The Department: How Maersk disrupted the B2B advertising space

How do you convince the B2B logistics world that a heritage ocean carrier now offers Air Freight? Maersk is in an era of strategic transformation from a heritage ocean carrier to a global end-to-end logistics integrator

For the company, the challenge was severe: Traditional B2B advertising was being ignored in a "sea of sameness" and couldn’t influence perception with the impact needed. To shift product awareness, we couldn't just announce it - we had to earn the audience's attention first.

Maersk disrupted the category by behaving like an entertainment brand. "The Department", a character-driven sitcom series, alongside a video-first strategy, captured attention and drove massive, statistically significant perception shifts.

The videos earned an extraordinary 18.41 seconds of dwell time, 500% above benchmark and one of the best performances across LinkedIn in all of 2025. Crucially, the LinkedIn x Kantar brand lift study showed that awareness of "provides an air freight service" increased by 18.5%, thereby fulfilling the primary objective of the campaign.

We drove massive perception shifts among Senior decision-makers - including a 44% relative uplift in believing Maersk "Frees up time" and a 34% increase in "Ensures peace of mind with their commitment" by breaking B2B category conventions.

This proves that taking the risk paid off, and that in B2B, entertainment can be the ultimate strategic weapon to break through and reposition a legacy brand.

Maersk, one of Denmark’s most iconic companies, is in an era of strategic transformation: evolving from a heritage ocean carrier to a global end-to-end logistics integrator. A critical component of this transformation is building market awareness for Maersk’s Air Freight.

But we faced a massive perception barrier. If B2B decision-makers do not know you offer Air Freight, you are not invited to the RFP process, locking you out of long-term, high-value contracts. Our primary objective was clear: we urgently needed to shift market perception and significantly build awareness that Maersk provides an Air Freight offering.

The decision-maker dynamics for logistics are complex, involving multiple stakeholders from entry-level researchers to Senior executives. Reaching them is notoriously difficult. Our analysis revealed a fundamental challenge: the logistics industry communicates in a way that is almost indistinguishable. Advertisers rely on the same visuals and messages – containers, trucks and corporate interviews. The result? Decision-makers operate on autopilot and scroll past. Stagnating engagement showed traditional B2B tactics were no longer effective.

The strategy was built on a simple insight: logistics decision-makers are people first, professionals second. In a ruthless attention economy, purely rational messaging does not earn attention.

If we wanted to explain that Maersk now offers complex, integrated air solutions, we couldn't just act like a logistics advertiser. We had to earn their emotional permission and their time before we could deliver the rational business case.

To successfully shift perception and build Air Freight awareness, our strategy focused on two pillars:

Disruption (Behavioural): Defy low-involvement norms by capturing active attention. Stop the scroll and hold engagement long enough to tell a story.

Perception (Brand): Drive a significant uplift in awareness of Maersk’s Air Freight offering and positively impact key trust attributes.

The solution was "The Department" - a character-driven sitcom universe set inside a fictional logistics department. Instead of a dry product announcement, we used high production value, humour, and relatable office scenarios to capture the everyday chaos logistics professionals recognize. The series naturally demonstrated how Maersk solves real operational challenges by making the audience the hero and Maersk the helpful colleague, seamlessly integrating the speed and reliability of our Air Freight offering into the storyline.

Aligned with this insight, the content was distributed through a digital video ecosystem designed to reach decision-makers in both a professional and personal context, optimizing for attention and video views to maximize storytelling, recall potential, and crucially, time spent with the new universe.

Professional context: LinkedIn served as our primary B2B anchor, targeting logistics decision-makers while in a business mindset. Video formats disrupted the otherwise functional B2B feed and encouraged deeper engagement.

Personal context: Recognising that B2B buyers consume content beyond working hours, we extended the universe to YouTube, leveraging its strong video reach to engage audiences in more relaxed viewing environments.

Precision targeting: Programmatic video and display were used to ensure we reached relevant stakeholders and existing Maersk customers through advanced targeting capabilities.

In China, the strategy was adapted to local consumption habits through partnerships with iQiyi, MangoTV and WeChat/Tencent, mirroring the global balance of high-quality video and precise targeting.

The bold shift from traditional B2B communication to entertainment-driven storytelling successfully broke category conventions and definitively shifted market perception regarding Maersk's Air Freight capabilities.

First, we secured the necessary attention. On LinkedIn, the video creatives achieved an extraordinary average dwell time of 18.41 seconds, more than 500% above platform benchmarks and among the strongest performances across LinkedIn in all of 2025. The videos delivered a strong 67% view-through rate, more than double the B2B average, demonstrating a remarkable ability to capture attention among logistics decision-makers.

This sustained attention translated directly into our primary objective: shifting product awareness. The Kantar x LinkedIn study proved that the campaign drove statistically significant uplifts across the board. The awareness of Maersk’s Air Freight offering rose by 18.5%, fulfilling our objective to build knowledge around this key offering. Key brand attributes saw a notable uplift as well, with an increase of 19.4% in “Frees up time to focus on core business”. Overall brand favourability increased by 16.6%, directly addressing our goal of influencing the perception of Maersk positively.

Furthermore, the campaign successfully influenced Senior decision-makers, the most critical and difficult-to-reach segment in the B2B buying journey. Crucially, "Provides an Air Freight Service" increased 28% and brand favourability increased by 22.3%.

Among these Senior roles, the campaign also drove massive shifts in the attributes required to win complex logistics contracts: An increase of 44.1% in "Frees up time to focus on core business", a 34.5% increase in "Ensures peace of mind with their commitment", and a 20.6% increase in "Is a company I can trust".

By breaking category conventions and earning real attention, Maersk successfully repositioned itself in the minds of logistics buyers and proved that, even in B2B, entertainment can drive business transformation.