If you’re the marketing champion carrying a $30,000 video proposal into a CFO meeting, I already know the first question.
“How does this book demos?”
Sometimes the second question comes even faster.
“Why are we paying for comedy?”
I’ve had this conversation a lot. I run CinemAds out of Toronto, and I mostly work with growth-stage B2B SaaS and AI brands. My whole thing is making bold, humorous, cinematic ads because safe marketing is boring, old, and easy to ignore.
I’m a filmmaker first, entrepreneur second. So yes, I care a lot about lighting, story, pacing, and performance. I also care about your funnel. If the work does not help you get remembered, clicked, and talked about, the craft alone is useless.
My view is simple. Brand awareness and direct response do different jobs. When you use both properly, the whole system gets stronger.
The Question Usually Gets Framed the Wrong Way
A lot of finance teams treat this like a cage match. Brand awareness on one side. Direct response on the other. Pick one.
I don’t think that helps.
Direct response is there to capture demand. It helps explain the product, answer objections, and move someone closer to a demo or a call. Brand awareness does the earlier work. It gets your ICP to notice you, remember you, and feel some familiarity with you before they are ready to buy.
That early job matters a lot in B2B. Most categories are crowded. You have 10, 20, sometimes 50 brands saying almost the same thing. If your buyer has never heard of you, every direct response ad has to work from a cold start. That is a tough ask.
The data supports that. A Nielsen study found that a 1-point increase in brand awareness tracked with roughly a 1% increase in sales. And Ascend2 found that increasing brand awareness was the top goal for video marketing, while 85% of marketers said their video efforts were somewhat or very successful.
So when a CFO asks whether awareness matters, the short answer is yes. It matters because it gives the rest of the funnel a better chance to work.
What Brand Awareness Is Really Doing for You
It Stops the Scroll
At the top of funnel, I want the ad to be less dashboardy. I do not want the first three seconds to look like another generic screen recording with text slapped on top. People have seen that forever. They tune it out fast.
My ABC rule is Always Be Cinematic.
That means I want an opening visual that makes the right buyer pause. Something funny. Something weird. Something that makes them ask, “What’s going on here?” That question is powerful. It buys you time.
I use that thinking all the time. In one Right-Hand Cybersecurity campaign, I avoided mentioning cybersecurity until the end. First, the audience got a funny scenario. Then the brand landed. By that point, they were already invested.
I like that structure because we make ads that don’t look like ads. The buyer leans in before they feel sold to.
Sometimes the hook is even bolder. For Maple, I pushed a risky opening where a confident naked man covers himself with an open laptop while romantic music plays. Then the record scratches and you realize he is talking to a telehealth doctor. It is absurd. It also stops the scroll.
It Builds Memory
Once you stop the scroll, the next job is memory.
People remember a joke. They remember a character. They remember a weird scene or a line that hits their world. They usually do not remember another dashboard zoom.
That is why I love recurring characters and big campaign ideas.
Lavender Joe is the clearest example from my own work. We built a whole campaign around a bad salesperson who existed in this little comedic universe. That character spread. People brought up Lavender Joe on calls. Booth workers at Collision in Toronto knew who he was. I have had prospects say they had already seen the campaign before I even finished sharing it on Zoom.
That is brand recall. And brand recall has value.
A survey reported by IAB UK found that 62% of B2B marketers see video as their most important content format. In that same research, 93% agreed video helps brands tell stories creatively. That makes sense to me. Story is what sticks.
It Can Warm Up Performance Too
This part gets missed a lot.
Brand awareness can help performance more directly than people think. I have had clients tell me that our brand awareness videos actually performed better than their direct response ads. I never guarantee results, and I’m careful with that, but I have seen these videos pull their weight.
Lavender told me people were booking demo requests and mentioning Lavender Joe on the calls. Another client told me they were getting discovery calls where their prospects brought up the commercials I produced for them.
When that happens, the so-called awareness ad is already doing more than awareness. It is helping direct response because the lead came in warmer.
What Direct Response Still Needs to Do
I still like direct response. I just want it doing the right job.
When the audience is warm, that is the time to explain the product clearly. Show the UI. Talk through the workflow. Handle objections. Give the buyer a clean next step.
This is why I like a two-step system.
First, run the cinematic top-of-funnel ad. Let it hook the viewer. Let it build recall. Then retarget the people who watched more than 50% with a lower-funnel explainer or product video. Now you have earned the right to teach.
That is also where I am more open to a more literal format. If the team wants to show the solution, the dashboard, the product flow, or a before-and-after style structure, lower funnel is the place for it. At the front of funnel, I would rather show the problem and hit the audience with a strong tagline.
If a client insists on product UI in a brand awareness ad, I usually push those visuals toward the back end of the video or the final bumper. The opening still needs to do its real job. It needs to make the viewer care.
Production changes here too. A 90-second explainer can eat up a full ten-hour day because of all the camera angle changes. A batch of short brand spots can be structured to shoot 10 to 15 commercials in a single filming day. Different tools. Different jobs.
Why CFOs Push Back
I understand the hesitation.
A CFO hears “comedy” and thinks soft metric. They hear “cinematic” and think expensive. They want a clean line to CAC, CPL, pipeline, and payback.
Fair enough. Those are smart questions.
But boring creative burns money too. If the ad gets ignored, every dollar behind it works less. Safe ads will lose over time because there are too many competitors doing the same thing. Your audience has seen the same stale formula for years.
I also see another problem. Sometimes leadership approves the video and then starves the campaign. They run the ads on a tiny budget, then blame the creative. That is a weak test.
My job is to create the best video possible. Your team still needs enough spend to give it a fair shot.
The Budget Math I Want Finance to Hear
What matters now is content, content, content.
This budget is not about one pretty asset sitting in a folder. It is about building a batch of creative you can actually test. That changes the economics right away.
CinemAds typically charges around $30,000 for a package of 10-15 high-quality commercial videos. That works out to about $2,000-$3,000 per video. A lot of traditional setups will charge an arm and two legs for one or two spots. I would rather bring down the budget by 50% or more, and add 10x the content.
The production model is built for that. I keep the shoot in one versatile location for the day. I write the scripts so we can move fast. I storyboard hard in pre-production. I make sure the actors are ready. Then we shoot a whole campaign instead of one lonely ad.
That gives you options.
You can test multiple hooks in the first three seconds. You can test safer scripts against bolder ones. You can cut for 16:9, 9:16, and square. You can feed LinkedIn, Meta, YouTube, and CTV without exhausting one piece of creative in a week.
I hate ad fatigue. I hate seeing the same commercial over and over on CTV or social. Your buyers hate it too. I want one big idea that can branch into a series. That keeps the brand familiar without getting repetitive.
There is also real work behind this. A standard campaign can take 60 to 75 days from brief to delivery. That includes creative development, script approvals, casting, locations, props, filming, editing, and all the small tweaks that come up after. It is hands-on. It is human. It is a lot more than just “shoot a video.”
What I Have Actually Seen in the Real World
I’m careful with promises. I can’t guarantee revenue. I do not believe in fake guru claims about 10x growth every single time. But I can tell you what I have seen.
I have had prior clients tell me our brand awareness videos outperformed their direct response ads. I have had repeat clients come back for more campaigns, which tells me something is working. I have had brands reach out to me because they saw another client’s campaign and wanted that same kind of recall for themselves. One of my CTV clients paid off their entire production budget with a single sale that came directly from a CinemAds-produced ad. I also retained one client for three separate CTV campaigns over two years by iterating on the same successful core idea with new scripts.
And I really like CTV for B2B.
I say that as a marketer and as a normal person watching TV. My wife and I watch the 15 to 30-second ads on our basic Netflix subscription, and we are actually paying attention. We are not staring at our phones the whole time. Sometimes we even repeat the jokes to each other after.
That attention matters. The outside data backs it up too. Average viewer attention on connected-TV ads reached about 34.5% in TVision’s 2022 reporting. MediaPost also reported that streaming ads delivered a 13% higher attention index than linear TV.
Video matters across the funnel in general. In that same IAB UK research, 77% said video generated more leads. And 78% said those leads were higher quality. So when finance asks whether video can do more than build awareness, the answer is yes. Good video can do both.
How I Lower the Creative Risk
Comedy is subjective. Art is opinion, not fact. I know that, so I do not walk into a project pretending one script is magically perfect for everybody.
I usually pitch a range. Some concepts are safer. Some are bolder. Some are more unhinged. Then I work with the client to find the fit for their brand, their audience, and their comfort level.
If you are the internal champion and you need ammunition, I often write sample scripts for free so you have something real to show the CEO or CFO. I can also connect leadership with past customers so they can hear directly how the process worked and what the outcome looked like on their side.
I keep the process collaborative too. Clients sign off on scripts before we shoot. They review casting tapes with me. A lot of them fly to Toronto so they can be on set and approve takes in real time.
That helps a lot because the humor gets sharper when the client brings their inside knowledge. For HockeyStack, I co-wrote with Arthur Castillo because he understands sales and marketing deeply. That helped us build jokes like “high dissing” that their audience would actually get.
I also keep clear boundaries. I push bold humor, but I stay away from jokes that punch down or make fun of specific people. The goal is to entertain the right audience and land somewhere in that 80% to 90% positive range.
And yes, sometimes one joke gets blocked. I still pitch a cybersecurity concept built around “practice safe tech.” One founder thought it was funny. An older investor did not. Fine. We keep moving. That is part of the process.
What I Would Tell Your CFO
If I were helping you prep for the finance meeting, I would keep it very simple.
I would say this budget gives us a batch of high-quality video assets we can actually test across paid social and CTV. The top-of-funnel videos will build recall, stop the scroll, and feed retargeting pools. The lower-funnel videos will explain the product and help convert warm viewers. We will judge the work on real numbers like view-through rate, click-through rate, cost per lead, CAC, lead quality, and whether sales is hearing these ads mentioned on calls.
Then I would talk about risk. I would explain that the structure spreads the risk across multiple hooks, scripts, and formats from one production plan. Leadership gets options instead of one giant bet. And if finance wants more confidence before signing, I can write sample scripts and connect them with customers who have already gone through the process with me.
That is a much better conversation than waving your hands around and saying, “Trust me, this will look cool.”
Final Word
My view is pretty simple.
Brand awareness makes direct response easier. Direct response gives brand awareness somewhere to go.
If you only run lower-funnel ads to cold audiences, you force every impression to work too hard. If you only run brand and never follow up, you leave demand sitting there. The best setup uses both.
I built CinemAds because brands need funny, memorable, engaging high-quality content. We create funny videos out of complex products. We like to make a commercial that looks like a movie, like a CinemAd. And in B2B, where everybody is fighting to be remembered, that matters a lot.
Being ignored is expensive. Being remembered gives the whole funnel a better shot.
The best marketing wins.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I prove top-of-funnel awareness is actually lowering my direct response CPL?
You track the blended CAC and qualitative feedback. When awareness works, your direct response campaigns don’t start from zero. According to IAB UK, 77% of B2B marketers found video generated more leads. You’ll see this directly when prospects mention your top-of-funnel characters during discovery calls.
Does CTV actually work for B2B direct response, or is it purely a brand play?
It does both, but it thrives on attention. A TVision report found CTV ads command 34.5% viewer attention. When you combine that trapped attention with a strong cinematic hook, you build massive brand recall. We’ve seen single CTV sales entirely pay off a $30,000 production budget.
If I secure the $30k for creative, what ad spend is required to test these variations properly?
Never starve the creative. If leadership only approves $1-a-day ad spend, the campaign dies on arrival. You need enough daily budget on Meta and LinkedIn to exit the learning phase across your 16:9, 9:16, and 1:1 formats. Plan for enough spend to actually cycle through your multiple hooks.
What is the exact retargeting trigger to move a prospect from a comedy awareness ad to a literal product explainer?
Target the 50% video view mark. If someone watches half of a bold, cinematic top-of-funnel hook, they are invested. That is your trigger. Move them into a lower-funnel retargeting audience and hit them with a 90-second direct response explainer. You have earned their attention. Now show the UI.
How quickly will a cinematic awareness campaign impact our B2B sales pipeline?
It is not overnight, but the momentum builds predictably. A Nielsen study showed a 1-point awareness increase drives a 1% sales bump. By pushing batch-produced creative over a few months, you warm up the audience. Direct response converts faster because the cold-start friction is gone.
