B2B Online’s Best of 2007

Well, now that we’re one-quarter of the way through 2008, I’ve finally gotten around to blogging about B2B Online’s Best Marketers, Brands, and Creative for 2007.

While the bias is definitely (and not surprisingly) toward the mega-enterprise that everybody’s heard of (who are, of course, working with budgets that most of us never hear of), while I spend my time with smaller companies, it’s still an interesting read for anyone in the B2B space.

First off, even though I don’t follow large scale B2B all that closely, I find myself nodding in agreement with their pick of GE CMO Dan Henson as marketer of the year for his leading GE’s "charge to position itself as an environmentally conscious company that is working to solve some of the planet’s most critical environmental issues."

Of course my nodding along with this pick is based primarily on my really liking their ads - most memorably, the ones where the fishermen are hauling in a big catch of drinking water (an ad for GE’s desalination products) - GE is (at least according to the B2B article), not just claiming to be environmentally friendly, they’re actually doing something about it: hefty R&D on environmentally sound products; lofty revenue targets for those products; and commitments to reduce emissions. Sure, they no doubt could be doing more - but at least they’re doing more than throwing "aren’t we looking green today" ads out there while continuing practices that despoil the environment.

Other top marketers are from IBM, Microsoft, UPS, Motorola, HP, Fed-Ex, AmEx, Intel, Bearing Point, Dow, CA, BofA, MasterCard… Most of what I know of their marketing involves whether I see their TV or print ads, and/or whether I use any of their products and services - nothing to do with whether they’re effective on a macro level. IBM’s current innovation series (TV ads) are pretty tongue in cheek, but I like them. I like the UPS whiteboard ads. And I generally loathe the current FedEx series about the losers who don’t use FedEx. (The one with the giant carrier pigeons: just bad.)

I enjoy the MasterCard priceless ads - certainly, one of the most imitated campaigns in terms of becoming part of the everyday vocabulary - but those are more consumer than B2B-focused. And I’ve already written about my admiration for last season’s BofA Red Sox scoreboard billboard ads for which there is no word other than priceless.

All in all, it is interesting to hear from these big time CMO’s, especially on issues like responding to online media, maintaining the right mix and balance, etc.

There’s also an interesting rundown on their picks of the best brands for 2007. Lots of overlap with the best marketers - and some interesting choices: is Blackberry really a stronger brand than Apple, or is it that Apple is considered a consumer brand, not B2B? The commentary does address this, noting that iPhone is a competitive threat, which they see as sex appeal vs. reliability. All I know is that the people who are using their iPhones for business are a whole lot more in love with them than the folks with the Blackberries…

They also hand out awards for a variety of categories of creative campaigns - both large $200K+ and "small" (under $200K - I’d like to see awards for under $20K: now that would be something!).

Anyway, this is a good read and will get you thinking (and second guessing). Here’s the link to the download of the full report.

---

Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically each day to your feed reader. If you don't have a feed reader, you can always have these articles delivered to your email inbox every day. Click here to sign up.

The Opinionated Marketers | Powered by WordPress | ElegantBlue is a custom theme by Nathan Rice