Observed Signal · Oct 14, 2026 · Other · Source: The Drum · Impact: 1/5 · Sentiment: Positive
B2B Awards Juror Urges Brands to Stand Out
Rintje Barnes, executive creative director at Marketbridge, judges The Drum B2B Awards and advocates for B2B brands to be bold. She emphasizes simplicity, strong ideas, and trusting creative instincts over complexity. AI is praised for streamlining workflows, but human creativity remains the key differentiator. Barnes recommends investing in strategically creative talent for 2026. She notes that short-term results and long-term brand building can be balanced when brands are clear on their identity. Her advice to marketers: 'Be willing to do something worth noticing.'
News about an agency executive's judging role and creative philosophy; low direct impact on AdTech, but relevant to B2B marketing creativity.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- Rintje Barnes is executive creative director at Marketbridge.
- She is judging the creative aces jury at The Drum B2B Awards.
- She has over 25 years of industry experience.
- She advocates for simplicity and strong ideas in B2B marketing.
- She recommends investing in strategically creative talent for 2026.
Related Market Signals & Shifts
Recent verified developments and strategic activity across this market segment.
B2B Creativity Matches B2C, Says McCann's Danilo Boer
Danilo Boer, global creative lead at McCann and jury president of The Drum Awards for B2B, discusses the rising quality of B2B creativity. He highlights that B2B is now on par with, or even ahead of, B2C in some cases. Boer shares his jury philosophy of focusing on work the jurors love, rather than arguing over disliked pieces. He cites standout shortlisted campaigns, including 'T-Rex Leather' by a synthetic leather lab, 'The Last Coke in the Desert' by Coca-Cola, and Carhartt's 'Next Responders' campaign. Boer believes award shows like The Drum Awards drive continuous improvement in B2B creative standards, and he emphasizes the strategic and purposeful use of brand purpose.
Michael Ruby: Great B2B Outshines Consumer Work
Michael Ruby, co-founder and chief creative officer of Park & Battery and juror for The Drum B2B Awards, argues that B2B marketing tells larger, higher-stakes stories than much consumer work and that its creative demands are routinely underestimated. Ruby — whose agency won 2026 Ad Age A‑List B2B Agency of the Year and ANA B2B Agency of the Year — criticizes B2B brands for confusing professionalism with sameness and says successful brands take human-focused creative risks. He also says AI replaces parts of the process rather than people and that superior strategy, prompting and creative judgment amplify AI output. Ruby rejects the brand-versus-performance dichotomy, advocating integrated growth strategies and leaders who can hold complexity across business, creativity, data and technology.
Bad B2B Is Boring, But B2B Isn't
Craig Duxbury, a global B2B marketing strategist and founder of Craig Duxbury Consulting, argues that the central problem in B2B marketing is low creative standards rather than AI, measurement, or brand-versus-demand tensions. Speaking as a juror for The Drum B2B Awards, Duxbury says the opportunity for B2B lies in raising creative ambition, understanding customers and buying groups more deeply, and connecting marketing to business value. He views AI as a productivity amplifier that exposes the quality of underlying strategy and processes, and he urges marketers to bridge the vocabulary gap with the boardroom and to orchestrate brand, creativity, data, technology and sales into a single engine. The Drum B2B Awards entries close July 23. Publication date: 2026-07-03.
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