The people who approve purchase orders have rarely been the stars of advertising campaigns, which tends to be a role reserved for the people who drink the beverages or drive the cars. But Amazon Business is now betting that procurement professionals — the gatekeepers of corporate spending budgets, the approvers of office supplies and software licenses — deserve their moment in the spotlight, or at least a sympathetic portrayal.
The campaign, which Amazon Business is calling its first "mid-funnel" marketing effort, was created by Code and Theory, the Stagwell agency that has handled the account for five years. The work takes what the company describes as a humor-tinged approach to a discipline not traditionally associated with levity, depicting the daily anxieties of people whose job is to maximize return on every dollar while avoiding the kind of mistake that makes colleagues look at you in a certain way.
"Procurement leaders are expected to keep everything moving, without mistakes, delays, and drama," said Kate Rundell, the chief marketing officer at Amazon Business. (One imagines that "drama" is a polite way of describing what happens when someone accidentally orders 10,000 units of something instead of 100.)
The creative positions Amazon Business as a tool that reduces risk and keeps procurement professionals in what the company calls a "hero" role — a designation that may be new to people who have spent their careers in purchasing departments.
Karen Piper, head of brand strategy at Code and Theory, acknowledged the emotional terrain. "Procurement can feel like a minefield and one wrong click can make you the person everyone looks at," Ms. Piper said.
The spots, directed by Jason Cook and produced by Imagine This Creative Studio, will run across digital and social channels. Whether procurement professionals will feel seen or merely targeted remains, as always, a matter of execution.
Original story published in MediaPost: "Amazon Business Celebrates Procurement Heroes In New Campaign"