By Abby Breckenridge

Image by Guangyi Li

Subject matter experts can be B2B tech marketers’ most persuasive storytellers—and they can also be their biggest bottleneck. SMEs—we’re talking engineers, product owners, key customers, strategic partners—have the insights your audience craves, and they’re also busy doing the actual job. Accessing their knowledge and getting their sign-off can take weeks, and that’s time that neither the marketer nor the SME has to spare.

That’s where we come in. Here are three ways we can help you build effective, voice-of-the-expert content without burning your relationship with your SMEs, or impacting your schedule.

1. We’re already ramped, so we don’t need much of their time

Nothing drains goodwill faster than asking an SME to brain dump everything. We come in pre-loaded on your solutions, your space, and your audience. That means we ask sharper questions, need fewer meetings, and can translate rough input into something polished. Your SMEs stay focused on their day jobs, and still sound brilliant.

2. We run the process, so you don’t have to

Scheduling, follow-ups, wrangling feedback—it adds up fast. And it usually falls on marketing to manage it all. We take that off your plate. As active project managers, we coordinate directly with SMEs, adjust to accommodate their needs and preferences, and make sure deadlines don’t slip. You get progress without the overhead.

3. We turn expertise into assets that work

Great insights are only half the equation. The real win is packaging them into content your audience needs and your SMEs are proud of. We shape raw takes into clear, compelling assets—eBooks, videos, case studies, whatever you need—that land with your target audience and reflect well on the experts behind them.

Bottom line

You don’t need more time from your SMEs—you need to make better use of it. That’s how you get stronger content, faster timelines, and happier experts.

By Abby Breckenridge

Image by Guangyi Li

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. While it’s true that our creative agency helps tech marketers make effective marketing content, there’s a secondary value that runs alongside the standout assets like animations and messaging frameworks that we offer. We help our clients look good—really shine at their organization and out in the world.

And we’re here for it. As a service company, we love to help our clients look sharp. So we’re kicking off a new series called Made ya look good, where we break down the real, practical ways we help our clients win.

First up: we know your visual brand

When you’re a marketer at a big tech company, brand is a big deal. It’s a complex system with rules, tools, and defined patterns. Entire teams are responsible for making sure it’s executed consistently and correctly. It’s a thing of beauty when it’s done well, and it takes work.

Walking into that world unprepared slows everything down.

That’s why our design team does the work to get up to speed and stay current. We come in already fluent in your typography, your layout logic, and your visual tone. We know how your brand flexes and where it doesn’t.

How does this help our clients look good?

• Their internal brand team is delighted instead of skeptical
• Feedback cycles are faster and more focused
• Most importantly, assets get approved and perform in the field because they look exactly like they belong

Recently, we were closing out a handful of assets for a client at Azure. Like most brands at enterprise organizations, they have a rigorous internal brand review process, the kind that can result in detailed, line-by-line feedback and multiple rounds of revisions. It’s a necessary step, but it can slow things down and create extra work for already busy marketing teams.

The brand team came back with a couple small suggestions and some praise. One comment summed it up: “This eBook looks fantastic! It really reflects the brand, while aligning with style guide points.”

Our client built trust with their brand team without needing to become a brand expert, moved their asset forward faster, and saved meaningful time in their day. Looking good! Want to experience something similar? Let’s talk!

There’s more to come in our series, Made ya look good. Stay tuned.

By Abby Breckenridge

Image by Rachel Adams

Our clients are smart. They market cutting-edge products, which means they’re always looking for new ways to make their efforts more effective. So the line of questioning we hear most consistently from them is: what’s working? What are your other clients doing? What’s hot in B2B tech marketing?

Right now, the answer is letting real experts speak directly to buyers. Not brand voice, not canned demos, not vague thought leadership—but credible, knowledgeable people who clearly know their domain and aren’t afraid to say something specific.

Buyers are overwhelmed. Social media feeds and inboxes are flooded with generic content, most of it interchangeable and written to satisfy an algorithm. In that environment, content that clearly came from a real person with real experience immediately stands out. When buyers hear from someone who has hands-on expertise, like an engineer, a product leader, or a satisfied customer, they’re more likely to pay attention and trust what they’re hearing.

This approach works across a range of formats. We’re seeing strong performance from:

• Written case studies that go beyond surface-level metrics and include expert commentary on how and why results were achieved
• Video case studies where customers or internal experts speak plainly about challenges and outcomes
• Engineer-driven blogs that explain architectures and the reasoning behind decisions
• Founder or executive POV pieces with anecdotes that reflect lived experience
• Original research with new takes and insights

Credibility is what wins today. When customers are looking for reasons to believe, the most persuasive marketing isn’t louder—it’s grounded in real expertise and feels more specific and human.

By Abby Breckenridge

Image by Emily Zheng

As the owner of a creative agency, I’ve always believed in pricing based on value, not effort. Or to put it another way, pricing marketing assets by the hour feels backwards. Why should a client pay more because something took longer? I’d pay more to have it done today. That’s the difference between effort and outcome. 

The same logic applies to ebooks—longer is not better. In B2B marketing, ebooks can play an important role: they explain complex ideas, answer objections, and help generate leads. But if you can convince your prospect to move down the funnel in four pages, then there’s clearly no need for six. The goal is clarity and impact, not length. 

Here’s why a shorter ebook might be exactly what your demand generation campaign needs.  

Shrinking attention spans 

Your buyers don’t have the time, or patience, for bloated ebooks. Between inbox overload, back-to-back meetings, and constant digital noise, the odds of someone finishing a 12-page ebook are slim. Most people skim. Many never make it past the intro. The reality is that readers are busy and distracted, and value per page matters far more than page count. A concise ebook that delivers value early is far more likely to be read, remembered, and shared. 

Perceived complexity 

Longer ebooks don’t just test attention, they can also make your topic feel harder than it really is. When readers see too many pages, they assume the subject requires a steep learning curve or that your solution is complicated to use. A shorter, well-structured ebook sends the opposite signal: this is approachable, clear, and worth their time. 

Thought leadership in the age of AI 

AI can generate thousands of words at lightning speed, but it can’t generate authentic perspective. This is where true thought leadership comes in. B2B buyers don’t need long-winded rundowns; they want sharp, differentiated insights. The best ebooks highlight your expertise, connect the dots, take a position, and say something original. A four-page ebook that sparks a lightbulb moment will always outperform a 15-page summary that says what everyone else is saying.  

Of course, not every ebook should be short. There’s a place for longer assets that dive deep into technical specs, step-by-step how-tos, or detailed guides for do-it-yourself readers. Those meaty resources are valuable when your audience is ready to roll up their sleeves. But for demand generation and thought leadership, shorter content almost always wins. 

Build less and say more 

A tight, well-structured ebook isn’t easy to write. It takes a sharp team of marketers and product experts to distill complex ideas into a clear story. Next time you’re tempted to throw more pages at your marketing challenge, ask if they’re truly adding value. And before you start generating content, make sure you have the right team in place to define a differentiated story. Need a hand? We’re here to help. 

By Abby Breckenridge

Image by Nicole Todd

What trends am I seeing for spring? Butter yellow, oversized blazers, and asking marketing agency owners how they’re using AI. 

It’s a good question—and certainly one that no self-respecting agency leader is ignoring. It’s just that the hype levels have gotten a bit, how shall we say it, inauthentic. 

So here’s my answer: we’re embracing AI as a tool to help us do the work our clients need better and faster! And we’re doing it in a way that aligns with our values. 

Here’s what I mean: 

We’re helpful. We’re using AI tools in ways that are helpful to us and our clients. When it gets work done faster and better? Then it’s an AI yes. We’re using AI to help us parse resources more thoroughly, brainstorm 25 header options instead of 10, and check for the right voice and tone throughout content. 

We’re serious about our work. Our clients choose us for our high-quality deliverables and smooth client experience, and we’re serious about continuing to stand out in those ways. When AI helps us deeply engage with our work, we’re all in. Today, that means taking a client’s messaging framework and using gen AI to quickly create derivative assets like one-pagers, ebooks, and banner ads. The result? More content for better value. Tomorrow, it could mean something else. 

We work to build trust. Human relationships mean a lot in our business. We’re seeing many faceless offerings pop up, such as “become an AI expert in 10 days” and “accomplish your tasks at warp speed.” We maintain the trust of our clients, and in turn, their audiences’ trust in them, by using our expertise to refine work. We’re experts in our clients’ brands, their differentiators, and their customers’ pain points—so when AI spits out something off, we spot it. 

We tack toward improvement. Lucky for us and our clients, we’re a curious bunch. Our team gets excited about testing new approaches and refining based on what we learn. Gen AI tools are no different. Nothing drains a creative team faster than doing the same thing repeatedly for days on end. And the possibilities of today’s (and tomorrow’s) tools have us pumped. 

Seeking marketing assets that work, and an energizing client experience? Give us a ping. And, if you see me around town in my oversized butter-yellow blazer, please say hello. 

By Abby Breckenridge

Renato is leaving 2A. This is a big deal for us and comes with so many emotions.  

There is no doubt we’ll miss him. Renato started 2A on his own back in 2010, then Daniel and I joined him a few years later. It’s that entrepreneurial spirit, the sauce that emboldened him to start 2A, that we’ll miss the most. He brings the guts it takes to break out on his own, paired with the vision to see how something can be made from nothing. That, his sunny sense of humor, and his deep commitment to caring for the people around him will leave the biggest legacy.  

I’ll always remember the first time Daniel, Renato, and I got together. It was a breezy summer dinner around a fiery grill in my backyard, after Renato and I had finished the MBA program at Foster and Daniel had moved to Seattle with his girlfriend (my childhood friend). It was a lot of fun, included a lot of wine, and set the stage for the fruitful relationship we now share.  

Since then, the three of us have led 2A through countless wins and humbling challenges—a journey that looks more like a doodle than a straight line. From a team of four to almost 40. From one amazing client to over 40. From a shared room in a to-be-torn-down house, to 6,000 square feet on Capitol Hill. And from the youthful idea that all the steps are laid out in front of us to a more seasoned view that plans are just that.   

What we do know is that 2A, the team, Daniel, and I are all stronger because of Renato. We also know this change is a great move for all of us. Daniel and I will get to flex our skills in new directions as Renato’s departure, even with all the planning, will surely leave gaps. There’s an ocean of new possibilities for Renato as he unleashes his entrepreneurial spirit toward new ventures. And while our partnership in 2A is over, breezy backyard dinners around a fire will surely continue.  

By Abby Breckenridge

Image by Thad Allen

“But what happened that was bad?” my 5-year-old asked after I wrapped up an improvised bedtime story about a boy named Chugapie who likes to eat a lot of pies. And while his question was certainly a stall tactic, and he was probably just hoping for a sword fight instead of a child-driven, problem-solving narrative, he did have a point.

A good story needs some tension—or something “that was bad.”

As students of business-to-business marketing, we’re well versed in the tensions that compel decision makers to act. Fear is a tested marketing lever, but the business audience has a unique set of worries. As we support our B2B marketing clients to create stories that resonate with their customers, we’ve found common themes. Here’s our short list of business villains that smart leaders pay money to avoid, and clever marketers position their products to combat.  

• Innovative competitors—nothing spells the end like getting left behind by a business that reinvents your space.
• Security threats—if your data is compromised, so is your future.
• Inefficient teams—employees make the engine churn, don’t let old tools and bad training slow them down.
• Disenchanted customers—they vote with their dollars, so you’d better make sure they’re voting for you.

Whether your business customer is looking to digitally transform or empower their team, make sure you’re offering a solution that fights their villains and smooths the arc to resolution.

By Abby Breckenridge

Did you have plans to create an awesome video case study for your upcoming conference, or an explainer video to tell customers how to get started? Well, your plans have been changed. In an age of distancing we’re not gathering film crews and talent to make marketing videos, it’s just not essential. But there are some good alternatives, and we’d love to help. 

Combine amateur footage with a
professional edit

We’re all spending a lot of time looking at low-quality video of our friends and colleagues talking into the computer—so lean into it. Piece together footage from customers, partners, or subject matter experts, and make a compelling story from afar. We’ll work with you on a concept, point you to some helpful equipment, prep your speakers, edit your footage, add sounds and graphics, and deliver you a final asset. You’ll be amazed at what a professional edit can do to turn your homegrown footage into a powerful, customer-ready video.

Spruce up your webcast

There’s a lot we can do to make a webcast more engaging for the viewer. And these remote events can be the perfect stand-in for that video you just can’t make right now. Start with your customer need, add an expertly crafted talk track, engaging slides, a professional voiceover, some animated transitions, and you have yourself a watch-worthy show.

Make an animation

When live-action footage isn’t available—and even when it is—animation is powerful tool to make your stories mesmerizing. Switch gears away from live-action footage and embrace the power of a well-crafted animation. Your words have more sticking power when they’re choreographed together with illustration, voiceover, and music. And your audience won’t be able to look away.

Your video plans have changed but don’t let that stop you from making a powerful marketing tool your prospects and customers can watch online.

By Abby Breckenridge

Switching your in-person event to a virtual one is this season’s must-have marketing move. Everyone’s doing it. So how do you make your webinar a showstopper? Here are our top tips to ensure success.

1. Invest in getting people there. Send multiple, targeted email invitations and drive them to an engaging registration page with clear takeaways, ideal attendee personas, well-crafted session descriptions, and presenter photos.
2. Practice makes better. A virtual event can still run into the same logistical kinks as an in-person experience. Be sure to gather all your presenters together for a dry run beforehand, and practice hand-offs between speakers.
3. Agree on a presenter dress code. Just because it’s virtual, doesn’t mean we can’t see you! When you have multiple presenters, it’s nice to standardize the mood so someone doesn’t show up in a robe broadcasting from their closet, then hand it off to a colleague in a tie.
4. Anticipate more attendees. It’s far cheaper to send 30 people to an online event than on a plane across the country, so make sure you track registration counts, confirm your online meeting platform can handle high traffic, and give your IT department a heads up—nothing says failure like a mid-session app crash.
5. Keep sessions short. People get distracted more quickly when they have the whole internet at their fingertips, so limit sessions to 30 minutes.
6. Plan for too short. Talks tend to tick along more quickly when the speakers don’t have the energy of an in-person audience. Presenters won’t know if their joke leads to chuckles, so there won’t be pauses for laughter. In case of wrapping early, keep your attendees engaged with a fun break experience and a note about when the next session will start.
7. Tell breathtaking stories. Talk tracks and slides will carry a heavier load than usual, so don’t skimp. Here are our tips for what’s hot in slides.
8. Share the screen. It’s most engaging to share a visual mix of the speaker, demos, and their slides—that’ll require a producer on the backend to do it well.
9. Be ready for questions. Attendees will still want to ask questions and make themselves known to the presenter. Use a moderator to gather and share questions or schedule a Q&A where attendees can queue up to ask in their own voice.
10. Give your content legs. Plan to share resources like event recordings, decks, whitepapers and other related content to capitalize on the momentum.
11. Don’t drop the marketing ball. Capture and segment all engagement, then plan your next touchpoint, whether it’s a follow-up email, a private demo, exclusive access to an eBook, or something else.

We’d love to help make your just-turned-virtual event a worthy marketing investment. From start to finish—promotion, registration pages, speaker training, talk tracks, slides, follow-up, and project management—we’ve got your back. Drop us a line.

By Abby Breckenridge

Planning 2A’s Serious Party has us musing on topics like breakthroughs and the Grateful Dead. I’m impressed once again by how creativity leads us down various paths, and I’m getting excited to celebrate traveling down them with our clients and friends on August 1. You should come—it could be fun.

My four-year-old believes that when he squints his eyes and tilts his head just so, he has heat vision—an enviable super-power we’ve learned about from library books. I find myself wishing I had the same confidence in my ability to conjure up a big idea. But for me, creative breakthroughs seem to come along on their own timeline. More like a cat considering my lap than a superhero charging to the rescue.

Pairing the uncertainty of how to generate a big idea on demand with the business need to deliver reliable solutions for our clients might result in taking the easy path—recycling last year’s successes, relying on gimmicks, and following trends. But is any of that worth celebrating? We choose to celebrate the messiness necessary for innovation.

In the Amazon hit Long Strange Trip, Amir Bar-Lev presents an in-depth view of the 30-year career of The Grateful Dead. We see the band grappling with the same issue of how to accomplish day-to-day goals without closing the door to creativity. Their identity and success as a singular touring band relied on their ability to inspire the crowd to dance, but as a values-driven squad, they feared getting trapped into using stale ploys to move an audience. “Once it’s a device,” they said, “it’s frozen.” They took their commitment to creative reinvention seriously. We’re inspired by the Dead’s example even as we occasionally question their fashion choices.

Our task as a professional team of creatives is to walk the line between reliable deliverables and envelope-pushing innovation. We strive to build an engine that delivers results, works quickly, and navigates the realities of clients’ marketing needs, while nurturing a culture that invites new ways of telling stories. We believe we can actively cultivate creativity. We reinforce the practice of celebrating failure. We challenge ourselves with exercises that shake up how we think. We study and discuss work that doesn’t necessarily relate to ours. We learn from others and know that our individual paths are unique. We take the challenge seriously.

As you can see, we’re into taking things seriously—our work for sure, and also our clients, our family, our friends, you. So we decided to throw a seriously fun party that celebrates the long, strange trip ahead. We’d be thrilled for you to join us. But please wear shoes and park the microbus out back.