Behind B2B #21: Matthew Leopold

For our latest instalment of Behind B2B – our series exploring the brightest minds in the industry – we meet Matthew Leopold.

WHO?

Matthew is the Head of Brand, PR and Content Marketing at LexisNexis – a legal intelligence company. He has previously worked for British Gas, US tech-giant RingCentral and an aviation scale-up. He enjoys helping to change people’s perceptions of brands. During his varied career, he has become an expert in all things B2B. Outside of work, he is a volunteer ambulance crew member.

HOW DID YOU END UP IN THE WORLD OF B2B?

My first move into B2B was working for an aviation scale-up.  We designed, manufactured and sold everything that goes on board an aircraft. I was the commercial director running around the world delivering business all whilst trying to run offices in multiple countries around the world.

I then worked for a US business in unified communications, looking after its global brand and communications, before joining LexisNexis.  LexisNexis is exceptionally well known in the world of the law. Although, if you’re not a lawyer, you probably don’t have much knowledge of us. The LexisNexis brand is 200-plus-years-old with a rich heritage in traditional legal publishing and content.  Our challenge is that whilst that content heritage is still crucial to us today, we are now a tech and data company.  We specialise in delivering the right legal content, insights and analytics to lawyers with minimal effort. 

The opportunities to transform the world of the law are enormous. Most lawyers are hungry for anything that makes them more effective or efficient. But others are a little more cautious. They usually run tight and efficient businesses, so need convincing that there is more they can do.

WHAT DID YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO BE WHEN YOU WERE YOUNGER? 

There were two things that I wanted to do when I was at school. Firstly, I wanted to be a teacher. I went to Australia to teach in a primary school for my gap year. I loved it. I just loved education, loved working with the kids, loved inspiring them to learn. The school offered me a job, but I turned it down to come back to university in the UK.

Secondly, believe it or not, I wanted to be a diplomat. I think working in the foreign service, representing Great Britain, and influencing and communicating with others around the world would be a really interesting, fun type of challenge. 

I think the thing that sort of joins those career paths together is communication. It’s about packaging up a story that is worth telling and telling it in a way that makes people think and behave differently. What I do is about brand positioning, and brand strategy is making people think differently about a brand. A huge part of that is communication. It’s about standing on stage and getting people to suddenly feel the love for something that they never thought they would feel the love for.

WHAT’S THE BEST WORK YOU’VE BEEN INVOLVED IN DURING YOUR CAREER?

There is one element of marketing that, for the last 8-9 years I’ve never taken seriously. I’ve always thought it was frivolous. It was unnecessary. It was a waste of time. It was all about glamour and glitz over substance. Until someone sat me down and coached me on how to use it: social media. 

I am now a huge advocate for social media in a B2B environment. Done poorly, it’s a total waste of time. It just adds noise and clutter to an already very noisy and cluttered world. But when it’s done well then it builds an audience of engaged and interested people. 

It is a digital extension of real life. You can build relationships. You can grow an audience. You can get them to think about the thing that you want them to think about. You can hold them into a conversation and empower them on a topic that they didn’t think was relevant. You can listen to the things that are bothering them and fine-tune your argument to meet them. You can get them to be ready to buy without them realising that they’re ready to buy.

WHAT’S THE BEST B2B CAMPAIGN OF ALL TIME?

HP’s sponsorship of BMW Williams Formula One. I think they hit the nail on the head in terms of a brand sponsorship B2B and B2C campaign. They had a really clear business problem: there had been a couple of business mergers. HP needed to show that the mergers had gone really well and that they were now a world-class global IT partner.

How better to show that than by sponsoring an exceptionally successful Formula One team that depends on cutting-edge, reliable technology? 

By powering one of the most high-profile world-class teams, HP was saying: if we can do it for Williams under the pressures of F1, of course we can partner with you. Whatever your business problem is, we can deal with it. When brought to life with activation, client hospitality, advertising etc, it is very powerful.

IF YOU WERE GIVEN THE POWER TO AXE ONE B2B MARKETING CLICHÉ FOREVER, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

Because everything can be tracked, because everything, in theory, can be measured, it’s too easy to forget the brand story, the empathy, the heart, and the softer things that come naturally in the world of B2C. 

B2B requires brands with heart, it requires brands that tell a brand story. And just because we can’t necessarily measure it or see it, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t invest in it. In B2B, it’s often too easy to forget that we need to build human relationships rather than just going straight in for a sale.  After all, people buy from people.  They don’t want to buy from institutions.

I think B2B is an interesting marketplace. It’s going to keep evolving, and I think there’s an awful lot that B2C can learn from B2B’s rigour too.