AI’s Role in B2B Storytelling

Guy: [: 00:00:00

I. Today I'm interviewing, uh, Tim Bradley of Pennant Video. So let me tell you a little bit about him. Uh, he is the co-founder of uh, uh, pennant Video and he champions the video marketing trifecta, which aims to provide strategic clarity. I. And high quality outputs in today's competitive landscape. Tim's expertise in leveraging AI for storytelling and enhancing customer engagement and [00:01:00] conversion could bring a new dimension to, uh, you know, to anything that you're doing.

And his insights would be invaluable for any of the, uh, work that, uh, his clients are doing. So Tim, welcome to be here. I really appreciate it.

Tim: Hey guy. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it too. And, uh, and happy Friday as we're here today.

Guy: Yeah, absolutely. Happy Friday. Happy good Friday. So, uh, so tell us your backstory on AI and marketing.

I.

Tim: Yeah, so I've been, uh, in the marketing space, video marketing specifically for better part of two decades now. Right? And, uh, as soon as that, you know, the version one of chat GPT came, came to the world, it was, uh, instant shake, shake up to our system, right? Because obviously we're a lot of what we do starts in, in the words and the concepting and the researching and development of, of how we bring brand stories to, to the marketplace, right?

d, right? And, um, trying to [: 00:02:00

So that's, that's what we're here to talk about.

Guy: Yeah, absolutely. And storytelling is so critical and, you know, and, and video, uh, is a story. I mean, it is everything. You have the visual, you have the audio, you have music, you have the only thing missing is sent. And maybe someday we'll have that as well. I don't

Tim: know.

Yeah, maybe.

Guy: But you know, when you're telling a story with video, you have to get it right. And, and using AI to support it can really make a difference. So, uh, tell us a little bit about Penant video. What is Penant video?

our marketing partners like.[: 00:03:00

Best identify what types of videos to produce, at what stages of the, of the buyer's journey, right? Of the proverbial marketing funnel. So, um, we're squarely in the, in the mid funnel, right? So we're really helping buyers in their sort of consideration phase of, of a brand and, and their tool or solution, right?

And yeah, really just leveraging the power of story, the power of video to maximize our, our brand's, um, impressions and engagement and more so trust building and belief right. In, in what they're doing day to day.

Guy: Yeah, absolutely. You know, and it's, it's always interesting. So I, I was long time a B2B marketer and then B2C, and now I do probably more B2C and then a little bit of B2B two C.

ow, there's not all of these [: 00:04:00

And I could see, you know, exactly where your stuff would fit in. And, and, uh, so tell us how you're making that fit in for, you know, some of your clients and, uh, maybe some practical use cases.

Tim: Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, I mean, you just said it, right? Like a lot of the, the buyers in B2B are, are, are very, uh, savvy and technically sound minded, right?

And just like the, this degrees of complexity when it comes to the set of key stakeholders that need to invest in whatever the sort of like software or hardware solution, right? Um, so you, you, you need to be very thoughtful and, and. Obviously recognize that sales cycles can take many months or even even years, right?

hat, what videos work where. [: 00:05:00

They're what and their how, and their who and their where. Right? And that's sort of the, the ultimate phases of these, of the journey while establishing how you're different from your competition, you're demonstrating your solutions value, and you're validating, uh, via third party trust building. Right? So customers, right, so the trifecta specifically is a set of tools.

Anthems to tell that why, why you exist, why your audience should care explainers to demonstrate what it is you do and how you do it, and endorsements or customer stories, right? Really that, that final sort of trust builder, uh, and validation of, of your solutions offering, right? Obviously there's an abundance of other ways to, to cut and slice and dice video.

embolden and em, and embody [: 00:06:00

Guy: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And uh, you know, I, I always like to have some kind of a framework against which I'm working 'cause it just, it, it explains, you know, to your point with an explainer, but it explains exactly why and what you're actually.

Doing these videos and what their objectives are, and especially in a, in a complex B2B environment. Now, do you also, you know, when I think of B2B, I also think of multiple, uh, stakeholders in the purchase. You know, it's never just one person. It's always, you know, you have a recommender, you have a champion, you have the, in the influencer, you have other interested parties, and then you kind of have the guy with the money.

Um, yeah, you get that CFO at the end of the line, right?

Tim: Yeah.

Guy: That damn CFO. We could sell so much more if we didn't have him in the way every time. For better and worse, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. But, you know, you have all of that. So how do you, how does your, uh, trifecta work against those different stakeholders in the decision process?

love that question. So I. Of [: 00:07:00

And that expression of why, and what, and how, and who and where, right? All of all of that is, is really important. But then you can flex and create similar like videos for those different ICPs, right? So now you have this brand identity, tone of voice, positioning, messaging, communication, all really aligned and synthesized and galvanized, right?

o really help you build that [: 00:08:00

Guy: Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, just for the audience, uh, ICP, uh, just explain exactly what you mean by that.

Tim: Yeah. Ideal customer profile. Sorry. So yeah, like your buyer sort of personas, right? So you have, as you just described, those different, uh, stakeholders. So you have the one that's really feeling the pain of this moment and is looking for a solution.

But then they need to ladder it up to their, their superiors or supervisors or whatever. And then ultimately to that CFO, who really just cares about ROI at the end of the day, um, that's maybe a little too brash, but like, uh, at the end of the day, right? Like, that's, that's the, the main takeaway. So how do you, um, leverage video, which is the most, like powerful and preferred medium by audiences, right?

To, to help with those, those decision makings.

that, uh, your clients face, [: 00:09:00

Tim: Yeah, great question. So first and foremost, right, like when you think video, it's such a.

It's such kind of a loaded word 'cause it, it's like, it's very challenging to produce where, I mean, you described it earlier, the complexity of visual and audio and other sound and music and tone of voice and is it production, is it motion design? Is it a blend of both? Like. What's the creative direction?

What's the story, right? So all, all these complexities make it incredibly rewarding at the end when you have that, that that sort of deliverable, that tool to, to help empower your, your team. But to, from the jump, there's a lot to consider, right? So leveraging AI and a partner that knows how to, how to understand it really helps at the earliest stages of like.

bundance of information from [: 00:10:00

This is for something that's gonna be like. 60 seconds. 90 seconds. 120 seconds. Right. So how do you distill a lot of that down to be the, the, the best and most sort of pulpy needs for what the audience desires? Right. It's also really helpful in helping you be a bit more objective as like the, the creative or the person that's like.

making it on behalf of your [: 00:11:00

So using all that information to help make sure you are. Leading and building for the audience's desires. Um, AI can be a really good partner in that way.

Guy: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, uh, you know, you're right. There was a couple of things that I, I really, uh, appreciate in there, and that is one of 'em is kind of being the independent, not arbiter, but, uh, being a, you know, an independent kind of a, a way to look at the business and what the client is seeing as opposed to, you know, what the business may be, you know, wanting to tell.

That was always a challenge. Uh, especially when you have like high tech kind of products that's the engineers are saying, well, it does this, it does this, it does this. And yet, you know, the, the client, you know, when you think about, well put yourself in the client's eyes, it's all about, well, what problem do you solve?

econd of all, uh, if it does [: 00:12:00

And so I've gotta, you know, get past that. And I think AI in, in conjunction with how you're, you know, you're talking about using video can really, uh, smooth that and improve that whole process. I.

Tim: Exactly. It's, it, it sort of, uh, objectify a lot of the details, the data, the sort of desires into like plain speak, right?

So you can understand how to approach the story of, of whatever nature in the buyer's journey you're trying to, to, to strike over, right? So that's, that's like the best sort of jump off point from there. Um, and you mentioned this earlier, this sort of like script development of things, right? Like we're creators, we love.

o the story, right? So like, [: 00:13:00

But it's like how you arrive at that, that emotion is it? That's where creative development really thrives, right? So having another sort of team player in the GPT to help you compare, contrast different directions and, and storytelling, uh, sort of techniques is, is really impactful too. And it's, I don't think it's for the fact of like being any faster or like cheaper by any way.

It's more just like you, you have another writer in the room, sort of in the writer's room, right? To like help you, uh, arrive at the best direction that's best for the audience at the end of the day.

Guy: Yeah. You know, and that's what I, uh, and I'm not, uh, trying to denigrate, uh, you know, human creativity. It's clearly a million miles better than ai.

re trying to. Portray in our [: 00:14:00

Tim: Yeah. To be even more specific, it's like you can have your, your interviews with the stakeholders, right? Like with customers, with your, your sales team, with your marketing team, with your C-Suite, you can record using the, the AI recorders right, to like, absorb all of the actual words that are being spoken to.

Then you can take things like the brand guidebooks and, and like the tone of voice and those, those elements you can take. Your social channels and, and all the places that you already are, like present in the marketplace, right? And like push all of that through and then the prompting of like the goals and the results.

just so much research. It's [: 00:15:00

Right. And then the fund begins with actually producing it. So,

Guy: yeah. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So, um, have you run into any, um. Pushback. Are any of your, uh, prospects or clients pushing back on using AI or in they're regulated and they can't use it? Or have you run into anything like that?

Tim: Yeah, actually quite a bit of it.

Um, but even, even in the storytelling front where like these, you know, these, uh. Big health tech companies or medical device, uh, companies or, you know, uh, a lot of manufacturing and things like that, right? Like they are all adopting some semblance of AI too. But it's always a question mark of like, how forward do we really desire to be with that message, right?

Like, is [: 00:16:00

But as far as like, I think where you're going of like pictures and imagery and video and music and voiceover. We've haven't made like a hard and fast stance, but we tend to just not go in that direction. Um, the, the couple times we have, have been sort of in like a mood board development or kind of just like, this is the intention of where we are expecting to go.

Identity is always a winner. [: 00:17:00

That's preferred. Right? By by audiences. This is your opportunity to be like very authentic and, and unique and use live action video to be specific, like as much as possible, right? Especially in like, you know, customer stories, right? Like you gotta make these customers the hero. So there's not really any, any need or desire there.

And the explainers, it's like, yeah, we're, we're, we're being tactical in this sort of. What you do and how you do it, but it's in that tone of voice that is, you know, the edutainment, so to speak, that like you can really, uh, be different. And so then applying. You know, motion design and that's uniquely in of your brand identity is huge live action to show whatever it is.

e key assets really helpful. [: 00:18:00

Deliverable or asset is like that 62nd, 92nd, two minute sort of like, you know, short but long form piece. There's so many opportunities to make, you know, 15 second pieces, animated gifts. Mm-hmm. Take the transcript and write case studies. Right. So sort of leveraging the goal and diversifying the content from there.

Using AI tools to like be efficient, I think is a really smart move.

Guy: Yeah. Yeah. No, that does, uh, uh, make sense. And, um, you know, and I, and I think that's kind of like, you know, everybody has a limited budget. You know, nobody has the unlimited budgets, uh, so to speak. And, but being able to then not only do this great creative, but then also to kind of.

seconds versus the this [: 00:19:00

Tim: It's like that ripple effect of like, yeah.

The impression you're trying to make with, uh, with the creative that is uniquely yours, right?

Guy: Yep. Yeah. You know, it's interesting though 'cause um, you think about, now obviously there's still some people that are holding back on using ai, but there are so many people using AI to generate video and, and imagery and, and, and sound as well.

And, and it's, it's kind of fascinating. There's gonna be so much video out there. You wonder how you're gonna be able to stay above the. The phrase, so to speak, because everybody's gonna have, instead of having one or two videos, we're gonna have 10 or 20. And uh, you know, and then everybody's gonna have 10 or 20, and then all of a sudden, you know, you go from 1 million videos to a billion videos.

ing to see how that evolves. [: 00:20:00

Tim: just this week, so that's why I had to pull it up, but it's like. We're not short on content, we're short on connection, right? Where it's like, it's more posts, more content, more campaigns.

It's just, it's loud out there, right? Yeah. So like, and the volume is off the charts, right? So like, well, how do we make sure we, uh, we hear the signal or that our, our, our audience is hearing our signal, right? So it's, it's in that story, that purpose, that feeling that someone sees me in this, right? So like, taking care.

And your key assets, your key marketing and sales materials is like. Mission critical, right? And then you can beat your own drum from there at, at sort of the volume or pace or cadence that you need to.

Guy: So with, and you know what's interesting then, and I, uh, I don't know if you've seen this, but, uh, what's really critical, so, you know, even though let's say you have, instead of one video, you have 10 and you have to stay above the noise.

lly critical is getting that [: 00:21:00

Tim: Yeah. You have to like stop the scroll. Right. The def. Exactly. So it's, it's really important to, like, I don't almost necessarily like ab test everything, but just like you, you gotta do that compare, contrast, and know what you're, you always gotta be, you gotta lead with what You're just like audience first, right?

Like what do they need? And so, yeah. Yeah. Um, helping them is usually the best first step and arriving at that best hook. Right. And iterating from there.

sting and, uh, valuable and, [: 00:22:00

Tim: Yeah, I mean, we're, we're on the, you know, the chat, GPT is a pro plan or whatever, right? So that's usually the, the jump off point. And for us though, like we, because we use the Adobe suite. There's so much, um, built into that like creative cloud set of tools. So for example, like Premier Pro, pro is our editing, linear editing tool, right?

It's like the ability to take long form interviews, get the transcript immediately inside the window is like an, an incredible change. Whereas before, like I remember coming up, it was like typing out like word for word transcriptions, right? So being able to use that and then you can edit. Within that window.

how, what's the, what's the [: 00:23:00

The other thing we leverage it a lot for is closed captioning, right? So just like, instead of, you know, just uploading an SRT file to YouTube and YouTube puts, its sort of very basic black and white. It's like, whoa. We can have one that's on brand and in their sort of colors and font and all of that stuff and, and, and have it pre-built.

So those types of things are, are really, are really helpful. There's a lot of like placeholder stuff we'll use too, you know, like visual or audio or otherwise, it's just is like, helps us get a. Uh, a sense of where we're trying to go creatively. That's really helpful. So yeah, a lot of using the, like what's become native in the tools that we're already using to help efficiencies and process improvement, uh, has been awesome for us.

able content? Instead of one [: 00:24:00

Do you? Yeah. How do you, how do you see that working out? Definitely the

Tim: latter where most of our conversations begin with that. I. Sort of framework, right? Like what's the sort of best, uh, tool, premier tool, that part of the trifecta, right? That supports your, your audience's needs in this moment, their journey.

But then from there, invariably it becomes like a mini campaign, right? Where it's like, great, now we can give you. 15 second versions, 32nd versions, animated gifs, transcripts, case studies, imagery, right? All, all pulled and high resolution coming out of what, what we've made, right? So other tools, AI tools like up resing, right?

n now. So being able to like [: 00:25:00

Guy: Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Well, fantastic. I. I'd love to be able to go on a lot further, but, uh, I'm gonna have to, uh, you know, we're gonna have to break it here. I, I, I think I could talk with you for hours on, on different things. It's B2B, you know, as I mentioned, I think B2B is so hard. It's, it's so difficult, the timeframes, the decision makers and, and everything.

And then being able to do, you know, efficient and effective marketing and that is really tough. Let me ask you with a one last question, and that is. So what advice would you give an up and coming new marketer as they're trying to break into, into marketing and they don't really have a, you know, a portfolio, so to speak, to, uh, to work with.

s the idea, what is the, the [: 00:26:00

You know, the performance, the posture, the, the cadence, like how, how you speak that informs like your script writing ultimately. Right? And then understanding things like lighting and sound and camera framing. Like all that has, has like huge benefit in the long run. When then you start working with other either actual creatives or other creatives, right.

And, and partners that work in, in production. And suddenly you're speaking like. Like language in, in your goals, right? And, um, and then you're along the way, you're, you're building confidence in your own sort of marketing, but then you're, you're creating content that can support the business' goals and, and goals and needs too.

io, it's, um, you know, that [: 00:27:00

I don't want to, you know, how do I cover those all up, you know?

Tim: You're absolutely right. It, it, it's sort of a soft skill that will just like benefit you in so many ways, uh, in the long run.

Guy: Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, Tim, uh, really appreciate it. Thank you so much for being on. And, uh, uh, so tell us how can the audience, uh, reach out to you and certainly learn more about your company, pennant video.

Tim: Yeah. Thanks for that. Yep. So I'm on, I'm on LinkedIn early and often, so you, you can definitely find me there. Uh, and then our website is pennant video or pennant video.com. Um, we have a, a, a really cool sort of playbook. Uh, it's called, uh, funnel Focus, and it's this playbook to help support marketers and they're like.

ink to it here and you could [: 00:28:00

Um, and yeah, I, I hope it's helpful.

Guy: Yeah, absolutely. That'd be wonderful. So, uh, yeah, thank you Tim. So great to have you. So Penant video or penant video.com and uh, of course Tim is on LinkedIn. So, uh, for the audience, uh, please stay tuned for many other videos in this series of the backstory on marketing and ai.

thank you so much. Thank you [: 00:29:00