RED HOT TAKE: IT WAS NEVER REALLY B2B or B2C

by Pattie Sullivan, Senior Vice President, B2B Practice Head, HAVAS Red U.S.  

Scrolling through my LinkedIn feed, I stopped to read a Forbes article on Satya Nadella’s vision for giving employees a bigger role in telling Microsoft’s story. The idea is simple: the people closest to the products and customers are often the most credible voices.  

At HAVAS Red, we’ve been making a similar argument for years. In fact, I helped contribute to a white paper that challenged the traditional B2B vs. B2C mindset and advocated for something different: P2P, or person-to-person communications. One of the key ideas from that paper was that employees are often a company’s most credible voices. The white paper pointed to the power of employee-generated content and advocacy, arguing that brands often overlook the people who know their products, customers, and purpose best. 

In an era of AI-generated content, fragmented media, and growing skepticism toward corporate messaging, a principle we’ve believed for years suddenly feels more relevant than ever: people trust people. The engineer explaining how a product was built or a salesperson sharing a customer success story. Those voices can bring authenticity that even the best corporate communication cannot fully replicate. 

While technology and channels continue to evolve, the importance of connecting human-to-human remains. Or, as we’ve long said at HAVAS Red, person-to-person.