B2B Marketing Blog

The dark side of B2B marketing

October 29, 2009 11:58 AM | By Joel Harrison
Ever wondered why it’s so hard to get your marketing message infront of senior decision makers? Well some new research might just have found the answer. According to a study by Psychological Consultancy, decision makers are increasingly under the influence of so-called ‘dark side’ personality traits.

In fact, the research claims that as much as 85 per cent of business leaders are prone to eleven different kinds of dark side characteristics, which break through in times of stress. It paints an alarming picture of a workplace dominated by sinister, malevolent despots with unknown powers and capacity for evil. Yes, it seems UK industry is run by a generation of Darth Vaders, who live by fear and ruthlessly crush any sign of rebellion – and yes, they are far worse than Simon Cowell.

Think of the scene at the beginning of Star Wars when Vader chokes a general who dares to question his authority. It’s very reminiscent of a board meeting. No wonder such leaders are not interested in engaging with your marketing when they have galaxies to conquer and peaceful civilisations to oppress!

So how then are you expected to market your products and services to such characters? With great difficulty. Perhaps one tactic would be to set up a Facebook group with advice on behaving in a sinister fashion and ruling by fear. Then you could slip some marketing messages in surreptitiously, under the radar. Play to their sense of vanity.

Alternatively, you could just ignore their evil, malevolent ways frustrating them into compliance – this is best illustrated in the Lego animated sketch of Eddie Izzard’s riff on Darth Vader trying to use the Death Star canteen. Even despots have limits. However, you do it, one piece of advice is surely sacrosanct: never under-estimate the power of the dark side.
 

3 Comments

Doug - Velocity B2B Marketing Author Profile Page said:

I've only counted nine kinds of dark side characteristics.

What am I missing?

October 30, 2009 2:10 PM
Jason Ball said:

It's a simple fact of life that under stress we all have a tendency to turn into complete basket cases (I think that's the technical term).

Right now, pretty much everyone in business is under more stress than ever. So, strangely enough, some of our less than noble traits bubble up to the surface.

This doesn't make people intrinsically anti-marketing (or at least no more so than usual). It will tend to make them less tolerant of bad marketing – especially comms that talk about how great company X is rather than about what that company can do to meet buyers' real needs.

Personally, I can't see this as a bad thing.

November 2, 2009 12:41 PM
Kimmo Linkama said:

If you find it impossible or too difficult to speak to the decision-makers, turn to the influencers. Let them act as your agents within the organisation.

In fact, that's what you should be doing all along. It's easy to identify at least three different groups influencing a larger organisation's purchases:

1. Decision-makers
2. Influencers
3. Expert users

The problem, of course, is that you will need to grow your contact list threefold to reach these people. But then again, you will have your foot in three doors at the same time, increasing your chances of being heard.

November 10, 2009 1:22 PM

Leave a comment