Tom Hanks is a FedEx executive whose plane crashes in the Pacific, leaving him stranded on a deserted island. He survives for years with only a volleyball named Wilson for company, before eventually escaping and returning home to a life that’s moved on without him.

Believe it or not, this isn’t me summarising the premise of 2000 survival drama Cast Away. It’s actually what the trailer inexplicably gives away.

Now imagine seeing it before setting foot in a cinema. Are you more or less excited to see it? It’s the latter, right?

That’s because by explaining most of the plot, the trailer removes much of the intrigue that makes you want to watch the film.

Unfortunately, a lot of B2B marketing shares the same mistake. And it’s particularly true in technical industries like construction and manufacturing, where the instinct is often to explain everything as quickly, and with as much detail, as possible.

Contents

• The devil is in too many details

• Most buyers aren’t looking to buy right away

• The more brands say, the less their audience remembers

• Explanation and persuasion are not the same thing

• So, what’s the hidden cost?

The devil is in too many details

I’m not saying your audience doesn’t need detail. They absolutely do, especially before making a big decision.

Architects want reassurance that a product will perform as intended. Contractors need confidence that the installation is compliant. Procurement teams need justification that their investment is worthwhile.

But these feelings don’t just happen. They must be earned.

After all, your audience isn’t only very busy, but they’re also bombarded with marketing collateral from countless channels. So, before they can appreciate those finer details, they need a reason to pay attention first.

The problem is a surprising amount of marketing assumes its audience arrives already interested. In reality, though, campaigns loaded with too much detail usually fail to register any form of connection.

And I know how this happens. I’ve sat in enough meetings to see it unfold in real time.

Someone suggests adding a message. Compliance requests another. John from Sales wants one too. Before you know it, the ad is explaining every one of its eight main features, and you’ve lost any semblance of an original idea – or, more importantly, the message.

Now, I understand the thinking behind it: if people know more, they’ll understand more. But that rationale is only valid if they’re engaged with your brand in the first place.

Most buyers aren’t looking to buy right away

Research from Ehrenberg-Bass Institute suggests that around 95% of B2B buyers are out-of-market at any given time.

What does this show? For one, the role of a big chunk of marketing shouldn’t be to convince someone to buy immediately. Rather, it should be to shape future recall of your brand.

That’s where many brands get it wrong.

They lead with overly detailed explanations, technical specifications and exhaustive proof points before they’ve given people a reason to care. But if someone isn’t actively looking for a solution, they’re unlikely to invest much attention and will likely move on.

Not because your content is unprofessional, or your product lacks quality. But because the communication failed to create enough interest to hold their attention.

Many technical sectors are guilty of this, with brands so focused on proving credibility that they forget the ‘curiosity’ factor.

The more brands say, the less their audience remembers

You see it everywhere. Trade ads that try to explain complex systems in a single visual.

Websites crammed with certifications, claims, and downloadable documents. All before their audience even understands the challenges.

The result? Content that’s technically complete, but forgettable. Or worse, content that feels almost identical to your competitors’.

So, what should you do? Well, the golden rule here is ‘less is more’. And there’s some weight behind it, too.

A study conducted by Millward Brown found that the odds of recall when communicating one key message were 100%. With two messages, the chances reduced to 65% and continued to plummet with further messages.

This shows the more messages you send out, the harder it becomes to make them stick. It’s especially common in construction, where many brands default to the same claims around compliance, and being trusted and technically advanced.

But what if your campaign didn’t sound the same as the brands you’re competing against? What if it focused on the key message that makes your company or service unique and worth investing in? That is how you drive recall, earn attention, and build trust with your audience.

Take the campaign we delivered for Millboard as an example.

Millboard was competing in the small and saturated composite decking category, which accounts for just 3% of total UK decking sales. Rather than compete within that narrow space, we repositioned the brand against the much larger timber market.

We kept the key insight simple: Millboard looks like wood, but without the drawbacks of timber. This became the foundation of a campaign built around the idea that, at a glance, you can’t tell it’s not real wood, but in reality, it actually outperforms it.

Distinctive lines like “Can’t see the wood for the Millboard” brought the campaign to life in a memorable way that enabled the brand to stand out in the market.

The results speak for themselves, with the campaign delivering a 55% year-on-year increase in website traffic and an 81% rise in product sample requests.

Explanation and persuasion are not the same thing

This isn’t to say technical detail is unimportant. It matters enormously, particularly in construction and manufacturing.

Buyers still need confidence, and initiatives like CCPI are raising expectations around how clearly and responsibly products are explained.

But explanation and persuasion are not the same thing. Technical information is often better at defending decisions than creating them.

That distinction matters, as many buying decisions are influenced long before someone opens the spec sheet.

Impactful, engaging marketing understands this. It creates context before detail, it frames the problem before introducing the solution, and it gives people a reason to care about the content before they receive it.

Why? Not because entertainment replaces substance, but because attention changes how information is processed.

So, what’s the hidden cost?

To summarise, the hidden cost of explaining too much is indifference. It’s the risk of leaving your audience unsure and unmoved by your brand or a particular service you’re promoting.

That’s not what we want.

What we’re after is what well-executed film trailers do very well – leaving your audience wanting more. Just like this trailer for Jaws.

When I watch this, there are a whole host of questions I’d want the answer to if I hadn’t seen it several times already. Does anyone survive? What happens to the shark? Does Brody ever get a bigger boat?

The strongest B2B marketing works in much the same way.

Not by withholding important information or replacing substance with entertainment, but by recognising that people need a reason to care before they absorb the detail.