💥 MARKET MOVES: 

Accenture M&As keep rolling: Acquires MomentumABM

Accenture isn’t slowing down.

Despite a stock price that’s been under pressure, the company has racked up a steady stream of acquisitions in 2025, the latest being UK-based MomentumABM, a consultancy specializing in account-based marketing. MomentumABM joins Accenture Song, adding in the neighborhood of 90 specialists and proprietary frameworks like the ABM Adoption Framework and Customer Buying Index.

ABM has matured into a board-level priority

What started as a niche marketing tactic is now central to how global B2B brands structure growth strategy, align sales and marketing, and deploy AI-driven personalization at scale.

For CMOs, the signal is clear: ABM is table stakes. As Accenture consolidates expertise, the pressure is on marketing leaders to not only pilot ABM but to build operating models, talent, and data systems that make it sustainable across regions and lines of business.

👉 Takeaway:

Accenture’s acquisition spree is about cementing control over the growth levers CMOs care about most.

In 2025, if you don’t have ABM at the core of your strategy, you’re already behind.

Read more

🌋 DEMAND & GROWTH:

The Drum: CMOs must embrace attention to grow

In B2B, attention is the new growth currency.

That’s the case Scott Thaler, Global CMO at Gravity Global, makes in The Drum. He argues that in an oversaturated, AI-dominated content market, it’s not lead volume that moves the needle.

It’s whether your brand can earn, hold, and multiply attention.

Decision-makers are flooded with content, leaning more on peers and navigating complex, non-linear journeys. Traditional demand capture tactics can’t keep up. What wins is attention command: building early awareness, creating demand (not just capturing it), and turning customers into advocates.

How attention drives growth:

• Attention compounds faster than pipeline. If you own mindshare, the deals follow. Without it, even the sharpest funnel leaks.

• ROI starts with recall. Your buyers can’t choose you if they don’t remember you. Fame drives function.

• Attention is the multiplier. Every dollar spent on demand works harder when brand already has the room.

• Without attention, ROI is a mirage. You might measure clicks, but you won’t measure growth.

• Attention is the only metric that scales. Leads dry up. Markets shift. But if you command the room, you control the game.

Spend should be an even split (almost)

Thaler points to data showing that top-performing B2B brands now split spend almost evenly — 46% brand, 54% demand — because brand investment pays off in awareness, trust, and conversion lift. He also warns that while AI accelerates content production, it risks flooding the market with sameness. Differentiation, authority, and trust still come from human insight and creative boldness.

👉 Takeaway:

For B2B, attention is the fuel that makes demand work.

CMOs who balance brand with demand and dare to be distinctive will own the mindshare that turns into market share. Everyone else will just be another prairie dog shouting into the void.

Read more at The Drum

🤝 If your buyers are drowning in sameness and your brand isn’t standing apart, it’s time for change.

We help B2B teams cut through the noise with narrative, positioning, and content systems that build distinction, not duplication.

Let’s make sure your brand is the one they remember.

👉 Book a quick chat with Jay & Adam

✍️ THE MESSAGING LAB:

What can B2B learn from Nike’s new Gen Z campaign “Why Do It?“

Let’s talk about cringe, credibility, and the generation poised to become the next most powerful cohort in the B2B market.

Gen Z is already stepping into budget influence and procurement roles, and they’re bringing B2C instincts with them. For Gen Z, cringe is fatal. They reject anything that feels try-hard or insincere, whether it’s a sports ad or a B2B sales deck. Effort needs to be reframed as authenticity: showing up, taking risks, and being vulnerable earns respect.

It’s this type of thinking that has Nike’s new C-suite betting that recent sales slumps have a lot to do with a cultural disconnect between Gen Z and the admittedly try-hard ethos of the Just Do It era. The result is a campaign that reframes the world’s most famous brand ethos into something more palatable for the workforce’s newest decision-makers.

The other shift? Heroics aren’t just for stars.

Gen Z looks to peers as much as pros. In B2B, that means your “everyday hero” customer stories carry as much weight as analyst reports or big-brand endorsements. A founder testimonial, a practitioner thread, or a community reference might close a deal faster than polished collateral.

Gen Z isn’t waiting for a line between consumer and enterprise to be drawn. For them, there isn’t one.

That means B2B brands have to sound less like vendors and more like culture: real, relatable, and ready to be believed.

👉 Takeaway:

For Gen Z B2B buyers, cringe is a killer and they don’t separate work from life.

So your brand can’t either. If you don’t feel relevant in culture, you won’t feel relevant in the boardroom.

Read more at Fast Company  

📊 DATA & INSIGHTS:

Sales ops now spend 73% of their time on non-sales functions

According to a recent McKinsey article, sales operations teams now spend 73% of their time on non-sales functions. That’s almost double the share from 2019 (39%). Instead of enabling reps and fueling growth, most ops teams are buried in admin and back-office work.

This is just one symptom in a complex diagnosis that is separating the winners from the losers in B2B sectors.

Leaders pull ahead by treating sales ops as a growth engine, not overhead

High-growth companies invest in sales operations at 1.4× the rate of low-growth peers, arming teams with analytics, tools, and structure to drive revenue impact where it counts.

👉 Takeaway:

The gap between growth leaders and laggards is due largely to discipline.

Companies that treat sales ops as a growth lever, not an admin sinkhole, unlock the room to pull every other lever that drives revenue and margin.

Read more at McKinsey

🤝  Your growth engine isn’t broken. It’s misfiring.

Sales ops buried in admin. Funnels built for clicks that never come. Proof points lost in channels buyers don’t use.

We help B2B teams fix the leaks: sharpening sales discipline, aligning brand and demand, and creating content that surfaces where buyers actually are.

Let’s turn sales ops into your secret weapon.

👉 Meet with Jay & Adam

🔥 FAMOUS TAKE:

The modern B2B CMO is more system builder than storyteller.

Growth doesn’t come from campaigns, it comes from aligning brand, demand, and ops into one engine. The mandate has changed. Those who cling to the old playbook won’t just fall behind…
 
They’ll be written out of the story altogether.

—Jay