How One Global Campaign Analyst from Visa is Bringing B2C Lessons to B2B Space

How do you market to an audience you can’t see? For many in the B2B world, the answer lies in data. But in the consumer space, the playbook is often the opposite, relying on deep, qualitative research into an audience’s daily life. The conventional wisdom is that these worlds operate on different principles. But what if they don’t? According to one industry expert, bridging that gap requires a philosophy of emotional, rather than purely rational, understanding.

Enter Akhila Penumaka, a Global Digital Campaign Analyst for Visa Consulting & Analytics. Her career gives her a unique vantage point, with one foot in the creative world as a former copywriter for brands like Adidas and Amazon, and the other in the data-rich world of B2B finance. Her background, spanning both the creative and analytical sides of the industry, informs her approach to a central challenge: how to connect with an audience that exists only as an abstraction.

Penumaka points to an Advertising Week panel with the CMO of Coach as the gold standard. The brand faced a classic problem for legacy brands: it was seen as dated. The solution was a deep, qualitative dive into the lives of their target consumers, a process that was more anthropological than marketing, aiming to understand the cultural forces shaping their decisions. "Coach transformed from a mom's handbag to a Gen Z favorite by really understanding their audience from a grassroots level, using ethnographic research to understand their daily habits and how these form their purchase decisions. We can similarly commit to better understanding our audiences in the B2B space," she says.

• An ambiguous identity: While Penumaka found reaching B2C consumers intuitive in her past work, the corporate world of Visa required her to adapt. The 'consumer' morphed from an individual into a multi-faceted business entity she calls an ambiguous identity. "With Visa, it was an interesting learning curve for me. I had to learn to penetrate the B2B space, where the audience exists in this ambiguous space you can't really picture. But their problems and the topics of discussion are still very much present," she explains.

• The emotional edge: For Penumaka, knowing your audience is what separates effective marketing from just another ad. "It's a willingness to really emotionally know your audience versus rationally knowing your audience. While the way you reach your audience in B2B and B2C is different, the end goal should be the same, which is to emotionally understand the people you're trying to reach."

In practice, this philosophy means understanding the B2B audience within the full context of their unique industry pressures. It involves deep listening combined with tactical intelligence. "You have to understand where your consumer is, what themes they are interacting with on the internet, and what topics they discuss online. I penetrate those spaces through social listening, existing on the same platforms that my audiences do, and trying to use similar content and similar keywords in my copy."

• Know thy rival: "For B2B, it's important to understand what other players in your industry are doing in terms of marketing and branding and what the different digital channels are that they're penetrating to reach their audience. Having an eye out for that definitely matters." This kind of vigilance is about discerning the competitive landscape that influences a B2B audience's perceptions, priorities, and ultimately, their emotional connection to solutions.

• A local flavor: For a global company, this challenge is often compounded by scale, dividing that single ambiguous identity into a collection of distinct regional markets. Penumaka explains that true understanding relies on a decentralized approach, which she puts into practice by working directly with the company's regional analysts to pinpoint local trends. "Grasping the pulse of a regional market and bringing it into your written content matters. The fintech and payment space looks vastly different from region to region."

Looking ahead, Penumaka sees AI as a powerful tool for handling the rational heavy lifting. That freedom lets human marketers focus on what she argues remains a uniquely human skill: adding the cultural nuance that turns bland content into something resonant. "As a former creative, I think being able to maintain that balance and walk that tightrope is very, very important. Taking that raw content and injecting flavor into it is something that only a human being can do. And so I'm excited to see how companies manage that automation versus human creativity aspect in their marketing materials."