What the Kardashians can teach us about creative B2B marketing

“Our target prospects are only interested in price and function.”

We tend to hear that a lot from our B2B clients when we’re asked to help drive awareness or  generate leads for their enterprise products. Yet, it’s hard for us to believe that even the most trollish procurement officer or IT influencer guy (with apologies to procurement officers and IT influencer guys everywhere) aren’t users of iPhone, posters on Facebook, readers of Hunger Games, fans of Star Wars, nor consumers of reality TV.

What does “Keeping up with the Kardashians” have anything to do with (for instance)  enterprise servers, you ask? Nothing, or everything, depending on where you’re coming from.

If you’re literally imagining Kourtney or Kim standing next to an IBM system z mainframe,  then you’re bound to run into mental resistance. But if you’re prepared to ask a better quality question, e.g. “Can a massively popular reality TV show about a celebrity family teach me something new about B2B communications?”, your answers may be of a correspondingly better quality.

Take, for instance, the concept of reality TV. Is it really so out of whack to create a series of  short ‘reality TV’ or ‘hidden cam’ clips showing bored IT guys getting up to crazy stunts in the office, doing anything but their jobs, thanks to the amazing high-availability of the system z?

 Or if we analyze the Khloe’s instant yet massive wedding to Lamar Odom, we could think  up of a series of interesting case studies, or even PR campaigns, of companies that have achieved “quickie but biggie” success in a short amount of time, thanks to the computing power of the system z.

And since the system z is part of a family of servers in the IBM pantheon, that could also be the spark for the idea of a “family of enterprise computing products” that are individually unique, yet more powerful together: highly relevant to large companies with different computing needs across the entire enterprise. 

The list goes on. 

The lesson here for every B2B communications professional: never, ever kill a nascent idea,  before it’s had a chance to stretch its legs, or to spark off a whole slew of new ideas.

To paraphrase Forrest, when it comes to ideation, you’ll never know what you’re going to get. If you’re willing to hold a Gump-like openness to ideas as they start to appear and crystallize,  you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the quality and relevance of ideas as time goes on.

The best concepts are wildly lateral, yet highly relevant to the challenge at hand: when you see it, you go “That’s it”. 

And of course, one great benefit of creative marketing ideas is the ability to generate viral buzz and word-of mouth, helping to greatly amplify limited marketing budgets.

If harnessed well, such creative campaigns can become a powerful way of setting your brand  apart from others in the minds of customers. Some of my personal favourites include Symantec’s Complexity Master, that had actors portraying IT staff in a dysfunctional “Dilbert-like” company which I find hilarious yet strangely relevant.

I’m also a fan of Intel’s Museum of Me where one’s life on Facebook is displayed as a continuous series of museum exhibits: it makes me feel like a present day Churchill. I admire Intel’s ability to come up with this concept (among many others) mainly because it stays true to their branding DNA – that is to reach consumers despite being several steps removed from the final product that we actually use. 

And can anyone even think of anything remotely funny about Agilent’s liquid  chromatography products? Yet, kudos to the company for coming up with an integrated campaign that leveraged print advertising, direct mail, e-mail, online advertising, micro sites, T-shirts, coffee mugs, and hand puppets. Yes, you heard that right: puppets.

The key with any great B2B marketing or communications campaign is a willingness to stay  open to ideas. Creative campaigns, using ideas from unconventional sources, can help to provide good balance between creativity, relevance and impact.

So, if anyone from IBM is listening, I’d love to speak to you about a new campaign called “Kicking it with the z-man”. 

Allan Tan, Managing Director, Ying Communications

Email: Allan.Tan@yingcomms.com