Observed Signal · Jul 3, 2026 · Interview · Source: The Drum · Impact: 2/5 · Sentiment: Positive
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.
Opinion piece highlights creative standards, AI's role, and the need to link marketing to business value — useful guidance for B2B marketers and agencies but not industry-shifting.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- Craig Duxbury runs Craig Duxbury Consulting and served as global president at Stein earlier in his career.
- Duxbury served as a juror on the Industry jury for The Drum B2B Awards.
- He argues the main problem in B2B marketing is a creative standard that lags the discipline's commercial importance.
- Duxbury says AI makes B2B marketing faster and more scalable but mainly exposes the quality of existing strategy, data, workflows and standards.
- The Drum B2B Awards entries close on July 23 (as noted in the article).
Related Market Signals & Shifts
Recent verified developments and strategic activity across this market segment.
Ari Halper: B2B Should Mean Business-to-Person
Ari Halper, global ECD and head of creative excellence at R/GA and a juror on The Drum B2B Awards' Creative Aces jury, argues that B2B marketing should be reframed as B2P (Business-to-Person). He says marketers must remember they are communicating with people, not organizations, and that creative ambition in B2B can match B2C. Halper describes pragmatic use of AI as a strategic and creative partner—researcher, analyst and comp artist—while emphasizing the continuing need for human judgment and craft because AI tends to accommodate rather than challenge. He also discusses brand building, arguing long-term brand success is composed of many shorter efforts that should aggregate toward a consistent narrative. The Drum B2B Awards entries close July 23.
B2B Marketing Mustn't Be Boring, Says Hillary Nussbaum
Hillary Nussbaum, director of content at The Ricciardi Group and a juror on The Drum B2B Awards' Creative Aces jury, argues that B2B marketing should avoid being dull and must instead surprise and engage real people. She warns that AI-driven sameness increases audience skepticism and that human creativity — specificity, humor and empathy — remains the differentiator. Nussbaum recommends deep audience understanding (beyond job titles) and advises focusing on delivering value in each piece of content. For 2026 she would invest in executive thought leadership and urges brand-building over short-term tactics. The article was published by Margo Waldrop in The Drum on 2026-07-10.
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.
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