Use appendix as the basis for the essay.
For this assignment write no more than 700 words:
– discussing key differences between B2B and B2C approaches.
– you are free to choose a particular specialization, such as marketing differences outlined in
the article in appendix 1, or you may choose to focus on industry type, customer base, or
historical differences between the approaches.
Marking Rubric
High Distinction – Excellent understanding
of the concepts with very
sound synthesis of the
literature (typically 6+
references cited/quoted).
Appendix 1
The names Les Binet and Peter Field should by now, be familiar to almost every executive working in media and
marketing. The “godfathers of advertising effectiveness” have each built a global reputation for understanding what
does and does not drive advertising success and profitability. But up until now, their work has been limited to the glitzy
world of consumer marketing, or B2C as it is more commonly known, where a single organisation like Gillette or
Vegemite might target millions of end users. Their work has not looked at or been applied to the staid category of B2B
marketing where companies like Visy or PwC attempt to target large organisational clients.
But all that changed last week when the two authors presented a new study that specifically examined the effectiveness of
B2B marketing campaigns. The study was commissioned by LinkedIn which, unlike Facebook or Instagram, derives far
more of its revenue from the B2B world than from B2C. And the broad summary of this new work, based on an analysis
of hundreds of business-to-business campaigns, is that the lessons of B2B are largely identical to that of B2C. That might
sound like a disappointing conclusion but it is no such thing. Almost every experience I have ever had with B2B
marketers dwells on the sizeable differences with B2C and why “it’s not the same in B2B”. Well, according to the
godfathers of effectiveness that statement turns out to be almost completely bogus.
And the similarities are not necessarily a good thing. Just as Binet and Field have lamented the short-term, efficiency
focus of marketers in B2C companies, they have found a similar level of impatience and myopia afflicting their B2B
brethren too. Famously the duo prescribed a 60/40 rule for B2C marketers in which 60 percent of the total marketing
budget should be invested in long-term brand building, with the remainder spent on shorter-term sales activation. And
while their analysis of B2B reveals a slightly more balanced prescription — they recommend that 54 percent of spend should
go to long-term branding — it still suggests that most B2B organisations are spending far too much on their sales teams
and short-term promotions and not enough on building a brand. The duo highlighted that ignorance with an astonishing
quote from one senior B2B executive: “We don’t have marketing run by marketers. We’re engineers. And we work on
growth. Branding is really that emotional drizzle that you guys put on top.” It’s a terrifying quote but symptomatic of a
B2B industry that sees marketing and branding as fluff and sales as the place to focus their time, effort and investment on.
In reality — as Binet and Field demonstrated ably last week with data — you want to build a B2B brand to target
decision-makers first and then harvest those sales with suitable activations and sales calls.
COMP3760/6760 Assignment 1 Semester 2, 2022
Page 4
As with their work in B2C, the duo also poured a lot of cold water over the idea of differentiation. They find that the most
important challenge for B2B marketers is to keep their brand salient — always in the awareness of organisational
decision-makers. While it’s important for a brand like McKinsey to stand for certain things, it is unlikely those things will
be very different from Bain or BCG. The key in B2B is to be in the thoughts of target clients as much as possible. Maintain
that prevalence and your marketing will perform twice as well as campaigns that aim to deliver a specific message of
differentiation.
And there was another shock in the data last week. While most B2B marketers are careful to segment and target only
specific customer groups, data from Binet and Field suggest that the best returns are achieved by reaching every firm in
the category with broad reach and being “always on message”. The nuance of this lies in the idea that a successful B2B
marketer should be running two very different kinds of marketing campaigns each year. The first is brand-based and does
not focus extensively on product messages. Instead, the two or three key values of the company should be repeatedly
communicated in a way that constantly speaks to all potential B2B customers. Both IBM and Accenture have proven to be
masters at this kind of campaign in the past. The big message, big idea communication using mass channels such as news
media, outdoor and sponsorships. The second campaign should be more targeted with different products and different
messages aimed at very specific segments of the B2B market. There will be more of these campaigns and they should be
measured on their ability to directly generate sales. These campaigns will more likely use digital media like LinkedIn
which can very specific identity and target B2B decision-makers and will work in direct alignment with the sales force
via local events and sales aids.
At the moment most B2B companies in Australia focus on this second type of campaign and ignore the longer-term,
brand-based options. They do this because they look at the short-term and the immediate ROI of marketing campaigns.
But ROI is a stupid, stupid measure of marketing effectiveness because it only looks at short-term impact. The key lesson
of the effectiveness research of the past five years is that long-term brand investments actually prove significantly more
valuable when run in tandem to the sales activation campaigns. Whether the B2B marketers of Australia will pay attention
to this new work from Binet and Field is a moot point, however. In almost every B2B company the marketing team are
kept in a very small box and only allowed out for special occasions. The sales team runs the business and, crucially, has
the final say on what does and does not work when it comes to marketing. Selling them on the idea of taking resources
from their short-term campaigns and headcount to invest in the brand would appear beyond everyone. Even the godfathers of
modern advertising effectiveness.