Interesting solutions come from unexpected places. Which is why the most useful question for a B2B brand right now might be one about a supercar.
Image credit: Ferrari
Start with what has changed.
AI has given us efficiency and speed to market. In a hyper-competitive world both are essential, as long as they are derived from the core source: the brand. Speed without that source only gets you to the wrong place sooner.
What AI will not give you is differentiation. It is built from what already exists, so it returns you to the average with remarkable efficiency. Everyone now has the same capability, pointed at the same channels, producing at the same pace. Execution has become abundant. Distinction has become scarce.
That matters most where B2B brands actually live. The screen.
Screens are the delivery system for almost every B2B experience. The site, the platform, the deck, the report, the demo, the portal. And screens are exactly where AI is filling the space fastest. Same tools, same templates, same speed, same sameness. The one place most B2B brands rely on to be known is the place where being known is hardest.
The rush to screen is rarely a strategic decision. It is usually an economic one. Budgets favour what is quick and measurable, so the screen takes the attention and everything else takes what is left. That is compromise. And compromise trickles down. It arrives as work that is competent, efficient and completely interchangeable.
Image credit: Ferrari
So where might we find some original inspiration?
Look to the unexpected places.
When Jony Ive’s studio, LoveFrom, designed the interior of Ferrari’s first electric car, the obvious answer was available to them. Stack it with Apple-like digital interfaces. They did the opposite. To create a deeper, more profound relationship with the brand, and to evoke the spirit of Ferrari, the design is surprisingly tactile. Buttons, toggles and switches that could easily have been touchscreen are mechanical, made from materials that resonate with high performance cars.
The detail that tells you most: LoveFrom wanted the act of starting the car to be as theatrical and memorable as the drive itself. Not the interface. The moment.
Two decisions made that possible. LoveFrom’s obsession with the right answer rather than the expected one. And Ferrari’s courage in giving an outside voice the creative space to define the direction from the outset. Neither of those is a design decision. Both are leadership decisions.
Image credit: Ferrari
And the transferred learning from Ferrari?
Seek the brand interfaces, big and small, that can authentically and uniquely be claimed as your way of doing things. In B2B they will rarely be tactile, and they will almost never be the obvious ones. They are found by studying the customer experience forensically, audience by audience, and asking one question at every point of contact: could anyone else do this exactly the way we do?
Most of the answers will be yes. A few will not. Those few are your moments of disproportionate impact, and they are worth more than another redesign of the thing your competitors are also redesigning.
Holding on to them takes confidence. Finding a moment worth owning is the easy half. Protecting it through the rounds of review that want it cheaper, faster and more like everyone else’s is the hard half.
This is the work we do with clients, and it tends to start with an audit rather than an idea.
The question is what yours could be.
Because if there is nothing in your experience that only you could have made, you are a white, five door saloon. Reliable, sensible, and indistinguishable in the car park.
Author: Peter Knapp, Chairman, Manasian&Co