We’re kicking off a fresh, new series just for the good folks in marketing. Honestly, Marketing is where we hear it straight from the marketers we admire. No filters, no pretending they’ve got it all figured out. Only honest takes, practical tips, and a few laughs along the way.
B2B marketing has a reputation for being dry, predictable, and boring. But if there’s one person who’s proved that B2B doesn’t have to be bland, it’s Shlomo Genchin. A playfully brilliant copywriter, he’s turned “boring products” into fun, witty ads that people want to consume.
Shlomo has built a following of 50k+ marketers by sharing honest, no-BS advice on LinkedIn and through his course Boring Products, Fun Ads, which has become a favorite among folks at Apple, Hubspot, Semrush, and more! What I love about Shlomo is that he makes marketing feel playful without ever losing the business edge. I’m genuinely excited to have him on Honestly, Marketing - not only because I’m an ardent admirer of his work but also because this conversation is going to be part entertainment, part masterclass for you.
So go on, grab a pen, or, you know, your favorite note-taking app. Because you’ll want to jot down a few golden nuggets from these chats!
From memes to a career
Q: You’ve said you started copywriting because you liked memes and puns. At what point did you realize this could actually be a career?
It all started when I bought a scam course on affiliate marketing. The course was awful, except for this tiny section on copywriting. That’s when it clicked: through writing and creativity, I could basically sell anything I wanted.
Image credits: https://thecreativemarketer.net/
Inspiration from the unexpected
Q: Is there a particular boring B2B ad you remember that inspired you to do the opposite?
I’ve always been a big fan of OOH (Out-of-Home) ads. I remember looking at certain billboards from huge, well-known brands and thinking, “Wow, all that money for something this boring?
Q: What’s one “safe” B2B ad strategy you think should be retired forever?
Gated content. If you have something valuable, just share it. It’ll get you more reach and better leads than hiding it behind a form.
A startup asking for your email to read a case study is like a restaurant asking for your phone number to see the menu.
Where it all starts
Q: When you sit down to make an ad for a B2B product, where do you actually start?
I start with research: facts, insights, numbers, unique features. Some I dig up manually, some I find with tools like Perplexity. David Abbott once said, ‘I don’t start writing until I have too much to say.’ That’s how I approach it, too. Collect so much raw material that the creative part becomes inevitable.
Making the abstract tangible
Q: Do you think B2B services are harder to market than products because they sound abstract? How do you turn something intangible into an ad people actually care about?
Definitely. That’s where analogies come in. My go-to framework is:
‘Doing [task/workflow] without [product] is like…’ and then I tie it to a real-world analogy. Suddenly, something abstract feels clear, tangible, and even entertaining.
Q: How do you convince skeptical clients or bosses that “funny” doesn’t mean “frivolous”?
Real results. Start small. One static ad, one meme. Nothing too risky. Once they see it actually works, scale it up into videos and bigger campaigns.
Image credits: https://thecreativemarketer.net/
Lessons from consumer marketing
Q: You’ve worked with both Coke/Burger King and startups like Riverside. What’s something B2B marketers could steal from the consumer world that they’re too shy to try?
You’re not competing with your competitors for attention. You’re competing with the best content on LinkedIn and YouTube. So your ads need to be fun and interesting. Actually rewarding. Or as Ogilvy said: ‘You cannot bore people into buying your product’.
When creative risks go wrong
Q: What’s a creative risk you’ve taken that totally flopped? (We want the full horror story 🙃)
I once made a meme ad for a B2B startup. The visual was a guy sitting on train tracks with a train coming at him. The train represented the pain point. People in the comments got furious, saying we were making fun of train safety. The startup had nothing to do with trains, but we had to pull the ad. After that, the client never wanted to try creative ideas again haha ;(
Sharing knowledge pays off
Q: You’ve built 50k followers on LinkedIn by giving away ideas for free. Isn’t that just training people to never hire you? Or does it actually do the opposite?
People are too busy to do it all themselves. Even if you hand them the playbook. Sharing advice for free just proves you know your stuff. And usually, the more you share, the more people want to hire you to do it for them.
The brutal truth about boring ads
Q: If you had to summarize your ‘Boring Products, Fun Ads’ course in one brutally honest sentence, what would it be?
Making boring ads is a very expensive hobby.
Image credits: https://thecreativemarketer.net/
Final thoughts
A big thanks to Shlomo for sharing his time, insights, and unapologetically honest takes. It’s conversations like this that make Honestly Marketing what it is. The whole point of this series is to strip away the fluff, show what really works, and give marketers ideas they can actually use.
Love Shlomo’s approach? Subscribe to The Creative Marketer for quick, practical marketing tips straight from his experience with startups and big brands.
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