Episodes

Renaye Edwards: The Commercial Marketer

Renaye Edwards, Global COO and Managing Director of Ammunition, on why marketing is entering a golden age, but only for marketers who learn to speak the board's language and refuse to let brand be cut the moment the market turns.

 ·  The Business of Marketing  · S5 E108  · 42 min
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"there is no B2B. Why do we box ourselves in that whole B2B box?"

The Conversation

Two decades in marketing, from a post room after university to co-founding an agency she sold, now Global COO and Managing Director of Ammunition. Edwards argues that marketing is entering a golden age, but only for marketers who talk business outcomes rather than clicks, and who stop treating brand as the first thing to cut.

She started in a post room after university, made herself known as the post girl, and worked her way into a marketing assistant job at a publishing company. She climbed the usual marketing ranks, moved into a tech company, and then co-founded an agency despite never having worked agency side. As an in-house marketing director she felt she was not getting joined-up support: you had marketing consultants on one side and a creative agency on the other, so the idea was to fuse the two into something more strategic. That agency built a name in account-based marketing as Radish, and she and her partners sold it to Selby Anderson. She has now landed at Ammunition, a US-based B2B full-service agency, where she is launching the UK and Europe arm for businesses with complex buyer journeys.

In this conversation with host John Horsley, Edwards argues that marketing's one job has never changed, to be the voice of the customer, and that its real problem is credibility in the boardroom. She wants marketers to speak the board's language of business growth, not clicks and impressions, and to stop pulling brand spend the moment the market gets tough. She makes the case for distinctive B2B creative over bland sameness, for the three Rs of reputation, revenue and relationship, for empowering employees to do the selling, and for a next generation that pairs human judgement with fluent use of AI. Her verdict: marketing is finally growing up commercially.

Key Takeaways

  • The Ammunition COO has spent two decades in marketing, beginning in a post room after university and rising through a publishing company and then a tech company before co-founding her own agency. She built it into an account-based marketing specialist known as Radish and exited to Selby Anderson, and now leads the launch of US agency Ammunition's UK and Europe business. That path from client side to founder and exit shapes her core view: marketing has always been about championing the customer, and what was true 20 years ago is still true today.
  • Her central argument is about the boardroom. Marketing still gets treated as a cost centre rather than a profit centre, budgets get clawed back near year end, and too few enterprises put a CMO on the board. Edwards insists the fix is language: stop reporting clicks and impressions the board does not care about, and start tying results to business growth, reputation, revenue and relationship. She calls this a golden age because marketers are finally becoming commercially savvy enough to earn that seat.
  • She is scathing about short-termism. Brands start with a brand-led approach, get scared when nothing comes in, and pull it too quickly, which ends up costing them money. As soon as the market gets tough, everyone reverts to lead generation and the same conversations about how many leads. Edwards points to the 95/5 rule, the long and short of it, and the cost of not doing something, and warns that lifetime value and retention get ignored while marketing obsesses over net new.
  • On brand and creative, Edwards is optimistic. She sees braver, more distinctive B2B work over the past two years, partly because AI has flooded the market with dross and forced brands to stand out for something distinct, not just differentiated. She rejects boxing work into a B2B category, favours high-growth mid-market clients unburdened by rigid brand guidelines, and champions the three Rs and word of mouth. She argues brands should empower key people inside the business, from procurement to finance, to own thought leadership and do some of the selling.
  • Looking ahead, Edwards sees the buying committee expanding to a dozen or more, the customer journey increasingly starting in an LLM, and the CMO role becoming part strategist, part technologist and part commercial operator. She warns against the data rabbit hole of last-touch attribution and over-operationalising the human out of marketing. Her advice to newcomers is to get deep in AI and use it as an ally, because the middle is being squeezed and those who blend human judgement with AI will be uniquely placed.

Topics Covered

  1. 01 Building an agency internationally
  2. 02 Brand versus lead generation
  3. 03 Marketing in the boardroom
  4. 04 Distinctive B2B creative
  5. 05 AI and the buying committee

Key Exchanges

05
01 Is there a lack of understanding on boards, given only about 30% have a CMO?

it's still seen as a cost center rather than a profit center.

I find it really sad, and I truly believe this is a golden age for us: marketers are becoming much more commercially savvy. But it comes down to reporting and speaking the board's language. Sat in the boardroom talking about clicks and impressions falls on deaf ears. It's about how we moved the dial and what turning off spend did longer term. I heard of an ABM program that landed a massive win, but they'd turned the pilot off because it 'didn't work'. That short-term thinking is worrying. Joining Ammunition, I've built a program that's go hard or go home, and I remember being client side when unspent budget got clawed back near year end, because it's still seen as a cost centre rather than a profit centre.

02 Has all the data and automation removed the human from marketing?

we've gone down this bloody rabbit hole of data

Exactly. We've gone down this rabbit hole of data where some businesses only look at last-touch attribution. It says PPC, so do you spend 100% of budget on PPC when there were thousands of touchpoints before? I know a tech company where all staff have shares, so the focus on numbers is insane, and the CMO is petrified to do anything different because it's performing. They throw loads into PPC with no room to be creative. A whole machine based on five or six metrics analysed to the second.

03 Is marketing tasked too heavily on acquisition and not close enough to CX?

As soon as the market gets tough, we literally go back to that lead gen.

The old four Ps, we're stuck in promotion. It's net new, net new, when acquiring a customer costs far more than retaining, cross-selling and upselling. A couple of years ago brand was becoming a bigger conversation and people did cool stuff. As soon as the market gets tough, we literally go back to that lead gen and the same conversations about how many leads. My hope is we move away from it, but there's an education piece to be done upwards on brand long-term and short-term. Lifetime value has to be looked at, otherwise you just get people coming in and attrition somewhere else.

04 Has there been a change in B2B brands developing more personality?

not just differentiated, like distinct

I'm loving it. In the past two years I've seen much braver work. We champion the idea that there is no B2B, so why box ourselves in? With the rise of AI and so much dross out there, people are forced to be more creative, to stand out for something distinct, not just differentiated. What are the ownable assets that make people recall your brand in a saturated space? The only way is to be more creative. We like high-growth mid-market clients because they're not stifled by strict brand guidelines.

05 How do you create content that resonates across an expanding buying committee?

it's about empowering some of the kinda key people within your organization to do some of the selling for you

There's a stat that people are 20 times more likely to buy when the whole buying group knows you, from procurement to finance. So adapting content and treating each as a market of their own is worth it, guided by propensity and ICP alignment. AI helps, but you need the right blend of AI and human intelligence. Beyond content, get your head of procurement to own a space in thought leadership that talks to their peers. Rather than marketing pushing content from our side, it's about empowering key people in the business to do some of the selling for you, because they're in the groups aligned to that persona or sector.

S5 E108Season & Episode
42 minDuration
20 Years in marketing
5% Agencies who rate client briefs as good
20x More likely to buy when the buying group knows you

"They don't give a shit about that."

Hear Renaye on
The Business of Marketing
Season 5 Episode 108 42 min
Renaye's full profile→ Renaye on LinkedIn→

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