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Who decided that
B2B campaigns
had to be so boring,
anyway?
Time for change!
+10Easy steps to succeed on the New B2P Frontier
Prickley Issues 01
It’s been one of the most consistent conversation pieces over the past year: tuned-in MDs commenting on the somewhat confused state of B2B communication. It’s changing, everyone feels it, but how? And why such a Grand Canyon sized gap between enticing ‘pull’ B2C campaigns and the somewhat dull hard-sell ‘push’ tactics oft-used for B2B?
A middle ground has emerged in the boardrooms, namely B2P – Business to People. In the past year a wide array of vastly different clients came through our agency doors with highly
specific B2P briefings. Brands like California shoe company K-Swiss, global printer make Océ, Swedish Tourism Board VisitSweden, Schiphol, Amsterdam RAI, to name just a few. Their briefs were tellingly similar: give us B2B, but make it feel B2C. In trying to meet their expectations we spent much time seeking out the right balance between hard and soft selling, rational and emotional, cash and cuddly. Along the way we’ve made a few key discoveries. And we’ve packaged them for you here in this Prickly Issues whitepaper. And when all is said and done, we offer up a B2P Survival Guide for all those marketers looking for inspiring B2B campaigns.
What to do when high-end European retailers are no longer
stocking your most iconic shoe? This was the challenge
facing California sports company K-Swiss in the Spring of
2010. The result was an award-winning campaign (D&AD
‘In Book June 2011) that not only activated retailers to stock
more shoes, but ignited positive conversations about the
K-Swiss brand across the globe.
K-Swiss’s classic woos shoes into stock
Case 1K-Swiss
InsightWhile the Classic shoe itself is just
a pretty nifty heritage sneaker, it’s
story is extraordinary in these times of
fast-moving goods. The problem was,
K-Swiss didn’t communicate the story
of its shoe to its retail partners, namely
because the company didn’t know
the whole story itself. We immediate
set about piecing one together out
of the fragments of information and
communication lying dormant in the
company archives.
CampaignThe challenge was to tell the long story
of the Classic in a way that would help
retailers sell more shoes. So we broke the
story up into 8 non-linear chapters and
asked 8 respected underground designers
across the globe to design posters around
them. We sent the resulting double-sided
limited-edition posters to key retailers to
hang in their shops and hand out to their
most exclusive clients, creating goodwill
and making them part of the campaign’s
success.
ResultsThe results resonated far beyond
retailers. Because we packaged the hard-
sell story of the shoe in an emotionally
relevant way (i.e. respected designers),
major sneakerfreak communities picked
the story up and helped us create the
demand for retailers to stock more
Classic shoes. The campaign and social
media strategy it entailed resulted in a
63% increase in brand awareness and a
36% jump in positive conversations about
K-Swiss.
Media Mix Print, brand story, DM,
PR: plugging & seeding
The lowdown
The D&AD award was certainly unexpected, butit just goes to show that even B2B campaigns can create positive B2C buzz on a global scale if that’s what you set out to do from day 1.
Case 1K-Swiss
Océ is a global market leader in large-format printers and
thought it was time to drive that point home through a global
B2B campaign around its new PosterPrinter. The brief: create
a powerful conversation starter for the brand’s global sales
force that helps them create genuine leads and ultimately
sell more printers.
The catch? Needs to be adaptable across all Océ’s OPCOs
and succeed with no media budget. The result was an online
mockumentary that drove home a hard B2B message;
namely, that the Océ Poster Printer is the fastest and
easiest poster printer on the planet.
Kick-starting conversations and creating quality leads for Océ’s global sales force
“We wanted a campaign that would tell the story of the PosterPrinter in a way that would inspire our sales force and function as a conversation starter. A B2B story that didn’t feel B2B.”
-Ed Lensen, International Business Development Manager, Océ Display Graphics Systems
Case 2Océ
InsightThe decisionmakers in the large-
format printing business (the guys
who place the orders) are the last link
in a very creative chain, but they are
still part of the creative chain. We
played into their creative instincts by
capturing every creative individual’s
dream: to escape the monotony of the
office!
CampaignWe scripted a story around two very
likeable young guys who launch a
pop-up printer business called ‘Instant
Poster Power’ from the back of their
customized van. The mockumentary
follows these two micropreneurs as
they service small businesses, pull
pranks, do some social good and
transform the urban landscape, all
with the help of the PosterPrinter. In
short, they capture the emotion of the
poster business and the importance of
posters in communication today. All
the printer’s USPs were worked into
the script, but we avoid typical B2B
corporatetalk through unscripted,
spontaneous dialogue to help the
message sound heartfelt and real.
The entire campaign was
complemented by an activation
microsite, where an online Poster-
Printer turned uploaded images into
virtual posters. The Instant Poster
Power also translated to on-site and
trade fairs where clients could turn
images from their telephones into
instant posters in 30 seconds.
ResultsIn the first few months after launch
some 30,000 video views and the
microsite hundreds of community
uploaded images. Every Océ Opco
picked up the campaign and adapted
both the film and microsite into local
languages. The campaign also sparked
local activation campaigns around
the Instant Poster Power theme. The
campaign was included in prestigious
international marketing magazine
Contagious as a Best Practices for
B2B campaigns.
Media MixOnline film, print, DM, web platform,
trade shows, PR: plugging & seeding
The lowdown
B2B campaigns are so caught up in corporatespeak that they often forget WHY their products and services are so interesting and unique. By giving the PosterPrinter a human, ‘outside-in’ context (instead of purely inside-out), the Océ sales team enthusiastically picked up on the campaign and used it as a serious tool to service current clients and to create new leads – each salesman was encouraged to plug&seed the film into his own networks.
Case 2Océ
The Swedish tourism board, VisitSweden, had one business
goal: get more Dutch to give up the Austrian and French
Alps for Swedish ski sojourns. An integral part of the
challenge was thus to convince travel agents to take
Swedish skiing seriously. What they got was the B2C/B2B
‘Fit for the Winter Games’ campaign that travelled well
beyond the agents’ offices and ended up a global cult hit.
Oh, and the first direct charter flights to Sweden.
How Swedish tourism got Dutch travel agents ontheir side
Case 3VisitSweden
InsightTo challenge the Dutch annual Alps
routine, Sweden needed a serious
edge, and we quickly pinpointed one,
an insight the Swedes themselves
weren’t particularly proud of. Namely,
that since 1986 the Swedish winter
sport towns of Are and Ostersund
had bid for the Olympic Games three
times – and lost. We didn’t see losing
bids however, we simply saw proof
that Sweden had world-class facilities.
CampaignThe ‘Fit for the Olympic Games’
campaign was created around two
amusing online films highlighting
Sweden’s Olympic ambitions and its
key USPs. We told the story through
two fanatical Swedes who dream of
the Olympics so they can display
their talents as, respectively, a mascot
and a streaker. In addition to DM, a
flyer team, web and taking the films
consumer direct via YouTube, we sent
agents a special package with DVD
and brochures and encouraged them
to send the film to at least three other
agents – in return they could win a
limited-edition ‘Fit for the Winter
Games’ bag.
ResultsBy activating Dutch travel agents
via DM, the bag and a special page
on the website, the number of Dutch
winter hotel stays after the campaign
doubled and the first winter charter
flight to Are took off from Schiphol.
B2C results were also impressive: over
800,000 video views, a 200% increase
in web visits and a campaign that
completely dominated all Google
search results for ‘Swedish winter
sport’.
Media MixFilm, Web platform, Print,
DM, Events, PR: plugging & seeding
The lowdown
Your B2B partners are also consumers, and in some situations you need to activate them like consumers. If they like something they’ll actively share and sell it. And if they don’t, encourage them other ways like giving them free give-aways.
Case 3VisitSweden
B2P Shorts
Schiphol’s ‘Magic in function’ film It’s not just enough to be Europe’s 5th largest hub and one
of the most innovative airports in the world. Sometimes,
you have to remind people that behind the business there’s
a clearly defined mission §and vision. Our ‘A day in the
Life’ B2P campaign for Schiphol was designed specifically
to spark positive conversations internally and with new
high-quality partners. More specifically, the short film
combines the Schiphol elements people know with behind-
the-scene action they don’t – the functional and the magic
of an airport.
Media Mix Brand story, Film
“Lemon managed to reinvent our corporate message and create a brand story that makes us appealing to virtually everyone. Never before did we get so many thumbs up!”
Chella Busch, Brand Manager Schiphol Group
B2B short 1Amsterdam Schiphol Airport
Amsterdam RAI’s inspiring ‘experience angel’
In its effort to further reinforce its status as a business
and innovation hub that connects people, the
Amsterdam RAI built a new congress building called
Elicium. Once built, they needed a campaign that would
inform its national and international business network
– large corporations, CEOs, organizers – of the Elicium’s
cutting edge facilities and, quite simply, fill their halls.
With ‘Elise’, we didn’t change the RAI’s messaging, we
just changed who was saying it by wrapping all those
USPs into an emotionally relevant story. Elise turned
all the RAI’s B2B communication into fun testimonials.
Next to posters, DM and web, we also turned Elise into
a teddy bear that businessmen could take home to their
children.
Media Mix Print, web platform, DM, events, brand story,
merchandize, PR: plugging & seeding
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Een galadiner, feest, beurs, congres, vergadering of training... RAI Elicium staat voor ongekende allure en elegantie. Wil je meer weten? Ik kan je nog veel meer laten zien!
Graag leid ik je rond op www.rai-elicium.nl
10.05.0061 rai-postersA0.indd 1 11-02-2010 13:09:42
WYSTC 2011’s fake travel trend challenge
We’re starting to really like B2B campaigns here at Lemon.
The latest in our string is The Fake Travel Trend Challenge
for The World and Student Travel Conference (WYSTC)
2011, a conversion campaign and identity rolled into one. The
conference organizers asked us to work with them to create a
quick-hit B2B campaign that would stimulate key delegates
to book booth space and attend the fair. The Challenge
invites key travel industry delegates to tweet their best fake
travel trend to win prizes. With this cheeky Challenge we’ve
positioned WYSTC’s authoritative insights against all those
sketchy online travel trends people are so eager to believe
these days. We already have a favorite fake trend: “Holy Land
tours spike as European youth rediscover religion.” Yeah,
right. Sorry, open exclusively to travel industry delegates only.
Media Mix Web, Twitter, identity, Facebook, brochures, DM
B2P Shorts
B2B short 2Amsterdam RAI
B2B short 3WYSTC
No more split personality companies
Transparency of the web means that
B2B and B2C are no longer mutually
exclusive. Google doesn’t differentiate
between the two.
From push to pull
Wrap your hard sell in a soft shell.
Rational information works, but
repackage those facts enticingly (i.e.
infographics) and recycle your content
in an emotionally relevant way.
Think (more) like a publisher
Content marketing is on the rise.
With all those daily clicks going to
Facebook and Twitter, content for
social platforms is rapidly replacing
expensive and flashy microsites – yes,
even for B2B.
Telling enables selling
Few things enable sales teams and
help generate leads as well as a simple
opening story about your company
and your product.
Work in your WHY
You can never drive home your vision,
mission and company culture enough.
However, one caveat: the more you
talk about things, the higher the
expectations that you make good
on them.
Flip page for next 5 steps.
The B2Psurvival guide10 easy steps to succeed on theNew B2B Frontier
The B2Psurvival
guide10 easy steps to succeed on the
New B2B Frontier
Can’t share? Despair!
Even B2B initiatives should link to
YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Flickr,
slideshare, pdfs, etc. You may have
30 white papers lying around, but if
people can’t share them they aren’t
going to get around.
Embrace employee advocacy
If it doesn’t inspire Jane in accounting,
it won’t inspire anyone else either.
Synchronize your voice
Create a clear and consistent tone
of voice across all your platforms
that mirrors the culture of your
company. B2B too often captures the
most boring part of your corporate
personality.
Content is key, but only when you do it consistently
Producing content is not enough,
you’ve got to produce unique and
compelling content – and consistently!
And then complement it with the
right marketing mix (blogs, videos,
microsites, newsletters, social media).
Yes, another tip from the
B2C playbook.
Post-purchase ambassadors
Perhaps the biggest opportunity
for B2B credibility is turning
happy clients into post-purchase
ambassadors simply by making their
comments visible on the platforms
people like to visit (i.e. Amazon,
retweets)
While we truly believe in universal sharing of ideas and content, our prickly
issues are not cut-and-paste affairs summarizing other people’s hard-thought
insights. We read a lot, we talk to a lot of people, we tweet and retweet and
keep our ears close to the ground, and our reports are born from all that.
If we appropriate original thinking, we give them credit. The rest is lemon
being, Well, lemon. We just thought you should know.
www.lemonscentedtea.com