Why does every B2B brand video feel the same?

You’re probably feeling it too, so many B2B brand videos are feeling super interchangeable right now.  

It’s not that teams don’t have stories to tell. It’s not a budget issue and it’s not even because every company is doing the same thing.  

A recent Reddit post from a creative director summed it up perfectly: after reviewing dozens of B2B brand videos, everything started to blur together. The same sweeping drone shots. The same piano music. The same vague promise about “transforming how teams work.” 

“We have a real story,” a commenter noted. “And somehow every studio keeps steering us toward the same template.” 

The tension between having something real to say and ending up with something generic is one B2B marketers are running into more and more.  

Most B2B video is designed to get approved instead of watched.  

One of the top responses in the thread cut straight to it: “Most B2B video is designed to feel safe to executives, not memorable to humans.” 

B2B brand videos know what good looks like, but the safe version of “good” is what gets consistently approved by leadership. When a video goes through multiple stakeholders, internal reviews, and risk-averse leadership it naturally moves toward something familiar.  

It may be something that looked like other successful videos and feels on “brand”, but that’s more of an optimization for internal comfort instead of external impact. 

Templates win because they’re predictable.

The “drone shot + piano music” formula is very familiar, but it didn’t happen by accident. It works in one very specific way: reducing risk.  

One commenter explained it well—when something looks like every other approved video, it feels proven and safe.  

Production studios are reinforcing this too by defaulting to templates. These are templates they know clients will recognize and approve which helps them deliver quickly and predictably.  

From the outside, it looks like a lack of originality. From the inside, it’s a system optimizing for predictability.  

The real story gets stripped out along the way.

What makes it more frustrating is that most teams actually do have something interesting to say. They’re looking at real customer results, specific use cases, and unique perspectives. But those details often get removed in the process. 

Why? 

Because specificity can feel risky. It introduces strong opinions, clearer positioning, and the chance that not everyone will relate. Instead, it gets smoothed out into something broadly acceptable.  

As one commenter put it: “The details that feel too specific are often exactly what makes it resonate.” 

But according to the marketers involved in this discussion, those are usually the first things to go. 

What B2B marketers should take from this. 

If you want better output, you have to change what the work is being optimized for. 

1. Decide whetheryou’reoptimizing for approval or attention. 
   Those are definitely not the same goal.  

          Content that gets approved easily: 

• • Feels familiar 
  • Avoids strong opinions 
  • Looks like what’s already been done 

          Content that gets attention: 

1. • Takes a position 
   • Feels specific 
   • Introduces something new or unexpected. 

          Most B2B teams try to do both and end up landing in the middle. 

2. Start with the outcome, not the format.
   One of the more practical points in the thread was about the brief. Specifically, marketers were talking about how generic briefs lead to generic work.
   If the ask is “show our culture” or “highlight our values”, you’re likely to get the same output every time. 
   Stronger briefs focus on who the video is for, what you want them to think or feel, and what they should do next. That clarity gives creative teams something to build around. 

3. Protect the parts that feel too specific.
   The instinct to generalize is strong in B2B. But the more you smooth out your message, the more it starts to blend in. The details that feel too niche, too opinionated, or too tied to a real situation are often the ones that make content stand out. If you’re debating whether or not to keep those, you may need to argue that those are the parts worth keeping. 

4. Fewer decision-makersleadsto better work.
   Another recurring theme in the discussion: committees flatten ideas.The more people involved in approving a piece of content, the more it can get pulled toward the middle. The conversation wasn’t saying to remove collaboration, but most commenters mentioned that having a clear owner, defined point of view, and someone with the authority to say yes involved makes the flow easier and stronger.  

The takeaway.  

The sameness in B2B video isn’t a creative failure. It’s a result of a system that rwards safety over impact. But until that system changes, the output won’t.  

If you take anything away from this conversation, it’s to be intentional about what your work is trying to achieve and what you’re willing to trade off to get there.  

Brands that stand out are the ones who are willing to take a risk and make something that doesn’t look like everything else.