Corporate comedy is one of those phrases like "jumbo shrimp," "smart ass," and "party down in Omaha" that seems a bit off. (No offense to shrimps, asses, or those from Omaha).
Despite its rarity, comedy can be an extremely powerful corporate marketing tool.
My friend Tim Washer, who is head of social media productions for IBM worldwide, is a comic genius. He pushes his colleagues at IBM on the value of hysterical videos and is in charge of producing them. I sat down with Tim to talk comedy. Specifically I wanted to find out how a marketer goes about convincing the bosses to lose control and break out some corporate comedy.
Here's short a preview of our discussion. See below for a link to the entire show.
Thank you to my friends at VisibleGains for producing this interview. The VisibleGains application lets marketers build lead generation into corporate video programming.
Disclosure: I am on the board of advisors of VisibleGains.
Why is so much business-to-business marketing dreadfully boring?
I think it's because the marketers involved think "business" as in "I am marketing to a business" and this results in an overly serious tone. After all, if you are marketing to, say, technology companies that’s different than consumer marketing, right?
Wrong.
B2B marketers seem to forget that what all marketers need to do is communicate to people. People want to do business with people and the companies that understand that in the B2B world develop a following.
National Instruments is a B2B supplier of measurement and automation equipment used by engineers and scientists. The tried-and-true marketing from companies like National Instruments is to focus on feeds-and-speeds, technical data sheets, specs, and so on. After all its the engineering community, right?
While National Instruments does provide product specs, they also realize that their buyers are human.
"We've always had the motto, both internally and externally, that 'It's OK to have fun," says John M. Graff, VP, Marketing & Customer Operations at National Instruments. That fun-loving attitude has produced many ways to communicate with the technical audience that buys NI products.
For example a video blog done by Todd Sierer, an engineer at NI, called an An Engineering Mind is really great. In the episode I chose below, he talks about the meaning of the word "Marketecture." Direct link here.
"We first debuted these videos two years ago at our annual user conference held in Austin, TX where over 3000 engineers and scientists gather to see and discuss latest technologies for measurement and automation," John says.
"In addition to the usual technical product demonstrations, we also try to have some fun, including inviting an engineer from the Spike TV show, Deadliest Warriors to the stage. We've found that our audience greatly appreciates this approach to communication (as they get plenty of examples of the drab, "speeds and feeds" technical fire hose). We believe it's greatly enhanced our reputation."
Are you a B2B marketer? Are you treating your buyers like humans? Are you having some fun?
Really, it's okay to have some fun. I dare you.
Times change.
Markets change.
Technologies change.
Fundamentals of B2B marketing don't.
I keynoted the Business Marketing Association's 2009 “UnLearn” national conference in Chicago last month.
Just prior to my gig was a live staging of McGraw-Hill's classic 1950s "Man in the Chair" ad. Fortunately it was captured on video because it is terrific. (Tough act to follow!)
It's fascinating how the fundamentals of business-to-business marketing are the same today as they were 50 years ago. It's still about relationships although today we have new tools and techniques at our disposal.
Direct link to the video on YouTube here.
Times change. Markets change. Technologies change. Fundamentals don't.
How are you changing? How are you staying the same?
Last night at the Radio & TV Correspondents' Dinner in Washington DC, John Hodgman was the keynote speaker.
Imagine following President Obama at the podium?
Hodgman nailed it big time. Watch this video. Now.
John Hodgman, of course, is a World Wide Rave. He appears on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as the show’s Resident Expert. He is also "PC" in the Apple TV ads.
It was really cool that Hodgman was posting photos to Twitter as he was waiting to go on. Now that's nerd. Well done, sir.
I met John Hodgman at his book launch event in Brookline for his book More Information than you Require. At his event, he kindly signed my poster and let me take his photo.
More Information than you Require is excellent. See my review on Amazon - it is the first one.
