Labelling or sub-branding is something we come back to time and again in my business.  B2B marketing in a company that has such a dominant B2C brand can be a difficult task - particularly when trying to get cut through and show relevance to concerns that are particular to B2B audiences.   There are many ways of doing this.  Some brands choose to differentiate visually between their B2B and B2C communications.  Some have the same branding for both and others choose labelling, or sub branding - even going as far as creating a whole new brand for businesses.  But is all this necessary?  Are we underestimating the...

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks in the media with both the Jan Moir article in the Daily Mail and Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time creating public outcry and debate rarely seen these days.  Social media certainly played its part in facilitating and spreading the debate and the Moir article resulted in the withdrawal of advertising from companies such as Marks and Spencer.    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/16/stephen-gately-jan-moir-complaints   It made me question whether we have a moral responsibility as marketers. Businesses certainly have more of a Corporate Responsibility agenda now than they did in the Twentieth Century and as Marketers...

That was indeed the question I mulled over when travelling home from the recent B2B Marketing conference on lead generation. It’s not often that I think about breasts, and that may have been the result of too much wine, but the parallels between lead nurturing and breast feeding suddenly struck me. You see, there is a line. Like breast feeding, you can nurture for too long and before you know it you’re the subject of a Channel 4 documentary with two seven year olds clamped limpet-like to your teats. You enjoy the contact, the interaction, the reliance and it makes...