The Claude creator is pulling ahead in its battle with OpenAI for enterprise clients. Jenny Sagstrom of Sk\u00f6na looks at what B2B brands can learn.<\/p>\n
Anthropic\u2019s Super Bowl successfully asserted a point of differentiation, explains Sagstrom<\/p>\n
Back in January, both Anthropic and OpenAI acknowledged they were focused on winning enterprise customers in the year ahead. Though OpenAI appeared to be the clear leader after securing the largest fundraising round<\/a> in Silicon Valley history, Anthropic has since pulled ahead<\/a> with its own recent valuation<\/a> notching $200 billion higher.<\/p>\n Crucially, this has occurred against a backdrop of rapidly shifting public attitudes. From work slop<\/a> to \u2018AI brain fry<\/a> \u2019 to booed commencement speakers<\/a>, sentiment is souring. According to a recent poll<\/a> of US voters, only Iran and the Democratic Party were viewed more negatively than AI (ouch).<\/p>\n The reason Anthropic has managed to succeed despite these challenges \u2013 especially among enterprise buyers, some of the hardest customers to win over \u2013 can be traced back to several examples of Anthropic building a brand, not just a business.<\/p>\n In revisiting these examples, B2B marketers can find a primer on AI brand-building do\u2019s and don\u2019ts they too can leverage to get ahead.<\/p>\n Brand building is a B2B business\u2019s strongest moat<\/p>\n For the better part of the last decade, B2B marketing has focused solely on reportable performance metrics. Thanks in no small part to the massive disruptions LLMs have caused, these metrics have largely gone out the window. What was once seen as predictable is now a bunch of signals with no clicks.<\/p>\n Scale, distribution and technology offerings similarly mean little in today\u2019s competitive landscape. The tech and feature differences between OpenAI and Anthropic currently diverge meaningfully<\/a> for enterprise clients, with OpenAI\u2019s Codex offered at a lower price point<\/a>, but the rapid pace of change could soon render these differences negligible.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more powerful is that enterprises have their own brands to protect<\/a>. So while product features change so often as to be forgettable, brand values and the perception of those values form long-tail memories. February\u2019s headline-making controversy, where Anthropic publicly rejected a Department of Defense (DOD) contract and OpenAI swiftly replaced them, was a key moment for Anthropic\u2019s brand.<\/p>\n Not only did it lead to a surge<\/a> in ChatGPT uninstalls and a rise in Claude downloads, it massively boosted the brand\u2019s credibility. The perception of brand-playing-the-hero in the face of an administration that very few<\/a> have willingly stood up to, continues to benefit them today.<\/p>\n \n Want to go deeper? Ask The Drum<\/p>\n Lean into differentiation, boldly<\/p>\n But most B2B brands won\u2019t face such political controversy and will instead build their brands through ad campaigns. Luckily, Anthropic and OpenAI\u2019s Super Bowl strategies also provide key lessons.<\/p>\n Though both companies successfully leaned into emotional storytelling (something far more B2B companies need to adapt), Anthropic was the clear winner. In an interview<\/a> with Kara Swisher, NYU Marketing Professor Scott Galloway went so far as to call their ad \u201cgenius\u201d and \u201cthe ad of the Super Bowl.\u201d<\/p>\n The real genius was that Anthropic was willing to lean into a point of differentiation in the market. They very clearly stated, if our competitor is running ads, then we never will. More importantly, however, they boldly made this claim through satire, poking fun at nightmare ad-serving scenarios. And it paid off with a direct increase<\/a> in users.<\/p>\n In my work with B2B brands, most are afraid to rock the boat and upset the competition. But in such an oversaturated, competitive market, the courage to lean into distinction (especially with humor) is the difference between sink or swim.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t forget employees as brand builders<\/p>\n Finally, it\u2019s important to remember that employees are just as critical to brand health as any campaign or publicly stated values. OpenAI\u2019s image suffered significantly after the DOD deal, as hundreds of employees signed a petition in support of Anthropic, and head of hardware, Caitlin Kalinowski, announced her resignation<\/a>, describing the DOD deal as \u201crushed\u201d and “without the guardrails defined.\u201d<\/p>\n For B2B businesses at the cutting edge of AI technology, who works for you matters as much as your product. It speaks volumes when someone like OpenAI founding member Andrej Karpathy is hired<\/a> by Anthropic.<\/p>\n While brands can\u2019t expect universal employee alignment, a brand defining its values and sticking to them creates trust-building consistency. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has famously flip-flopped on important issues such as ads and \u2018adult\u2019 use of ChatGPT \u2013 to the chagrin of his own advisors<\/a>.<\/p>\n And while a brand is bigger than its CEO, Elon Musk\u2019s influence over<\/a> Tesla stock demonstrates such inconsistencies<\/a> matter. This doesn\u2019t bode well for OpenAI, considering Altman\u2019s reputation was further damaged<\/a> in a recent lawsuit with Musk.<\/p>\n It\u2019s entirely possible that Anthropic\u2019s current lead over the market could change in the near future. Even assuming that happens, their brand perception is unlikely to suffer. Meanwhile, it\u2019s going to take a lot of work to change OpenAI’s current brand trajectory. May other B2B companies take note and brand accordingly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Claude creator is pulling ahead in its battle with OpenAI for enterprise clients. 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