How Code and Theory is boosting Amazon Ads, Qualcomm and other B2B brands

Code and Theory has developed into the emerging tech arm of Stagwell, incorporating innovations such as generative AI and mixing creativity with coding. The work is translating into success in the business-to-business space, shaking up a sector of advertising that can sometimes be a little stale. Clients are taking notice, with the agency’s B2B roster now including Qualcomm, JPMorgan Chase, Volvo Trucks, Thomson Reuters and Amazon Ads, among others. The B2B workload helped Code and Theory post a 2024 revenue jump of 26% compared with the year prior, as new business increased by 15%. See all of Ad Age’s 2025 Agency A-List winners here Amazon charged the agency with introducing more small businesses to its ad offering. It might seem easy to sell marketers on Amazon Ads—after all, the e-commerce giant is raking in advertising money. But Code and Theory had to appeal to companies that sometimes consider Amazon to be competition or a behemoth that might not understand the plight of small businesses. Also, Amazon Ads is a challenger itself, competing against established internet ad players. Code and Theory’s push for Amazon Ads last year used the tagline: “Ads that work as hard as you do.” “People don’t think of Amazon Ads first when you’re a small business, they think big, institutional and ingrained players,” said Code and Theory CEO Michael Treff. “So there was an awareness challenge, which we were able to, you know, blow the roof off of.” The idea was to position Amazon Ads as a friend, and the campaign targeted small businesses across LinkedIn, Meta and Reddit. There were online ads, digital video and audio spots for podcasts. “You do this [marketing] through storytelling, and you do it through making it very clear what the benefits are … why Amazon understands small businesses,” Treff said. The Amazon Ads ad blitz lifted unaided brand awareness by 66%, according to the agency. Within three months of launching the campaign, there were 700,000-plus visits to Amazon Ads’ website, about double the expected number, according to Code and Theory. For Qualcomm, Code and Theory created what its team called a “B2D” (business-to-developer) campaign. The agency helped Qualcomm market to the high-tech tinkerers that use its chips and platforms for their own products. Code and Theory, with its engineering expertise, helped redesign Qualcomm’s developer portal. Then it advertised the updated user experience and tools to a group of developers who famously dislike advertising, Treff said. “They kind of hate marketing,” Treff said. Yet the campaign led to 18 times the number of software downloads than Qualcomm had anticipated, Treff said. For Volvo Trucks, which caters to companies that need fleets for long-haul drivers, Code and Theory devised a digital campaign to unveil the new line of vehicles. The VNL Volvo Trucks were infused with the latest technology, so the marketing had to be as well. Code and Theory helped roll out the trucks with an immersive website with 3D visualizations. Customers could customize designs of the trucks on the revamped website. Within the first six weeks, visitors to the site created 950 custom builds of the trucks. (In all of 2023, potential customers built 1,045 mock-ups of custom Volvo Trucks, according to Code and Theory.) “When we think about B2B marketing, oftentimes it gets real pigeonholed into a specific set of rules and approaches because it’s historical and traditional to do things that way,” Treff said. “Because of our unique blend of technology and creativity … the solutions tend to be a bit different.” See all of Ad Age’s 2025 Agency A-List winners here

How Code and Theory is boosting Amazon Ads, Qualcomm and other B2B brands

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