This interview features David Jordan, President of Bader Rutter, which was named ‘B2B Agency of the Year’ at B2B Marketing’s Elevation Awards in 2023. Bader Rutter is also a long-time Partner in BBN International, and David sits on the Board as Bader Rutter representative.
The discussion delves into the significant impact of AI in marketing, highlighting how it can drive greater market success. David shares strategies for fellow marketers on leveraging AI to enhance campaign effectiveness, improve the customer experience, and boost brand results.
Bader Rutter is widely recognized as one the greatest, independent B2B marketing agencies in North America. David, could you please share what factors have influenced the sustained success Bader Rutter has enjoyed over the last five decades?
I would love to tell you we have some special sauce, but it really gets down to strategic focus. All agencies hope for new growth, but we actively plan for it. We’ve identified sectors where our experience gives us an advantage for serving clients. Specifically, we’ve leveraged our deep agrimarketing experience into adjacent sectors like pet care, and food and beverage. We also employ farmers, ranchers, chefs and veterinarians. These subject matter experts provide an invaluable firsthand perspective.
Our three-part philosophy is to know the business, honor the audiences and keep our promises. It’s pretty simple, but that’s why our top 10 clients’ tenure averages more than a decade.
Customer involvement is crucial to customer engagement in B2B marketing. How, in your opinion, can a shift towards authentic personalized content and the strategic use of AI help brands produce more engaging B2B marketing experiences that resonate with customers and go beyond mere data?
I like how you phrased that: “the strategic use of AI.” AI is an incredible tool our agency uses in dozens of ways today and probably hundreds tomorrow. For almost a decade now, we’ve been refocusing B2B marketing toward customer-centric approaches. That demands prioritizing engagement and relevance. AI definitely enables more tailored experiences that drive brand loyalty, primarily by helping us uncover deeper insights and optimize the aperture of our messaging. And it definitely helps us manage leaner budgets in a world focused on data. But it’s easy to get caught up in the tool and overlook the critical nature of authentic connections. We try to apply our AI learnings and insights to help drive those authentic one-to-one personal connections that still happen at the human level. We try to remember this business isn’t really business to business but rather business to businessPEOPLE.
Leaner budgets will make proving B2B advertising effectiveness ever more crucial in today’s economic climate. How can AI-driven analytics help B2B marketers maximize advertising effectiveness, ensuring each dollar spent contributes to brand awareness and positive ROI?
AI definitely makes dollars go further. At Bader Rutter, we use it to enable precise targeting to the most likely buyers and optimize campaigns in real time, adjusting strategies and budget allocation for the highest ROI. Predictive analytics inform how we make decisions, forecast outcomes and minimize risks. AI-powered tools also help us monitor brand sentiment, protecting reputations and preventing crises.
The challenge is choosing the right tool among literally 10,000+ options; you can waste a lot of time if you don’t select well. We follow three very specific steps: first, we evaluate the need and desired outcome; next, we analyze the best use of the proposed tool; and finally – and perhaps most importantly, we read the fine print. How will data be used – many times it’s made public and used to train the tool itself.
Looking ahead, David, what can we expect in terms of future innovations and strategies at Bader Rutter to further leverage AI and sustain success in the marketing landscape?
We see AI as a powerful tool to enhance, not replace, the human element in marketing. Many think it is a means to cut hours, but we’ve found it doesn’t save time, it reallocates it to higher-value tasks. When you can reduce desk research and fact-finding hours, you can invest more time in ideation and inspiration.
We have a multidisciplinary task force that advises our agency and our clients on identifying the best approaches and platforms for integrating AI into our workflows; to make strategies smarter and more effective, improve media targeting and speed creative production.
AI will only become more reliable at analyzing vast datasets to uncover audience insights. It also will help us test strategies at a scale that wasn’t previously possible. Most importantly, as AI continues to automate routine tasks, it will free up our teams to focus on strategic thinking and creative problem-solving.
We believe that the real magic happens when AI and human expertise intersect.
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Credit for the report:
David Jordan, President of Bader Rutter,
In addition to three decades of widely varied business roles, David’s exceptional leadership of Bader Rutter cemented the agency’s reputation as the nation’s premier agrimarketing agency, while positioning it for the future as the #1 U.S. B2B agency for the past three years. He draws on his business-building acumen and farm-raised work ethic to drive pragmatic, strategic growth and manage a client portfolio with a U.S. market cap over $200B. Experienced on both the client and agency sides, David excels in managing and mentoring teams, fostering next-generation leaders, and driving change. He emphasizes trust and open communication to build an idea-first agency culture built on deep insight and strong business acumen. LinkedIn.