Kevin Harrington // marketing // blog

So, can I lay claim to being the creator of the term B2A? I've started using this term to
describe the marketing of business to (marketing) agencies. There are also the standard extensions to this: B2A2C, B2A2B etc.

Also back in 1998 I retaliated on the financial community by developing 'marketing for non-marketing managers' workshops. These were enormously successful and were a very successful collaboration with my colleague Andy Hedge from the HR team. Was I first to use the term 'marketing for non-marketing managers'?

Historically finance people have been assisting the rest of their colleagues by running finance for non-financial mangers workshops. The educational value of these sessions often masks how finance set their agenda out to the listening audience.

Isn't it time that marketing directors in all businesses introduced marketing training for all disciplines across their organisations?

Labels: B2A, finance, marketing, workshops

I rather like this business - Say Cheese. According to their own blurb they “unify experiential and online marketing”.

They are delivering a simple but successful event and brand marketing service. Personal photos rather than useless giveaways sound good to me.

Also their own marketing is very good. The full page advertisement in Marketing magazine and their website are perfectly in line and deliver a very clear message.

My only criticism was that went from http://www.saycheese.co.uk/ to the gallery area and clicked on home to end up at http://www.saycheese.eu/, the Dutch website.

Labels: experiential, marketing, Marketing magazine, online, Say Cheese

We all know that word of mouth (WOM) is very powerful marketing. Therefore it was very pleasing to see the comment below on Surrey Mums about one of my wife's businesses.

"I've recently started taking my little girl to MAD (music and Dance) academy, and it's brilliant!

"The first group we attended consisted of the children dancing like penguins and horses, playing drums and tambourines, singing songs about cars and frogs and my daughter shouting "more, more, more!” and now we're nearly half way through the term and it hasn't lost its magic.

"It's a fantastic activity for the very energetic to the very shy as they're not pressured into doing anything they don't want to do. I would highly recommend a MAD session to anyone who wants to put a smile on their little ones face.

"To find a class near you please visit www.madacademy.com"

Labels: dance, MAD Academy, marketing, music, Surrey Mums, word of mouth

At a guess 40% of my marketing career has been B2B and 60% B2C.

Recently I've been casting the net to find new suppliers/partners for a broad range of activities that are absolutely in the B2B area. And I'm thrilled to say that I've been meeting some very interesting people. Some of these were on the Marketing Forum 2008.

I've been amazed at the difference in styles. The B2B folks have been very considered, narrow focused and tentative. By contrat the B2C people have taken more of a broad, we can do anything, full service approach.

These are of course sweeping generalisations, so apologies if I've offended anyone. The thing is I cannot really understand why the agency approaches are so different. From my perspective the steps that need to be followed are the same.

In fact my intention now is to work on delivering the B2B project that I am dealing with by utilising a healthy layer of B2C. I'm sure I'll upset someone on the way but 1) sorry and 2) hey ho!

This post is not an invitation to suppliers/agencies to pitch their wares and services. Comments are more than welcome though.

Labels: agencies, agency, B2B, B2C, marketing, perspective

Are Chef's Table dinners the best word of mouth (WOM) marketing? You pay for the best then go off and tell everyone about it. Restaurant wins at both ends.

I raise this subject as a compliment having just had the most wonderful Chef's Table dinner at L'ortolan, Shinfield, Reading, Berkshire. My daughters Jo, Sam and Katy conspired to book the night for me as a birthday present.

The evening was a magical 12 courses accompanied by 12 different wines. Interlaced were conversations and chats with Alan Murchison (the boss, executive chef and all round good chap), Elliot (the sous chef) and the rest of the team.

But the visual theatre of the team delivering plated perfection for the restaurant guests was most engaging part of the experience. A truly fantastic evening.

The result: here I am doing the PR and marketing for Alan and L'ortolan. And it is a pleasure to do so. If you are looking for a unique experience and enjoy excellent cuisine, try and book the Chef's Table.

Labels: Alan Murchison, Chef's Table, L'ortolan, marketing, restaurant, Shinfield, WOM, word of mouth

Everywhere you go people invite you to visit their website. Often you wonder why on getting there.

Labels: Bracknell, charity, KFC, marketing, web, Zinger

Accurate delivery of your listings to business addresses all over London. Well I'm sure that's the promise from marketing people at Business Pages.

Here, at the bottom of the photo, is a copy of one of those delivered directories. It is on the ramp down to an underground car park in London W2 and it's been there for over a week.

I always wondered why they wrapped them in plastic.

Labels: Business Pages, directory, London, marketing

Labels: blog, definition, marketing, Seth Godin