I don’t always agree with the folks over at Gyro:HSR, but I just read a post by Milan Martin that makes some strong points. He takes awhile to get to it, but eventually does a nice job of making the case that B2B brands need to be built to resonate with people, not “businesses.” I’ve heard this argued time and again—I even wrote a post on it awhile back—but since many B2B companies’ marketing communications betray the fact that they (or their agencies) haven’t realized it yet, it’s still a point worth making. …Read More…

[Originally published on B2B Brand Debate. If you'd like to leave a comment, please do so here.]

* While differences surely exist from agency to agency, “strategist” and “planner” will be used interchangeably throughout this post. The author’s opinion is that the responsibilities implied by these titles involve considerable overlap, but this too is open for debate.

Has anyone else noticed that strategists and account planners are getting a bad rap lately? To see what I mean, check out the show Trust Me, and you’ll see that planners are consistently portrayed as vacuous time-wasters who do little more than provide eye-roll-inducing creative briefs. For a little insight into the source of the show’s point of view, look no further than a recent blog post by Bob Hoffman, The Ad Contrarian, entitled “I’m Tired Of Strategists,” and a second by Simon Veksner, on his blog Scamp, about “Nightmare Propositions.” These two posts popped up almost simultaneously, and underscore doubts—at least among the industry’s “creatives”—as to the importance of strategists and planners. …Read More…

[Originally published on B2B Brand Debate]

The goal of branding is sometimes explained as an attempt to create an emotional connection between brand and customer. It’s easy to demonstrate the effectiveness of this emotional side of branding with examples like Disney, Starbucks, and Harley-Davidson (brands that you may associate with happiness, indulgence, and rebellion, respectively). Brand managers working with business-to-business (B2B) brands, however, often chafe at the idea that their company or product—maybe an accounting firm or an esoteric scientific research tool—should be connecting with its customers at an emotional level. …Read More…