George Sanders on LinkedIn: Having spent eight years in account management (with the hairline to prove… (2024)

Not that the boy needs any more smoke blown up his arse, but I'd rather see more posts like this from Matthew Kilgour on LinkedIn than the relentless slurry of obnoxious Bartlett-disciples, back-slapping onanists, and get-rich-quick-schemers. He's a career-confidence player and Likes are the hard currency of his enthusiasm, so enjoy, react, and share if you want to see a bit more industry-relevant levity on the newsfeed.

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Another useful chart on B2B creative ineffectiveness - thanks for sharing John - but this won't be news to many (any?) of the B2B marketers I know.The symptoms are easy to see: safe, ignorable, and navel-gazing branding and comms that merely add to the noise rather than cutting through it. Pale blues, corporate jargon, and stock photos of millennials high fiving next to unbranded laptops. But the causes are always more nuanced: a misunderstanding of role and value of marketing within the business; frictive relationships between marketing and c-suite/finance/sales (a constant but exhausting fight); a lack of marketing education; unrealistic deadlines compounded by unfair workloads; the ever-encroaching beige mist of 'f*ck it, let's just do what we did last year'; and the poisonous allure of the 'LinkedIn-grade understanding of marketing' from those people not actually in marketing "You know what I saw or competitor doing...?"For those B2B marketers stuck in any of these ruts, here are some possible options to explore:- Ignore what the chart below says, don't look at B2C as where to learn from - all your answers are with your customers. Speak to them, survey them, and build the case if what they ACTUALLY care about, want to see, and need to know. Become the constant, consistent and most coherent expert within the business of real time customer insight.- Bridge the gap with sales. Many brand marketers I've spoken to have problematic relationships with sales, mostly because they never make time to sit down and talk about the issues candidly. What's pissing the teams off, what do they most actually need from each other, what can we reduce or stop, and where do we want to be in six months/a year.- Have a thousand beers and remember it's just marketing. It's just marketing. - Be strategic. So many marketers I've spoken to admit they either can't find the opportunity or time to be strategic, or they actually just don't know how (and it's too late to admit it). For those people, take the Mark Ritson mini-MBA in Marketing. Hard recommend - and I've done it myself. It gives you a weapons-grade understanding of marketing strategy that you can start deploying right away. And crucially within that, the knowledge and confidence to challenge stakeholders with compelling arguments for doing it properly. Plus, it gives you a wonderful network of alumni for knowledge and support.- Find an agency to help you fight your corner. Literally give them that brief and be brutally honest about your ambitions, challenges, and parameters. Let them be difficult and challenging and provocative - and let your stakeholders know that it's important they are. Deploy them as a weapon, not just a salve. As ever, drop me a note if you ever want to chat - or if you want company in those thousand beers 🍻

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There will be tons of freelance B2B marketing specialists in my network who fit the bill - so feel free to drop James a connection. He shares loads of great B2B strategy and innovation insights and ideas too, so it'll be worth it for that alone. (And tell him I sent you, so the weasel has to buy me some beers).#b2b #B2Bmarketing

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In a world saturated by grubby, high churn/low quality newsfeed sewage, it's the stories that we remember - building salience and helping create long term connections between brands and their audiences. Join our free session next week Tuesday and learn how using the likes of empathy, distinctiveness, and disruption through storytelling can change consumer behaviour and increase the effectiveness of your marketing. #advertising #storytelling

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If you work in marketing. If you work with agencies. If you honestly think most content on LinkedIn is absolute nut crust. This is for you.

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Ads in the 1990s were a f*cking ride. Grainy, blue-graded MTV fever dreams, where all the rules dissolved in the caustic brines of Sunny D, Smirnoff Ice, and Frube drips. A lawless era of fun and madness and magic.And the one I still think of often is Levi's Kevin the Hamster. The one where the hamster dies and a few clean-shirts got upset.Levis had been struggling with an image problem - denim jeans were seen as clothes for parents and old people. They were losing relevancy with target audiences and new and exciting competitors were eating their market share (remember JNCO jeans? Yikes). They turned to BBH, who looked at what parents/old people liked (rules, order, common sense) and pulled it inside out, like so much discarded teenagers laundry. They developed a campaign based on surrealism - designed to shock, provoke, and bewilder - featuring polygamists, casual nudity, and a boy literally smashing a square peg through a round hole.The one I remember most keenly though was Kevin the Hamster. The short story of a hamster, upon losing his wheel, grows bored and dies. That's it. This ran for a single weekend before it was banned after a record number (then) of 544 complaints. I did catch it that weekend IRL (I have three brothers and TV was a surrogate parent) and remember being stunned. I also remember the incredulity from my mates when I tried to explain it to them at school on the Monday - although I could remember it almost word for word and frame for frame, they didn't believe me. For a jeans advert, mate? A dead rodent? Jog on. But those who saw it, spread it, and it burned its way through the playgrounds like wildfire - like a celebrity death rumour.When the news came out of the ban, it brought new audiences to the ad. But, in a neat twist, it turns out that it was programmed for only one weekend anyway, knowing the censorship would get more headlines than the content. Having been saturated by pious and proud purpose-led adverts, I do hope we see more of this anarchic and provocative advertising making a return with along with all the rest of the 90s detritus, like a flannel shirts, jelly sandals, and ennui. Make it fun, weird, and wonderful.Enjoy it yourself here - and would love to hear your own favourite ads from the 90s: https://lnkd.in/ekVwarRd#advertising #ads #marketing

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Last week I was chatting with a former client who was lamenting her recent marketing budget cuts and that she'd no longer get to work with agencies (there are some who'd say this is a net positive - but we don't like you).However, any decent agency knows that it's all cyclical - there's feast and famine and, in most cases, budgets always come back. It always pays for agencies to stay connected, relevant, and useful.So for those marketers looking to stay ahead of the game, but without the bunce for billable work, here are some tips to get the best out of your (fallow) agency:InsightsYour role as a marketer is to know your customers and market better than anyone else; your agency's role is to understand how that fits within the context of the wider world and what you could/should do about it. And this breadth and depth of knowledge gives them fascinating insights across audiences, regions, verticals, behaviours, etc. that are often packaged up into off-the-shelf content. And, because they're focused on client work, they're often sh*t at promoting this stuff. So definitely call on them and ask what they have on a given subject and, if you're lucky, they may even spare an expert to talk it through. NetworkingFor many, even the word 'networking' will turn their bumholes inside out - but it doesn't have to mean sweaty handshakes over flat proseccos and stale canapés. Agencies are interconnected by design, so have at their heart the ability and incentive to bring together people who want to do great stuff. And great agencies will know their clients intimately enough to understand your networking needs - whether you're looking for peer to peer conversations, new roles, or the best suppliers.AdviceYou know that weird, niche, chewy problem you've been agonising over for weeks? I guarantee others are suffering it too and have suffered it in the past - unique marketing challenges are rare. Again, this is where an agency's illustrious history of fighting fires and picking up dog turds can be crystal clear fountain of insight for you. A ten minute call with the right agency person could save ten weeks of wayward activity. CompanyLook, this one sounds pure-melt, but sometimes an agency can just be there for you. We've all been to crappy events like "Now That's What I Call Digital ABM!" and they can seem exposing and lonely. So give your agency a shout and see if they're already attending, or, if they'd like to join you. Not only can you cover more ground and have someone to discuss the core themes with - they'll possibly be able to put through a few (eight) delicious post-event beers on expenses too...So regardless of spend or live projects, keep close to your agency and trust them to want to see you succeed. The good ones will be there when they should be, but the best ones will be there when it counts.What have I missed? Let me know your own agency hacks (especially any 'infinite beer' cheats) 🍻

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I'm always a fan of empathetic advertising - but being agency-side this *extravagant chefs kiss* really hits different.They've tapped directly into that gooey oxygen-rich vein of helpless frustration agencies face against errant client behaviour with another video that tells a great story and sells a clear benefit, all with humour and understanding. Very well done again Umault and Teamwork.com for having the courage (common sense) to create ads your audience genuinely enjoy. B2B doesn't have to be boring. (Please note, this should be essential viewing for any brand marketers out there too - peace and love 🙏✌️)

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