The data is clear: indecision, misalignment, and muddled messaging are costing B2B companies more than competition while a tech dinosaur doubles down on clarity and wins big.
So how can CMOs turn clarity into a growth advantage?
In this issue:
• Oracle reinvents itself
• Why B2B tech deals really stall
• The curse of complexity and why clarity wins in B2B
• Plus: take ActiveCampaign’s AI Maturity Quiz
—Jay & Adam
💼➡️💥
💥 MARKET MOVES:
Oracle reinvents itself (again) with an AI-cloud land grab
Oracle isn’t the stodgy, mothballed database company anymore.
In 2025, it’s positioning itself as an AI infrastructure heavyweight. A string of headlines makes the case:
A reported $300B cloud deal with OpenAI (Project Stargate)
A massive data-center buildout
Cloud growth forecasts that beat expectations with OCI projected up 77% YoY
For 2-6 sweet hours, Larry Ellison was the richest person in the world.
Reinvention at enterprise scale is possible, but only if you double down on a clear bet
For CMOs, the signal is bigger than Oracle’s balance sheet. The company is staking its future on being the backbone of AI, and it’s reshaping its brand around that promise after years of trying to be everything to everyone.
Notably, the surge in Oracle stock price briefly made Larry Ellison the richest person in the world, underscoring just how much investors are buying into Oracle’s reinvention.
👉 Takeaway:
In B2B, you don’t win by clinging to your legacy. You win by rewriting it.
Oracle shows how clarity, boldness, and category conviction can pull even a legacy giant back into the growth race.
🌋 DEMAND & GROWTH:
Why B2B tech deals really stall
Folks, it turns out indecision is killing B2B tech deals.
Jonathan Franchell, writing in CMSWire, argues that most opportunities die because buying groups can’t reach consensus, not because a rival has the better offer.
Urgency tactics and feature-pitching don’t work
Heavy handed tactics and hammering features actually push buyers further away. What moves the needle is clarity that builds confidence.
Oof. Didn’t see that last features one-pager coming.
Acting as facilitators, guiding stakeholders across functions, surfacing hidden tensions, and helping groups align on a clear path forward, these are the successful approaches that help buyers over the finish line.
For CMOs, this means rethinking what demand generation really is: not just lead capture, but reducing cognitive friction across the buying journey. Growth depends on aligning marketing, sales, and comms around one mission: orchestrating buyer consensus.
👉 Takeaway:
Deals don’t die because of the competition.
They die in the fog of indecision. Focus on clarity, not pressure, and on making consensus easier to reach.
🤝 Clarity wins deals. Confusion kills them.
We help B2B teams remove the fog, aligning brand, sales, and messaging so every stakeholder sees the value clearly and quickly.
Let’s make sure indecision never becomes your biggest competitor.
✍️ THE MESSAGING LAB:
The curse of complexity and why clarity wins in B2B
Great B2B solutions are complex by nature. Great messaging shouldn’t be.
Martha Marchesi, writing in Fast Company, argues that most deals aren’t lost to competitors, but to confusion created by overloaded, jargon-heavy messaging.
Buyers are already drowning in research and conflicting information. When your brand piles on more noise, the safest move for a decision-maker is to stall.
The antidote is clarity
It’s not about dumbing things down, it’s about making it easy for buyers to see the value, align internally, and move forward with confidence.
Yes. Now seriously, put that features one-pager down.
Marchesi offers six practical ways to get there:
Add clarity from the inside out: One company-wide narrative, repeatable in under a minute.
Start simple, then add depth: Benefits first, details for those who want them.
Lead with outcomes, not offerings: Results over features.
Cut the jargon: Clear language builds faster trust.
Don’t try to be everything to everyone: Focus messages on what matters to each segment.
Test it on outsiders: If they hesitate to explain what you do, you’re not clear enough.
👉 Takeaway:
In B2B comms, clarity is the strategy.
Strip away noise, simplify the story, and lead with outcomes.
🤝 Your message isn’t missing. It’s muddled.
When your story is buried in jargon, misaligned across teams, or too dense to stick, buyers hesitate.
We help B2B teams strip away the noise, creating crisp narratives, aligned messaging, and content systems that give every stakeholder the clarity to say yes.
Let’s make clarity your competitive edge.
What kind of B2BOOM! content would be most helpful for you this quarter?
📊 DATA & INSIGHTS:
ActiveCampaign’s AI Maturity Quiz shows adoption drives confidence
ActiveCampaign’s AI Marketing Maturity Quiz, built from a survey of 1,000 U.S. marketers, shows a direct link between AI adoption and confidence. Eager adopters who use AI more frequently report being 77% more confident in the quality of their work.
2025’s version of the Enneagram Personality Test just dropped.
The quiz benchmarks marketers across five categories, scoring them from Beginner to Expert, and then prescribes resources to help them climb the ladder. While it’s an obvious lead-gen play, it’s also a snapshot of how uneven AI capability really is in B2B teams.
🔥 FAMOUS TAKE:
Complexity doesn’t make you look smart. It makes you forgettable.
Buyers don’t reward jargon or 40-slide decks. They reward clarity they can act on.
Say less, with more impact.
—Jay
Thanks for reading. You could be spending your time anywhere. We’re glad you’re here. 💥
—Jay & Adam
Heads Up: In each issue of B2BOOM!, we highlight services from our crew at FamousFolks or friends we trust. When you see the 🤝, it means we’re sharing something we genuinely back. We only shout out things we believe are truly valuable for your business—no shady promos, just stuff we stand behind.