Intuit QuickBooks: The B2B Brand Inspiring Customers With Creators and West Ham United

There are not many accounting software brands that use their marketing communications to inspire their customers to fulfill their dreams, but with 'Power Your Possible' as the creative platform for its latest drive, Intuit QuickBooks is doing just that.

Working with FCB London, the AI-powered system has produced a campaign with attitude that also taps into the partnership in place with Premier League football club West Ham, signed in July 2024. And unlike most other B2B initiatives, it has also adopted the growing use of creators to help reach younger audiences.

Michael Benjamin, EMEA director of marketing at Intuit QuickBooks, and Ben Perez Usher, creative director at FCB London, outline the strategy behind the campaign, including working with creators Gabs and Charley and the partnership between client and agency.

Creative Salon: Describe what Intuit QuickBooks stands for as a brand.

Michael Benjamin: Intuit is a global financial technology platform dedicated to powering prosperity for 100 million customers across the globe. Our customers are at the heart of what we do, and our brand helps put more money in small businesses’ pockets, saving them time by eliminating financial admin, and ensuring they have confidence in every financial decision they make.

What was the brief and the challenge that this latest campaign aimed to meet?

Michael Benjamin: Our goal is to be the number one AI-powered expert end-to-end technology platform, driving broad audience appeal to accelerate customer acquisition, expand into the mid-market, and elevate our brand leadership.

We challenged FCB London to give us bold, differentiated creative, that would disrupt the category through compelling visual storytelling, driving action by tapping into the emotional instincts of our audience. This brief also marks a step-change in our media strategy, shifting from a traditional broadcast to platform-first approach, allowing us to be more targeted and efficient.

We also wanted to drive brand fame with bold digital native creative to drive market disruption and audience salience and ensure visual consistency across all customer touchpoints, ensuring distinctive, recognisable brand assets that enhance mental availability and guide customers through the funnel.

Other aims were to establish mid-market positioning, shifting perceptions of QuickBooks and increasing awareness among this audience, elevate our brand tone of voice– through customer voice and authentic storytelling and leverage a digital-first approach with the use of digital-native creatives and creators, to maximise impact across priority channels.

What inspired ‘Power Your Possible’ to become the campaign idea? Who is it aimed to inspire?

Ben Perez Usher: When we’re coming up with ideas for our clients, we start with the truth. We immerse ourselves in the rational facts first and foremost. In this case, we dove into the AI-powered features of the Intuit QuickBooks platform. Then, we spoke to as many small and medium-sized businesses as we could. We talked to accountants. Because no-one knows the truth about a product better than its customers.

When we know all the rational truths, we started playing with how to bring them to life in an emotional way. Because as much as we pretend we don’t, we make decisions with our hearts, not our heads.

“Power Your Possible” was that emotional idea. It feels exciting, full of attitude. It’s showing every business owner and accountant in the UK that no matter the size of your ambition, Intuit QuickBooks can help you reach it, quicker.

What does this campaign and your research reveal about UK businesses right now and the support owners need?

Michael Benjamin: It's no secret that UK's small businesses are quite literally the backbone of the UK economy. However, keeping going, let alone being able to thrive, can be very challenging, with legislation and tax changes to navigate, staffing issues and rising costs taking up time and energy. Our research shows that small business owners need to lean into automation and AI tools to accelerate their success and growth, and this is where we come in. On a macro level, research shows that if the UK’s 1.1 million micro businesses doubled their uptake of AI technology, it could unlock a £16.6bn productivity boost.

'Power Your Possible' stars our real-life customers and uses their stories to illustrate how using Intuit QuickBooks can power your success - giving the campaign added authenticity and emotional cut-through.

Why work with creators Gabs and Charlie?

Michael Benjamin: Firstly, Gabs & Charlie are Intuit customers, and we have worked with them before, when they created some fun, matchday content as part of our partnership with West Ham Football Club. For us, they are a great example of how you can scale your business with QuickBooks - they started out at University, united by a love of sport and trying to make content and editing out of their bedrooms.

Fast forward to three years later and they have a successful content creation/sports journalism business where they get to work with big brands and football teams. QuickBooks has helped them stay on top of their business financial admin, which is crucial when you have a small team that needs to be agile.

How do you brief and then guide creators to tie in and be consistent with the rest of the campaign?

Ben Perez Usher: We co-create with influencers so that they can bring what makes them unique to the table. Influencers know their audience better than we ever could, so we try and make the process as positive and collaborative as possible. With 'Power Your Possible', for example, we worked with well-loved entrepreneur and best-selling author Simon Squibb. He’s built a reputation for helping others realise their ambitions, which is exactly what Intuit QuickBooks do for their customers.

In terms of briefing and guiding, using Simon as our example, we shared our thinking behind the idea, how we felt it married well with his audience, and his passion blew us away.

From there, it was about working closely with Simon and his team, so that what he is creating feels like it has the same spirit and attitude as 'Power Your Possible', whilst staying true to what his audience wants from him. This kind of collaboration doesn’t mean identical voices. It means shared intent, expressed in different but authentic ways.

How will the six testimonial films be used to support the campaign? How were those businesses chosen to feature?

Ben Perez Usher: The age of being able to do one big TV ad and sit back is over. Today people engage with brands in dozens of different places, and they expect something different from each of them.

At FCB we work closely with platform partners like Google, Meta and LinkedIn to make sure our ideas are powerful and flexible. Big enough to disrupt in every channel and every space. So, for 'Power Your Possible', as well as the fast paced digital and TV films that stop thumbs on social and make people look up from their sofas, we’ve also created longer form testimonials films.

These are the same four businesses and two accountants that feature in the rest of our campaign, but here they are telling their business journeys in their own words. It means our audience can engage with their stories in a different way and really get into the authentic details of how Intuit QuickBooks helps them.

The partnership has been ongoing for nearly two years now between Intuit QuickBooks and FCB London. What makes a great agency partnership and how is that built in the first year or so?

Michael Benjamin: Working with FCB has been transformational for our brand both locally and globally – they have taken the time to really understand the complexities of our business and the nuances of the UK FMS [Financial Management System] market, and this has resulted in some fantastic, award-winning work. The secret to a great agency partnership is centred around three things: mutual trust, respect and constant communication – this really does lead to the best possible work!

Ben Perez Usher: I’ll echo what Michael’s said. A partnership is exactly that. It’s two teams of people, a shared ambition, and a willingness to trust each other to get there. In the first year we define the goals together. We draw the map and agree on the destination. But just as important as the plan is the relationship behind it. That’s why we made time early on for the FCB and Intuit teams to get to know one another outside of work because that builds that trust that Michael’s talking about.

It’s easier to face a tight deadline or a tricky brief when you’re working with people you know well. It helps that FCB and Intuit are a good cultural fit. We’re all passionate about the work, and remember to have fun making it.