

Rather than treating ABM as a tactic, the discussion reframes it as a privilege that requires clarity on account selection, shared ownership of outcomes and a willingness to confront uncomfortable trade-offs. From data fragmentation and misaligned incentives to the limits of personalisation at scale, the episode is clear-eyed about what works and what does not.

This is not a conversation about tooling or frameworks. It is about discipline, expectation-setting and why good ABM often looks a lot like good marketing done properly.

00:01:20 Why ABM is sold as a silver bullet

00:03:50 The biggest misconceptions sales teams have about ABM

00:06:55 Why ‘account’ thinking misses buying groups

00:11:00 Account selection as the real point of alignment

00:17:45 The data problem no martech stack fully solves

00:24:50 When ABM just becomes good marketing

00:33:10 Personalisation, AI and cultural readiness

00:41:10 Why incentives, not intent, cause misalignment

Learn more about alan. here.

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In this episode of B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, Benedict talks with Jigsaw's Head of Marketing, Jason Miller about the renewed importance of brand in B2B marketing.

Once seen as “fluffy” or reserved for consumer giants, brand is now the foundation for differentiation, trust and long-term growth. Jason argues that lead gen and performance marketing alone can’t cut it, and explains how clarity of message, consistency and community are what really drive results.

From defining a singular brand story to challenging the over-reliance on AI-generated messaging, Jason shares how B2B marketers can build lasting trust – and why those who ignore brand risk being left behind.

Highlights:

02:11 – Why the traditional B2B playbook is broken

05:20 – Brand as more than just awareness

07:23 – How to measure brand impact creatively

09:32 – Crafting a simple, powerful brand story

15:30 – Why events and community matter more than ever

21:13 – Persuading sceptics to invest in brand

23:21 – The future of demand gen vs brand

33:04 – Why protecting the core from AI is essential

🎙️ Tune in to hear why brand isn’t just a marketing exercise, but the key to surviving and thriving in B2B today.

Subscribe now and never miss an episode that challenges the status quo of B2B marketing. Listen to more episodes at www.alan-agency.com/podcast

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