B2B Marketing More Insight and Analysis

Reviewed by Albert Jan (AJ) Huisman, regional marketing manager continental Europe at Towers Watson

‘Yes, yes, yes, that was a very nice brand thingy document whatsit. Now then, I need a new case study and my wife likes pink...' The first thing that you notice when reading Scot McKee's book is the style that it's written in. Mckee has a certain direct, elaborate and definitely humorous way of putting things. From its inception McKee takes us through a short history of B2B branding to its current state, mixing theory and practical examples and ends up taking a look into the (online) possibilities that lie ahead.

The journey that the book takes you through conveys the continuous need for improvement of B2B branding efforts. A brand is a confusing thing, it's not merely the badge or logo but a brand is all about perceptions in the minds of an audience. What we as marketers must manage are those perceptions in order to build a reputation that sets our company apart from the competition. Preferably we manage this in a creative way. The central message of this book therefore is: ‘B2B marketer, dare to be different!". In these often homogeneous markets we operate in, having a brand and reputation may well be the most important thing that makes buyers choose us. Not anything to think lightly of, and McKee doesn't. He pleas to B2B marketers to work on storytelling the benefits instead of merely stating the functional features of products or services. He uses a lot of real-life examples from his own experience to support this. The examples range from rebranding Eskimo's, using corporate brand tattoos, through to the use of dodgy stock photography and rocket science.

What's good about the book is that McKee uses his own voice to tell his story and while it makes you laugh frequently it helps you understand what he's on about. McKee is passionate about creative B2B branding - "Love is the magic ingredient" - and he manages to convey his enthusiasm effectively throughout this book. While McKee himself claims that he's never been able to read a whole business book I was happy to read his book, although I would have liked it even better if the form it was written in would have been more creative - it's a lot to take in and although the content is good, a more creative form could help to digest this even better. All in all a great expose on the way forward for B2B branding, with a lot of true to life observations, interesting statements and swipey, clicky things that you want to hug and kiss (really!).

Reviewed by Robert Hodson, director of Jaegerson

I had never heard of Scot McKee before I received his book but I don't mind admitting that I am now a bit of a Scot McKee stalker. I regularly visit his blog and we follow each other via twitter (sounds a bit homo-erotic but it's not, well not on my side anyway).

I really enjoyed Scot's book. The tone is perfectly suited to the subject matter - to the point, informed and a bit mad - which I'm sure stems from Scots own personality. And that's kind of where scot sets out his stall on branding. Your brand is not a clever logo, pictures of business clones in suits shaking hands; it's not a single campaign or even a group of campaigns.

Your brand (as I will now be preaching as often as people will listen) is everything your business does as it is perceived by your customers, employees and prospects. Your brand is the personality of your organisation; it's what truly differentiates your brand beyond abc company and the new, faster and cheaper widget 765 compact edition for half price before the end of august with any other purchase.
One of the things that struck me while reading the book was just how much of what he recommends is regularly ignored by the great bland B2B business landscape and how it would be much more fun if people started to adopt Scots ideas while communicating their brands to us the unsuspected business consumer.

Towards the end Scot talks about social media and puts into context the power of being able to engage an audience establish their preferences and become part of the dialogue. This section is particularly interesting and provides some excellent ammunition to counter the ‘who cares what I had for lunch last Tuesday' objection which always rears it ugly head.

In summary if you are involved in helping others create a brand, grow awareness or even reduce customer service complaints then this book is definitely for you and would be a useful read for clients.