B2B Marketing Blog
Recently by Scot McKee

Out with the Old

February 10, 2010 12:08 PM | By Scot McKee
I admit I went to see Miley Cyrus at the O2. Whatever rumours exist to the contrary, it was my kids that wanted to go. They badgered me at least once to buy tickets. I spent the first few tracks ogling a blonde dancer with my daughter's binoculars, and then there was a pause. The music lowered and Hannah, I mean Miley, addressed her adoring fathers. I mean fans. "This Summer I had to, you know, get away from everything and everyone and do some growing up. So I made a movie called ‘The Last Song'," she husked. I...
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BMW me up, Scot

November 24, 2009 3:48 PM | By Scot McKee
Leaving just one customer dissatisfied could damage your brand's reputation more than you might think I used to drive BMWs. It's reasonable to say I was your archetypal BMW 'brand evangelist.' I walked into a BMW showroom a couple of months ago and tried to buy a new one. I was ready to pay the cash equivalent of a small neighbourhood in certain parts of Manchester, but the salesman just wanted me to have a test drive. I had no need of testing, so I left. No big deal. But then the 'tapakata, pakata' noise started, swiftly accompanied by coloured...
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Keeping the lines of communication open

October 7, 2009 5:17 PM | By Scot McKee
I’ve been talking to people about ‘crowdsourcing.’ They’ve listened to me, and then looked at me like I’m a twat. So I started to doubt my own visionary brilliance and thought maybe I’d best shut up. But then again, I’ve never been one to run from a stupidity contest so I thought I’d persevere. In years to come you can all look back and say, “That McKee bloke – genius.” Or, alternatively, “twat.” Crowdsourcing broadly means using the power of many to solve problems. Rather than rely on a single person within an organisation, whole companies their clients and people...
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Hate something, change something, make something better...

September 1, 2009 11:31 AM | By Scot McKee
Our heartbeat quickens, our pulse races, our palms and brow sweat a little… that’s the change we experience when we’re buying a new car. According to Ian Armstrong, manager of customer communications at Honda UK, the science of car buying is every bit as important as the art. Ian was the guest speaker at a recent ‘Brand on the Run’ event, and I was interested to speak to him about the day-to-day marketing activities that happen behind the scenes of the more glamorous Honda TV advertising. I think Honda has been delivering great television advertising for years now. They’ve had...
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You can't beat getting up close and personal with clients

July 8, 2009 10:24 AM | By Scot McKee
Corporate hospitality. Is it going to flourish as companies try to secure the loyalty of their clients in the face of difficult economic conditions, or is it going to die as budgets are cut and redirected to the tried, tested and instantly measurable? I’ve never really been big on corporate hospitality. I don’t have the slightest idea how cricket works. I have a similar problem with the ‘Corporate Golf Days’. So either I’m not personable enough to be invited on corporate hospitality days or I avoid them because they get in the way of getting on with it. But that’s...
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'Alternative' marketing goes mainstream

June 11, 2009 12:50 PM | By Scot McKee
I've always been suspicious of anyone introducing themselves as an 'Entrepreneur'. It's one of those words I find impossible to say out loud. Women don't seem to like the word 'moist', but for me, it's 'entrepreneur'. Eww. I'm less disturbed when the term is used to describe someone else. It's the self-use of the word that bugs me. So, “Richard Branson is an entrepreneur”, is acceptable. “Hello, I'm Bob. I'm an entrepreneur”, isn't. See what I mean? Wanker. So when I was relatively relaxed as introductions were made at a client meeting and the marketing director said, “...and this is...
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Social media in B2B marketing

April 23, 2009 10:21 AM | By Scot McKee
B2B Marketing’s seminar on ‘Exploiting Social Media in B2B Marketing’ was an eye-opener for me. Social media is no longer a fringe subject. It may not be the panacea - or pancetta - of the B2B world, but nor is it the dirty word(s) of just a few short months ago. So I had a hot ticket, I was dressed up all like my dad with a suit and I waited to be enlightened. But I wasn’t. Perhaps I already knew more than I was giving myself credit for.I’m new to the social media space. A curmudgeonly old fart, much...
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Social media: It's good to talk

April 6, 2009 11:56 AM | By Scot McKee
There are two conversations – the agenda and the hidden agenda. The agenda is the recession, the economy, the shoot-me-now-and-let's-just-end-it-all agenda. That's a very dull and depressing agenda and is it really what we want to spend the next year(s) talking about? I'm still not getting anything helpful or interesting out of this conversation and on the basis that I'm not actually going to top myself just yet, I'd quite like to move forward. I'll concede one point on the recession agenda. For the foreseeable future, clients and agencies are going to have to try different things and deliver results....
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Want to be measurable? Start a blog

March 4, 2009 12:36 PM | By Scot McKee
I recently had ‘a fair and frank exchange of views’ about the relative merits of business blogging. For some inexplicable reason, the woman I was discussing it with remained fixated throughout our conversation on ‘lines’. She wanted to talk about ‘above-the-line activity’ then ‘below-the-line activities’ and then, without respite or reprise, we had to go ‘through-the-line’ as well. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for lines – but at least a decade ago we started applying our devious, wicked and somewhat warped marketing minds to the application of the Internet as a marketing tool. Or was that just me? At...
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The politics of 'just getting on with it'

January 7, 2009 11:18 AM | By Scot McKee
I was called ‘inflexible’ the other day. Now, I’ve been called a number of things in my time, but ‘inflexible’? Really? I thought I was a relaxed kind of a guy (in a two steps from a coronary kind of a way…) I strive for ‘cool’. I may or may not achieve the goal consistently, but strivingness is next to godliness… ‘Inflexible’? Really? If I’ve learned anything in the world we like to call B2B marketing, it is to be bendier than the bendiest bendy thing when it comes to client requests. Not in the biblical sense. Obviously. ‘Inflexible’? Moi?...
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