Standing before audiences of marketing leaders around the world, I’ve witnessed a fundamental shift in how progressive organisations approach customer relationships. The evolution from transactional marketing to Human-to-Human (H2H) marketing isn’t just a tactical pivot—it represents the marriage of innovation leadership and authentic customer connection that defines market leaders in the 21st century.
This relationship is significant because 84% of C-suite leaders identify innovation as critical for growth, while only 6% say they are happy with their capability. The gap between innovation aspiration and results often stems from a fundamental disconnect: organisations pursuing innovation without genuinely understanding the people (humans) they serve. However, this also presents a tremendous opportunity for transformation and growth.
The Innovation Blind Spot: When Technology Replaces Empathy
In my work with Fortune 500 companies around the world, I’ve observed a persistent pattern. Organisations investing heavily in innovation labs, digital transformation initiatives, and breakthrough technologies while maintaining arm’s-length relationships with their customers. Organisations trying to innovate for people rather than with them.
One of the fundamental reasons for this stems from how we position innovation and indeed talk about it inside organisations. The truth is that innovation is not an activity for organisations to do, but an effect their ideas and solutions have on people. It’s a designation that your customers and market bestow on you when they experience your offerings as sufficiently valuable, meaningful, or transformative. This fundamental truth aligns perfectly with H2H marketing’s core premise: authentic value emerges from genuine human connection and understanding.
The most innovative marketing organisations I’ve encountered understand that empathy is their competitive edge. They recognise that innovation requires us to work against our brain’s natural wiring—both for their internal teams and for the customers who must adopt new solutions.
Beyond Innovation Theatre: H2H as Cultural Catalyst
Too many organisations have fallen prey to what is now called ‘innovation theatre’—the elaborate staging of innovation activities without the necessary cultural and leadership foundations. This could be seen in the form of high-profile innovation events that lack follow-through, or the adoption of trendy technologies without a clear strategy. H2H marketing serves as the antidote to this as it demands authentic engagement that cannot be faked or staged.
Consider the distinction between traditional marketing-led innovation and H2H-driven innovation:
Traditional Approach:
- Focus on features and functionality
- Broadcast messaging to market segments
- Innovation driven largely by internal assumptions
- Success is measured by reach and frequency
H2H-driven Innovation Approach:
- Focus on solving genuine human problems
- Two-way dialogue with individuals
- Innovation co-created with customers
- Success is measured by meaningful impact and relationship depth
This shift requires what I call ‘Differentiated Innovation’—the middle ground between incremental improvements and radical moonshots. It’s the competitive battleground where sustainable growth and cultural transformation happen simultaneously. Differentiated Innovation is about finding the balance between making hundreds of small, continuous improvements and taking infrequent big, risky leaps. It’s about understanding your customers’ problems, needs, and desires, and then creating novel solutions in a way that’s both impactful and sustainable.
The Empathy-Innovation Connection: A Strategic Imperative
H2H marketing’s emphasis on empathy and transparency directly addresses loss aversion—our brains are naturally programmed to feel the pain of potential losses about twice as intensely as the pleasure of equivalent gains. When marketing leaders understand this psychological reality, they can craft innovation-focused narratives that address genuine concerns rather than amplifying them, fostering a deeper connection with their audience.
Effective H2H marketing requires the same psychological safety that drives innovation cultures. Just as teams with high psychological safety are 67% more innovative, customers who feel psychologically safe with a brand are more likely to engage in the co-creation and adoption of creative solutions, fostering a greater sense of security and confidence.
Practical H2H Innovation Leadership: Applying The ODC Framework
My ODC Framework—where executives Own, middle managers Drive, and frontline employees Contribute—extends naturally to H2H marketing:
Executives Own the H2H Vision:
- Authentically model vulnerability in customer interactions
- Allocate resources for meaningful relationship building
- Champion customer-centric innovation metrics
Middle Managers Drive H2H Implementation:
- Middle managers are uniquely positioned at the intersection of strategic vision and operational reality
- Translate customer insights into actionable innovation-focused initiatives
- Remove barriers between customer-facing teams and innovation teams
Frontline Teams Contribute H2H Intelligence:
- Capture authentic customer stories and pain points
- Test early-stage ideas with trusted customer relationships
- Provide feedback loops that continually inform innovation strategy
Technology as a Human Amplifier, Not Replacement
The most sophisticated H2H marketing strategies leverage technology to enhance rather than replace human connection. This aligns with my perspective on systems thinking in innovation leadership. Traditional approaches focus exclusively on developing innovation skills in individuals or establishing innovation processes while ignoring the broader system that innovation requires.
Progressive organisations use AI and automation to:
- Personalise at scale while maintaining an authentic voice
- Anticipate customer needs through behavioural insights
- Enable deeper conversations by removing administrative friction
- Create meaningful experiences that feel genuinely human
The Middle Management Opportunity in H2H Marketing
The most overlooked leverage point in innovation-led transformation is the middle management layer. These leaders aren’t the “frozen middle” they’re typically made out to be —they’re the essential “DRIVE” layer that translates executive vision into organisational action.
In H2H marketing, middle managers serve as the crucial bridge between customer insights and creative execution. They possess the authority to allocate resources, the operational knowledge to implement changes, and the customer proximity to validate assumptions.
Organisations that successfully integrate H2H marketing with innovation leadership typically see:
- Faster innovation cycles driven by continuous customer feedback
- Higher adoption rates for new solutions co-created with customers
- Stronger competitive moats built on authentic relationships
- Increased employee engagement through meaningful customer connections
Moving Beyond Marketing Metrics to Innovation Impact
H2H marketing demands a fundamental rethinking of success metrics. Rather than focusing solely on traditional marketing KPIs, innovation-led organisations measure:
- Relationship depth over reach
- Customer co-creation participation over passive consumption
- Problem-solving impact over feature adoption
- Long-term value creation over short-term campaign performance
In the same vein as “What gets measured gets done”, what gets measured and celebrated becomes part of our cultural DNA. When marketing leaders celebrate authentic human connection and collaborative problem solving, they signal that customer relationships are the foundation of sustainable innovation capability and competitive advantage.
A Call to Action for Marketing Leaders
As we navigate an era of unprecedented technological capability and human disconnection, H2H marketing represents more than a strategic choice—it’s an imperative for innovation. The organisations that will shape the future understand that innovation is not about implementing a specific program or achieving a particular metric but about who the organisation becomes through embedding innovation capability into its cultural DNA.
Three things for marketing leaders to think about and take action on:
- Audit your innovation assumptions: How much of your innovation strategy is driven by internal beliefs versus authentic customer insights? And how often do those insights inform and update that strategy?
- Empower middle management: Companies with strong middle management engagement in innovation are 38% more likely to succeed. Give your marketing managers the authority and resources to act on customer intelligence.
- Measure human impact: Develop metrics that capture the depth and authenticity of customer relationships, not just their scale.
The future belongs to organisations that recognise marketing not as a department but as the human interface of innovation. When we truly connect with the people we serve, innovation becomes not what we do to them, but what we create together.
As I prepare to share these insights with marketing leaders at the Global Marketing Summit, in Istanbul, I’m reminded that the most profound innovation-led shift will emerge when we stop seeing customers as targets and start experiencing them as collaborators in shaping a better future.
😃 Follow me for more insights → https://www.linkedin.com/in/crisbeswick/