“Multi-million business deals don’t happen without the confidence, the relationships and the reputation of businesses,” said Andrew Mildren, managing director of Edelman Business Marketing EMEA, setting the tone for a conversation that unpacked how trust and creativity intertwine to drive commercial advantage.
In an era where B2B is often framed as the realm of logic, procurement and spreadsheets, this session at B2B World Fest challenged that view head-on.
Brand trust begins with clarity of purpose, said Mike Argile, senior marketing lead for Microsoft EMEA: Copilot and Agents. “Our mission is to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more – that has been the absolute foundation of everything that we’ve built.”
That mission, he said, flows into every customer and partner interaction – from a $30bn investment into the UK, to commitments around secure AI and GDPR. Yet trust isn’t static. Argile described how AI is reshaping marketing practice, with four key themes: upskilling employees, reinventing customer experience, transforming business processes and fostering innovation.
“We spend a lot of time on how to enable your employees, particularly from a skilling point of view, and giving that space to try the tools that are being purchased,” he said, underlining that credibility in technology now hinges as much on human empowerment as on innovation itself.
The evolution of trust
At Oliver Wyman, trust has always been the cornerstone of business relationships – but that strength can come with challenges. “The legacy of Oliver Wyman is to be shy, to be a bit more like introverted, if you will,” said Paola Garbini, its executive director and European head of marketing.
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“That paid off as a strategy because we gained the trust of our clients. At the same time, though, we learned that the way we aspired to talk about ourselves was the same exact way the clients started speaking about us.”
That revelation led to a shift in approach: helping clients tell their own breakthrough stories rather than Oliver Wyman doing the talking. “When I introduced the topic of what we call the lighthouse stories, the stories of breakthrough moments… people were skeptical, people were scared. But then we kept on pitching the idea of having clients talk about us, but not actually talk about us, and the result was incredibly positive.”
The takeaway? In B2B, credibility grows when clients become advocates – when a brand’s reputation is reflected back by those it serves.
Trust doesn’t have to be boring
If trust is the foundation, creativity is the catalyst. Kate Stanners, chief creative officer, international at Edelman, argued that the most effective B2B brands don’t shy away from emotion or imagination. “Trust doesn’t have to be boring,” she said. “Imagination can get you to uniqueness sitting there with that element of trust. It is that powerful combination of those things that have always been the case – however we represent it.”
She pointed to Edelman’s work with DP World as an example: a logistics company taking on sustainability by reducing the temperature at which food is transported globally from -18°C to -15°C – a small shift with huge environmental implications.
“It’s all very well having this as a plan, having it backed up with data – then you’ve got everyone to agree to doing it, and that’s where the trust comes in,” said Stanners. “The trust is working behind the scenes as well as in front of how we tell that story.”
Lessons in distinction
When asked which brands best embody trust and creativity in balance, the panel offered an eclectic mix: Lego, for bringing ‘play’ into business transformation; Infosys, for connecting sports, data and storytelling; and a Japanese machinery company turning its bulldozers into de-mining tools in Cambodia, animated through the stories of its own engineers. Each example, they agreed, showed how humanity, purpose and distinctiveness can coexist – even in the most technical or traditional sectors.
The panel closed on a shared conviction: in complex buying environments, trust is a living, earned experience. As Mildren summed up, it’s about “how B2B brands earn trust in a world that’s faster, noisier and more skeptical than ever.” In B2B, trust remains the ultimate differentiator, but creativity and courage are what keep it alive.
Watch the full session now on The Drum TV.
