Jason Ing on Why B2B Marketing Needs More Emotion, Not Less

B2B Marketers Confuse Brand Marketing with Mass Marketing—and It's Killing Their Story

Jason Ing believes one of the most damaging myths in B2B marketing is the quiet assumption that brand marketing equals mass marketing. "We conflate brand marketing and mass marketing and we assume that they're the same," he says. The result: most B2B marketers conclude they can't afford a Super Bowl ad, so they abandon storytelling altogether and retreat into performance metrics and sales enablement. But Ing, who spent years building iconic brands at Xbox, Amazon Prime Video, and AWS before joining Gusto as CMO, sees this as a fundamental misunderstanding of what brand work actually is.

Brand isn't about the channel. It's about narrative. "It's really not about the channel. It's really about figuring out how you deliver that narrative in the right way through whatever channels might make sense for you," Ing explains. That could be an experiential event, a partnership with sales, connected TV, or even hospitality services. The point is to occupy mental availability—to be front and center when someone is ready to buy. Gusto's "Choose Gusto" campaign, which contrasts mundane tasks like watching grass grow with time tracking and payroll, taps into the emotional side of business owners' everyday struggles. The campaign launched in select markets a year ago and is now rolling out nationally because it works.

The other trap: B2B marketers get too cozy with sales leaders who are wired for the short term. "Your sales leader is thinking oftentimes like, how do I make this number? And they're thinking about the short-term outcome," Ing notes. That's not a flaw—it's just the nature of sales. But when marketers adopt the same lens, they miss the long game. Storytelling and emotion are conviction plays that pay off over medium and long timeframes, not just the current quarter.

Start with Qualitative, Not Quantitative—Because You Can Find Data to Justify Anything

Ing's approach to marketing analytics is counterintuitive for someone with a finance and engineering background. He starts with qualitative research before touching quantitative data. "You can find data to justify anything actually in a world where you can measure a lot more and you're getting a lot more signals," he says. Instead of staring at dashboards hoping patterns will emerge, Ing uses a hypothesis-driven approach: form a thesis from qualitative insights, then validate or invalidate it with data.

This discipline comes from his time at Procter & Gamble, where he learned that even commodity products—diapers, for instance—require a compelling story to stand out. The same principle applies at Gusto. "At the end of the day, they're all kind of one and the same, right? And you can argue that in a lot of B2B context, that is true too," he admits. The challenge is to craft a narrative that sticks, one that makes customers feel something beyond feature parity.

His engineering training doesn't hurt, either. It's given him fluency with martech stacks and a problem-solving orientation that helps him translate marketing concepts to product and engineering teams. "Not everyone is going to understand what you say if you're just relegating all your talk to marketing jargon or concepts that only marketers will understand," Ing says. Cross-functional empathy—knowing what keeps a product manager or engineer up at night—is what allows marketing to scale across an organization.

Emotion in B2B Isn't Irrational—It's About Trust, Confidence, and Not Getting Fired

The stakes in B2B are high, and that's precisely why emotion matters. "People want to feel confident that they're making the right choice, especially when those stakes are high," Ing says. B2B decisions may be more deliberate than impulse buys, but they're still made by humans—humans who don't want to look foolish, whose jobs might be on the line, and who face switching costs and training overhead if they get it wrong.

Ing argues that while B2C emotions might center on delight or aspiration, B2B emotions revolve around trust and risk mitigation.

We'll hear a lot about how B2B decisions are more rational and structured, and that is very true. But as you allude to, emotion does play a big role because you're selling to humans at the end of the day.

— Jason Ing

The Choose Gusto campaign leaned into this insight by framing the product not as a payroll solution but as a message of empowerment. Business owners aren't alone. They have a partner that simplifies tough decisions.

That consistency extends beyond marketing. Gusto's tone of voice, visual style, and product design all reinforce the same emotional payoff: levity and joy in moments that are traditionally tedious. "We wanted to show up in this way because this is ultimately who we are," Ing says. But there's a tonal tightrope to walk. Payroll is serious. Benefits matter. Terminating an employee isn't playful. "How do you make sure you're doing that all with the right touch and the right consistency and tone without ever kind of appearing tone deaf?" That's the design challenge—and one Gusto takes seriously.

Brand Distinctiveness and Consistency Drive Word of Mouth and Retention

Ing is obsessive about consistency. The Choose Gusto creative has stayed the same for a year because "consistency in how you show up creatively builds trust, it also builds recall." That consistency isn't just in ad creative—it's in product, customer support, website animations, and even the email you get when you're paid. "Hey, you got paid today"—it's a small moment of delight, but it reinforces the brand.

This approach has compounding effects. Many Gusto users didn't choose the platform themselves—someone else at their company made the decision. But years later, when those employees start their own businesses, Gusto is top of mind. Word of mouth and retention both benefit from a brand that feels distinct, playful, and reliable.

We're different and we're distinct in that way. And brand distinctiveness alongside that consistency really allows that to stick.

— Jason Ing

Ing is careful to distinguish playfulness from frivolity. "We don't take ourselves seriously in that we're low ego, we'll have fun with it. But we do take our customer and earning their trust very seriously." That balance—competence wrapped in levity—is what separates Gusto from sterile, forgettable HR platforms. The product has to work. But if it works, why not make people smile when they open it?

The Core Fundamentals Are Universal—But B2B Requires More Methodical Storytelling

Despite working across wildly different categories—gaming consoles, streaming video, cloud infrastructure, payroll software—Ing has come to believe the similarities outweigh the differences. "The core fundamentals that you might learn in a textbook or in basic marketing training are very true and very universal," he says. Focus on the customer. Be clear about the who, what, and why. Occupy mental availability.

What changes is the application. B2B purchase cycles are longer. More stakeholders are involved. The decision-making process is more deliberate. "You can't just return your SaaS software if it doesn't work out. You are stuck with it even if there is no guarantee or no contract," Ing points out. That means marketing has to be more methodical, more closely tied to the sales process, and more attuned to risk aversion.

But the fundamentals—storytelling, emotion, consistency—still apply. Ing's advice to early-career marketers is to diversify their experience. "Do a stint in sales, do a stint in finance or product, and you'll find that even if you're set on becoming a marketer, just having that experience will benefit you greatly." Lateral thinking, cross-functional empathy, and the ability to meet people where they're at—those are the skills that allow marketers to influence outcomes, not just run campaigns.

You Don't Need a Super Bowl Ad to Build a Brand—You Need Conviction

Ing's most pointed critique of B2B marketing is that it's too timid. Marketers assume they need massive budgets to do brand work, so they don't try. "You don't need to do mass marketing," he insists. "It's really about figuring out how you deliver that narrative in the right way through whatever channels might make sense for you." That could be podcasts, connected TV, experiential events, or partnerships.

The real barrier isn't budget—it's conviction. Brand work is a long game, and that requires belief in a thesis that won't pay off this quarter.

When you're invested into storytelling and emotions, you're playing the long game and you're investing in something that will pay off over a sometimes short, but mostly a medium and long-term timeframe.

— Jason Ing

Sales leaders want quarterly results. Marketers who are too tightly coupled to sales will optimize for the short term and never build lasting mental availability.

Gusto's playbook is proof that conviction pays off. The Choose Gusto campaign didn't just drive awareness—it made other channels more efficient. Consistency in creative, tone, and product experience compounds over time. And the result is a brand that people remember, talk about, and choose when they're ready to buy. "With Gusto, you're not only getting something that really works well, but you'll enjoy the experience of using it and getting paid through it as well," Ing says. In B2B, that's a rare promise. And it's one that scales.