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Your Competitor’s Ad Isn’t Your Biggest Threat: Netflix Is

  • 1 day ago
  • 6 min read

Based on "Lights, Camera, Pipeline," a B2B Marketing Ignite report by Joel Harrison, built on two years of UK B2B Marketing Awards entry data (2024 to 2025).


For years, the biggest leap B2B marketers had to make was accepting that buyers decide with their emotions, not just their spreadsheets. That argument is now settled. A new, sharper one has taken its place: B2B content isn't just competing with the rival vendor's webinar anymore. 


It's competing with everything else on the screen, from a Netflix series to a friend's holiday reel. A growing number of brands are realizing that the way to win that fight is to stop asking “is this good for our B2B brand?” and start asking “would someone actually choose to watch this?”



From Persuasion to Entertainment


The evolution of B2B messaging has moved through three distinct phases:


  • The rational pitch. List every feature and benefit and trust the buyer to do the logical math. This model was debunked more than a decade ago.

  • The emotional pitch. The now-accepted idea that B2B buyers, like anyone else, decide on feeling. No longer a daring position, just accepted wisdom.

  • The entertainment pitch. Today's frontier. Rather than simply moving an audience emotionally, make something they'd actively choose to watch, even if they didn't have to.


Part of the reason this shift is happening now is generational. Buyers who grew up curating their own entertainment, skipping what bores them and bingeing what doesn't, carry that instinct into the office. They don't switch it off just because the content in front of them has a company logo on it. The old internal test marketing teams have used for decades, “does this look professional and on-brand?”, has quietly stopped being sufficient, because attention isn't judged relative to other B2B content. It's judged against everything.


There's also a trust dimension. As AI makes it trivially cheap to generate infinite, competent-looking content, competence itself stops being a differentiator since anyone can produce it in seconds. What becomes scarce, and therefore valuable, is visible human craft: real production, real story, real time invested. That's exactly what a feed full of generated content can't replicate, and it's why David Ogilvy's old warning feels newly relevant: “You cannot bore people into buying your product.”



What Actually Counts as "Entertainment"


The idea of entertainment in marketing can become a vague catch-all, so a workable definition needs some rigor. Content qualifies if it meets at least one of five criteria, not necessarily all:


  • A protagonist and a story. Real characters, tension, and resolution, not a message with a plot bolted on afterward.

  • Broadcast-grade craft. Production quality that approaches what audiences already watch for pleasure, not what they merely tolerate at work.

  • Serialization, when it fits. Built to compound over time. This is one route in, not a requirement. A single film can qualify just as well.

  • Emotion over information. Designed first to move people, not just to transfer facts.

  • Invited participation. Interactive where possible, turning a one-way broadcast into something the audience steps into.


Meeting one of these well beats gesturing vaguely at all five. The tight definition exists precisely to stop any narrative flourish from being mislabeled as “entertainment.”


Six formats currently do the heavy lifting, each suited to a different objective:


  • Cinematic film for reshaping how the market sees a brand.

  • Documentary for earning trust through real stories.

  • Serialized video for building a returning audience over time.

  • Narrative audio for reaching busy buyers on their own schedule.

  • Immersive experiences for high-stakes moments like launches and events.

  • Gamification for turning passive viewers into active participants.


The guidance from the report is simple: match the format to the objective, not to whatever's trendy.



The Evidence: It's Growing, and It's Working


Data drawn from two years of UK B2B Marketing Awards entries shows the trend accelerating fast. The share of award campaigns using entertainment techniques rose from 22.3% to 30.2% in a single year, meaning nearly a third of entries now clear that bar, up from under a quarter. The campaigns that did lean into entertainment performed measurably better:


  • They were 21% more likely to beat their own stated objectives, hitting goals in 37% of cases versus 31% for the rest.

  • They were two and a half times more likely to claim a record or first-of-its-kind result.


Crucially, this isn't a story about outspending the competition. Median spend on entertainment-led campaigns actually came in lower than everything else in the dataset, roughly £95,000 versus £108,000. Over half of the entertainment-led campaigns spent under £100,000 altogether, and a handful of standout entries pulled it off for under £25,000: a video series, an audio campaign, and a gamification project among them.


It's also not a top-of-funnel gimmick. Most of the standout case studies earned their place across multiple stages of the buying journey, from initial awareness through to retention and advocacy, not just as an attention-grabber at the top.


The report is careful to frame this as association rather than proof. Campaigns that used entertainment tended to report stronger outcomes, which isn't the same as entertainment causing those outcomes, and award recognition itself isn't a measure of commercial return. Still, the pattern across dozens of entries is consistent enough to be worth noting.



The Work Behind the Numbers


The case studies behind these numbers are varied:





When to Reach for It, and When Not To


Entertainment isn't a universal prescription. It tends to earn its keep in four situations:


  1. When buyers have tuned out a low-interest category altogether.

  2. When every competitor is making the same rational claims and something else is needed to break the tie.

  3. When most of the market isn't buying yet and the goal is simply to be remembered later.

  4. When the subject matter is technical, abstract, or otherwise hard to love.


Two conditions have to be met before reaching for it, though. First, there needs to be a genuine idea underneath it. Entertainment can't rescue an empty proposition; it only makes the emptiness more expensive to display. Second, the brand needs to be able to commit the craft required. A half-funded attempt at entertainment lands worse than a straightforward, competent ad.


For brands without blockbuster budgets, the practical starting points are modest:


  • Serialized audio has the lowest barrier to entry.

  • Decent footage can be shot on a phone for a few hundred pounds if the lighting and sound are right.

  • Simple tools like Typeform can support lo-fi gamification.

  • Partnering with a complementary brand can split the production cost.

  • Prove a format on owned channels before paying to distribute it.

  • Get the story right before increasing the spend.



The Takeaway


Roughly one in ten award entries currently switch entertainment on in a genuine way, which means most of the field, and most of the competitive advantage, is still sitting open. As AI-generated content floods every channel, the brands willing to invest in visible human craft, real stories, and content people would choose to watch on their own time are the ones pulling ahead. The report's suggested shift in mindset is simple: stop asking whether the content is good for the brand, and start asking whether anyone would actually choose to watch it.


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