LinkedIn is ‘the place to B2B’ at Cannes Lions 2024

At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2024, LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network and leading B2B advertising platform, will transform the iconic Carlton Cannes hotel rooftop into ‘the place to B2B,’ with B2B-focused panels, studio sessions, and networking events.

LinkedIn will showcase that it has the tools and insights to help B2B marketers reach and engage the buyer group, and build “collective confidence” among decision-makers, which can be done best on LinkedIn with its professional community of one billion members and 68 million companies.

LinkedIn in partnership with Bain & Company, will take to the mainstage at Cannes to unveil new insights on what’s driving $18 trillion of B2B purchases globally. The new research on ‘Buyer Group Marketing’ explores the emotional drivers shaping B2B purchasing decisions and demonstrates that brand familiarity among the whole buyer group is the most important factor.

B2B buying cycles are long, emotion-driven, and typically involve 6 to 10 stakeholders. In the study of 500+ senior B2B buyers, 81 percent said that the product they eventually bought was known by everyone in the buying group on day one, while only 4 percent said a purchase was made when the product was known by only a few decision-makers in the buyer group. 

LinkedIn’s programming highlights at Cannes include: 

• LinkedIn & Bain present, ‘Unlocking B2B Opportunities: Why FOMU is Greater than FOMO ‘ (June 17 @ 12.30pm CEST, Rotonde stage)
  
  LinkedIn’s VP of Marketing, Minjae Ormes, and Bain & Company’s Senior Partner, Jamie Cleghorn, will take to the Rotonde stage to share new insights on what’s driving $18 trillion of B2B purchases globally and unveil the emotional drivers of B2B buying. They’ll present new research from LinkedIn’s The B2B Institute, and Bain & Company on ‘Buyer Group Marketing’ that spotlights the emotional drivers shaping B2B purchasing decisions and demonstrates that brand familiarity among the whole buyer group is the most important factor.

• LinkedIn’s 2024 B2B Marketing Benchmark launch (June 17 @ at 4.45pm CEST, live stream panel discussion - Creativity Is Not Enough: What’s Critical for Modern B2B Marketing Success?)
  
  LinkedIn launched the second annual edition of the ‘2024 B2B Marketing Benchmark’ - a study of 2,000+ B2B marketing leaders from across the globe highlighting the state of B2B. Tusar Barik, Senior Director of Marketing at LinkedIn, Vida M. Cornelious, SVP, Creative & Strategy at New York Times Advertising, and Nicholas Mercurio, Chief Growth Officer at Ipsos, will explore the trends defining B2B during a live stream panel discussion. The report finds that B2B marketing leaders globally are optimistic about the year ahead; nearly 9 in 10 are bullish on their team’s ability to drive revenue, and the majority (88%) agree that relationship building is key to success - underscoring the importance of building “collective confidence” among buyer groups.

• World premiere of ‘Everybody’s Business’ - a new B2B documentary (June 17 @ 5.30pm CEST, Carlton Cannes rooftop) 
  
  LinkedIn will host the worldwide premiere of ‘Everybody’s Business,’ a new documentary exploring the rise of B2B marketing and celebrating the industry. Created in partnership with two-time Oscar-winning director, Ben Proudfoot and Breakwater Studios Ltd, the documentary follows leading B2B voices, including Tom Stein, Chairman and Chief Brand Officer at Stein IAS, Andisa Ntsubane, Jury President of the Creative B2B Lions at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, and Ana Buchaim, Chief of People, Branding, Communication, Sustainability at B3, and others, to explore the transformation of the industry, including the creative opportunity ahead. The documentary is available to watch on YouTube. 

Methodology

The ‘Buyer Group Marketing’ research conducted by LinkedIn’s The B2B Institute, in partnership with Bain & Company and Newton X, surveyed 500+ senior B2B buyers at leading B2B and B2C companies across the US, UK, and Western Europe including France, Germany, and Spain in March and April 2024. The B2B buyers surveyed were high-value tech buyers of cloud-based CRM solutions, AI technologies, and Enterprise Research Planning Systems.