Marketing in B2B is often positioned as being worlds apart from B2C, but for Nicole German, global CMO for corporate and institutional banking at HSBC, this distinction is almost entirely false.

“I really believe that the practice and the craft is the same,” she says. “It’s about taking core messages to the right audience in the right channel at the right moment.”

She points to the need for well defined objectives, a clear value proposition and an understanding of desired outcomes from the outset as being essential, no matter the sector. “It’s something I’ve done across both B2B and B2C,” says German.

She suggests the rise in importance of brand building among B2B brands as only bringing the two more in line.

“Brand building is massive,” she says. “Sometimes you get asked if you should invest in brand or in demand, but for me it’s the science in the sum of all parts—brand and demand together… It’s becoming a more important piece of what we do, driving that notion of consideration and trust.”

Strong visual identity, emotive resonance and sustained nurturing are what drive consideration in her opinion.

Building a culture of high curiosity is critical—being comfortable with change, asking questions.

Nicole German, HSBC

Beyond that, brand is the critical anchor in an era of information overload, she argues. “With so much information coming at us all the time, even in business mindsets, brand association is so important.”

The main difference between B2B and B2C is the complexity facing B2B marketers given the multiple layers of influence involved in buying journeys.

“I call it the audience ecosystem,” she explains. “Primary stakeholders, secondary users, and the hidden buyers we’re not necessarily engaging directly.”

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And as AI becomes enmeshed in every stage of content discovery, that anchor becomes essential. “Brand association and affiliation is what really anchors trust and consideration,” German adds. “It plays a massive role.”

German sees AI reshaping the B2B customer journey faster than any previous tech development. Prompt-driven search, agent-based tools like ChatGPT and Copilot, and new discovery surfaces have already disrupted established norms.

“If we had this conversation 12 months ago, it would be different,” she says, noting the “massive growth” in these areas.

Measurement, too, is evolving. The fundamentals such as trust, consideration, mindshare and commercial impact remain constant, but the landscape in which they must be measured is becoming more fragmented.

“We have more channels to measure. It’s getting more complicated,” she admits. “How we construct findability in those channels is really important.”

The future marketing team

As workflows automate and new tools proliferate, marketing organisations can’t stand still. For German, the future is less about rigid structures and more about adaptability.

“Change is the constant,” she says. “So building a culture of high curiosity is critical—being comfortable with change, asking questions.”

This cultural shift goes hand-in-hand with a more fluid operating model, she adds.

“We’re moving to a network-based talent infrastructure. Historically we thought in campaigns; now it’s always-on and cross-functional teams,” she notes.

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In the long term, she anticipates a world where marketers manage not just people but intelligent agents. It’s early days, she concedes, but the implications for team structure are significant.

“I’m a big believer in the art and science,” she says. “Data and insight on one side, creative and resonance on the other.”

Deep specialisms won’t disappear, she adds, but marketers may increasingly possess “depth across multiple capabilities and skills”.

The rise of AI is also reshaping relationships between in-house teams and external partners. German sees a continued role for agencies, particularly in specialist areas, but suggests the ratio may shift.

“The reshaping of the talent mix and the partnership base will evolve,” she says. “We’ll invest in what we can in-house, but partners will still play a role.”

The value of relationships

Specialist expertise, in areas such as AI innovation, personalisation, and data maturity will become increasingly important according to German. Technology partners, she adds, are moving just as quickly, making close collaboration essential.

As enterprise-wide AI systems roll out, marketing’s integration with sales, product and finance is deepening. Workflow efficiencies offer an opportunity to create more tightly interdependent teams.

“It feels like it will be easier for us to be more interconnected,” she says—particularly with sales, where shared insights and coordinated activity can make measurable impact.

Indeed, two-thirds (68.2%) of marketers responding to Marketing Week’s 2025 State of B2B Marketing survey said they had a close working relationship with sales. However, less than a third (30.4%) feel completely understood by the sales team.

Brand association and affiliation is what really anchors trust and consideration

Nicole German, HSBC

That alignment will be increasingly commercial. “I’m a commercial marketer,” German says. “CMOs will absolutely be held accountable for revenue. That’s where we can be very impactful.”

One of the key aspects of the CMO role, she says, is to be “the voice of the customer” across a number of touchpoints, including awareness of industry news, product development or wider business decisions.

She is also keen to to assert how the role of the CMO is not one specific thing, but rather something that means different things depending on the organisation and region.

“We have to be deep in data and insights, deep in understanding how technology and operations can be a lever for scale and for personalisation and optimisation, but then also that creative,” she argues.

The modern CMO then, for German, must wear many different hats: “Even internally we have so many different voices. We can be speaking to the CEO, to the CFO, to head of a product business division all on the same day.”

She adds: “We have to be the interconnectivity between the various functional groups within the business, keeping the client at the heart of everything we do is critical to that as well.”