Examples
The best B2B video ads
Twenty-five commercials that made business software funny. From agencies that do what we do, from brands doing it in-house, and, where marked, from us.
Most B2B advertising is forgotten the moment it ends. The LinkedIn B2B Institute and System1 tested 1,600 B2B ads and 75% scored one star out of five for long-term effect. These are the exceptions. Every ad here made someone laugh at a real business problem, which is the only reason anyone remembers a company that sells software.
House rules for the list. Real commercials, not explainers. Products sold to businesses, not to consumers. Credit to whoever made it. Ours sit in their own section and stay under a third of the list, because a list that’s only your own work is a portfolio with a headline.
The dollar signs are our read of the production scale from what’s on screen, not anyone’s invoice: $ under $25,000, $$ up to $100,000, $$$ up to $250,000, $$$$ up to a million, $$$$$ Super Bowl money.
From agencies that do what we do
Small shops that only make funny B2B ads. We compete with some of them and would hire any of them.
Possessed: The Origin Story of a B2B Marketer
Umault · Umault, Chicago$$$
A horror-movie origin story for the person who approves the tasteful rectangle. Umault’s whole thesis in ninety seconds: the marketer isn’t the villain, the defaults are.
Marketergeist
Umault · Umault, Chicago$$$
Poltergeist, but the ghost is a neglected brand. The budget line nobody funded comes back to haunt the dashboard.
Googleheimer Countdown
Matomo · Umault for Matomo$$$
An Oppenheimer trailer for the GA4 migration deadline. The bomb is a settings page. It worked because every marketer in 2023 had that date circled.
Agent A
Ahrefs · Deadpan, London$$
A spy thriller about an SEO tool. Deadpan’s trick is the straight face. Nobody in the ad knows it’s funny, which is why it is.
Agency Arrests
KlientBoost · Deadpan, London$$
A cop show where the crimes are agency behavior. Five episodes, not one ad, and by Deadpan’s own count a million LinkedIn views. A series beats a one-off.
The Wolf of Wall Street, But It’s B2B Marketing
Dapper · Dapper, the demand agency$
Dapper remakes famous movie scenes with the dialogue swapped for marketing meetings. This one is the sales-floor speech, except the product is a webinar.
Pulp Fiction, But It’s B2B Marketing
Dapper · Dapper, the demand agency$
The diner scene, about attribution. If you’ve sat in the meeting, you’ll wince, then send it to someone.
So Yeah, We Tried Slack
Slack · Sandwich, Los Angeles$$$
The 2014 ad that made the product video a genre. Real employees, fourth wall down, a company admitting it was skeptical. Sandwich made software funny before it was allowed.
From the brands themselves
Made in-house or with a partner, then actually run.
The No-Show
Teamwork.com · Teamwork.com$$$
The sequel to The Client, the horror-trailer parody Umault made for Teamwork. A missed meeting shot like a missing-persons case.
I like it when he gives me the business
Zendesk · Zendesk$$$$
A retired couple, a double entendre, and customer-service software. The most a B2B brand has ever trusted its audience.
It’s Mostly Just Astronauts
Zendesk · Zendesk$$$$
Couples therapy for a helpdesk. A customer explains why she’s been distant. The campaign is called “Relationships Are Complicated,” and it is.
The Biggest B2B Sales Challenge
Consensus · Consensus$
A demo-automation company making fun of the demo. Sales reps recognized themselves and sent it to each other, which is the whole strategy.
The Side Effects of Chili Piper
Chili Piper · Chili Piper$
A pharmaceutical ad for scheduling software. Side effects may include closing faster. The format does the work.
Card Declined in Front of a Client? Never Again
Brex · Brex$$$
One humiliation, staged perfectly, then the product. The simplest structure in advertising, done by a fintech that noticed nobody else in fintech was funny.
Chasing Receipts
Ramp · Ramp$$$$$
An action movie about expense reports. Ramp spends like a consumer brand and it shows, but the joke is pure B2B: the receipt that got away.
The big-budget benchmark
Super Bowl money. Notice the jokes are still office life.
Rock Stars
Workday · Workday$$$$$
The 2023 Super Bowl ad. Ozzy, Joan Jett, Gary Clark Jr. and Paul Stanley ask office workers to stop calling themselves rock stars. The biggest budget on this list, and the joke is still a workplace habit.
Click, Baby, Click
Adobe · Goodby Silverstein & Partners$$$$
An encyclopedia company misreads a spike in clicks and ramps up production. 2013, and still the best ad ever made about a dashboard.
Did You Mean Mailchimp?
Mailchimp · Droga5$$$$
Droga5 spent a whole campaign misspelling the client’s name. MailShrimp. KaleLimp. JailBlimp. A Cannes Grand Prix. The lesson for a smaller brand isn’t the budget. It’s the nerve.
Ours
Seven of our thirty-five, each built on the buyer’s problem.
Don’t Be a Hostage
Eon · Video Brothers$$
Kidnappers demand backups nobody can actually access, and end up as frustrated as the IT team. A backup you can’t restore isn’t a backup. It’s a receipt.
No More Hell
Conveyor · Video Brothers$$
Satan sits for a magazine interview and, asked about his proudest work, lands on security questionnaires. Security teams shared it instead of deleting it.
Recruiter Recovery Center
Loxo · Video Brothers$$
A treatment facility that profits from not fixing recruiters’ six fixable problems. Loxo’s VP of Marketing called the result their best year in company history for pipeline generation.
Global Made Simple
RemoFirst · Video Brothers$$
A twelve-year-old runs staff in four countries from a bedroom. Conversions doubled after launch, and it won the 2025 Demandy Award for HR Tech Marketing Program of the Year.
Stop Babysitting
Foxit · Video Brothers$$
A couple parents their document platform like a newborn: the monitor, the whispered check-ins, the 3am handoff. Foxit is the platform that sleeps through the night.
Fire Your Frankenstack
DevSquad · Video Brothers$$
The tech stack is Frankenstein’s monster, badly stitched, lumbering around the office. Everyone has learned to work around it. A product-development pitch a CFO can follow in thirty seconds.
Your Outreach on Trial
Common Room · Video Brothers$$
The crime: a cold email that opens with “I hope this finds you well.” The courtroom takes it seriously. One villain everyone recognizes, and the product shows up as the fix.
What the funny ones have in common
- The joke is the buyer’s problem, pushed one notch too far. Not a wacky invention. A missed meeting, a declined card, a questionnaire, a tech stack. Real, then bigger.
- They look like commercials. Real actors, a real crew, and a borrowed format: a trailer, a cop show, a pharma ad, a courtroom. The format is half the joke.
- The product shows up late and briefly. Every ad above spends most of its time on the problem. The logo is the punchline, not the premise.
- They come in sets. Deadpan makes sitcoms. Zendesk made a couples-therapy series. Loxo got a sequel. One ad is a post. A campaign is a memory.
- They were made to run, not to post. Every one of these had media behind it. The ones with the best numbers had the ad and the media planned together, which is the whole argument for one team.
Credits and corrections
Nothing on this list is ours unless it says so. The maker named on each card is the one we could verify. If we’ve credited the wrong agency, or you made one that belongs here, tell a human and we’ll fix it.
Frequently asked questions
What makes a B2B video ad good?
It gets remembered by someone who isn’t buying yet. Roughly 5% of B2B buyers are in the market at any moment (Prof. John Dawes, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute). The ad’s job is the other 95%, and a joke built on their real problem is the most reliable way to stay in their memory until they are.
Do funny ads work in serious categories?
Backup, security, legal software, expense management and HR are all on this list. The category isn’t the constraint. The joke has to land on the industry’s defaults, never on the buyer.
How much does an ad like these cost?
Ours run $50,000 to $100,000 to produce with a real crew, $75,000 being the standard, or free with $300,000 or more in media. The Super Bowl ads above cost more than that, and we can’t speak for the others. The numbers are on what B2B video production costs.
Where can we watch all of yours?
All thirty-five are on the work page, and the campaigns are on our YouTube channel.