When Ramp locked The Office’s Brian Baumgartner in a glass box in Flatiron Plaza and made him process receipts for seven hours, it was a true reinvention of the tired product demo, not to mention an acknowledgement that perhaps our prospects all have demo fatigue.

It was also yet another nail in the coffin of how B2B brands used to show up.

(Here's a post with all seven hours of the live stream. We hope you don't have plans tonight.)

The stunt, streamed to 380,000 live viewers and watched by 85 million overall, turned the soul-crushing ritual of expense reporting into performance art.

Baumgartner’s Kevin Malone persona gave instant shorthand to workplace drudgery. The cameos by comedian Zarna Garg, influencer The Rizzler, even The Office’s Andy Buckley, kept the energy unpredictable and memeable. A real Ramp employee even got married mid-stunt, officiated by Kevin himself.

It was absurd. It was over-the-top. It wasn't perfectly done. And it worked.

Ramp proved what most B2B brands forget: when you’re bold you don't have to whisper your value props.

They didn’t buy attention, they earned it by being the one company willing to be a bit silly while showing the pain.

Group 7 hit TikTok last week like a bolt of lightning. A random experiment by musician/creator Sophia James to test the TikTok algorithm became a cultural in-joke overnight. “If you saw this, you’re in Group 7.”

Within days we had near Coldplay levels of audience participation happening across all of social media and a number of savvy brands got in on the act.

Netflix created a collection called “Group 7 Only,” featuring shows like Never Have I Ever and Derry Girls, series the brand felt captured the unmistakable, if undefined, Group 7 energy. The effort to create this discoverable and shareable experience at the product level is great, but reinforcing the absurdly ambiguous nature of being part of Group 7 by listing shows and characters with no further explanation is perfect. Chef’s kiss.

Oreo posted a flashy, low budget TikTok video with the caption "How it feels to be in Group 7". Maximum ROI here.

It seems many clever consumer brands found a way to wink at the trend and ride the algorithmic wave.

These micro-moments are exactly where brands can get in front of new audiences and brand personality can be defined and shine for almost zero cost. This is free, low risk exposure. A trend like Group 7 doesn’t need a massive media buy or a six-month content calendar. It just needs a marketer with an ear to the ground, a quick trigger finger and permission to make decisions.

👉 Takeaway:

Most B2B brands are too slow, too scared, or too self-serious to show up in the feed where attention actually lives.

Group 7 was a test. And all of B2B failed it.

The 2025 Trilliad Sustainable Growth Study found something most CMOs suspect and few CROs want to admit: Coordination is the strongest predictor of revenue growth. Not sales performance.

Companies that align leadership, data, and goals across Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success are three times more likely to expect double-digit revenue gains because they move as one.

The real gap is in translation. Marketing’s data never quite makes it into Sales’ reality. Sales’ learnings never reach Customer Success. And Customer Success sees expansion opportunities no one budgets for.

Trilliad’s research calls this the “coordination deficit.” It’s the invisible drag on growth.

Turns out the answer lies in shared outcomes. When revenue goals, data, and strategy live in the same room, growth compounds. And maybe a few more dashboards couldn't hurt.

Integration beats optimization.

When it comes to closing deals, closing the distance between teams should be the top priority.

We help B2B companies close that gap, aligning the story that Marketing tells, the proof that Sales shows, and the experience that Customer Success delivers.

Half of all B2B companies fail within five years and it’s not because their product isn’t good enough. It’s because, not surprisingly, their story isn’t built for the market they’re selling into.This is just one symptom in a complex diagnosis that is separating the winners from the losers in B2B sectors.

In that climate, optimization doesn’t move the needle. Positioning does. When buyers can’t tell why you matter, price becomes the only differentiator.

As positioning expert Paul Evans writes in Forbes, the leading edge companies are moving away from static decks and embracing engineered living systems for positioning. Frameworks that evolve in real time, keep Sales, Marketing, and Product in sync, and speak fluently to both humans and AI.

In a world where AI now mediates the buyer journey, clarity and coordination have replaced creativity and volume as the real competitive advantage.

Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success are each running hard in different directions. Funnels are optimized for clicks, not conversations. Proof points live where buyers never look.

We help B2B teams bring the system back into alignment by connecting story to strategy and brand to demand.

When story, data, and delivery are connected, growth compounds. When they’re not, even the best idea stalls on takeoff.

—Jay