Not all heroes use paid ads: Marketing when the budget’s frozen

When people talk about “thinking outside the box,” they usually picture big, bold ideas backed by big, bold budgets. But in large B2B tech companies, creativity often looks a lot quieter. Sometimes it’s not about reinvention at all. It’s about working with what’s already there, and making it count.

One of the first projects I worked on in a new role came with less-than-ideal conditions. I was onboarded remotely, hadn’t met any of my colleagues in person due to COVID-19 lockdown, and the budget had already been frozen. It was only February.

Not only was I still learning the ropes, who my 300,000 colleagues were, how the teams were divided, and how to request access to platforms I’d never even heard of, but I was also figuring out what actually mattered to the business and how I could make an impact with little more than my brain and a laptop.

Contrary to what I’d assumed about joining a massive company with (presumably) massive marketing budgets, there wasn’t much room for big, flashy campaigns. At least not yet. (See aforementioned budget freeze.)

No budget, no problem

I started digging through what was already available—partly to learn more about the technology stack and services, and partly just to see if there was anything I could actually use. I ended up building a collection of about 20 content pieces that had been published across different channels over the past two years. There was a healthy mix of thought leadership publications, articles, interviews—and sure enough, something was taking shape right before my eyes.

From there, I narrowed it down to six strong pieces, each authored by subject matter experts within the company. None of the pieces had been linked together. There was no red thread or overarching narrative to connect them.

So I created one.

I built an organic campaign that showcased the expertise of the original authors. Just structure, clarity, and a cosmetic update.

The result? It helped us stay top of mind in these turbulent times, boosted our visibility across social on a regional level, and was a smart, cost-effective way to get the right eyes on the right content.

Innovation looks different at 0% budget

And that’s okay. Sometimes “thinking outside the box” doesn’t mean reinventing the wheel. It just means stepping back and asking: What do we already have? What’s still valuable, even if it’s not new? And how can we make it work harder?

It’s easy to get stuck waiting for perfect conditions. But most of the time, they never arrive—especially not in large B2B tech organizations. Real creativity doesn’t always look loud. Sometimes it looks like working with what you’ve got and still making it count.

…at least until your budget is reinstated and you can hire a famous TikTokker to do a dance campaign about enterprise cloud migration.