Keynote presentation given by Scot McKee, Managing Director, Birddog at the 'Accelerate' B2B Marketing Conference 2011. McKee explains how conservative and traditional B2B brand communications are failing, while the opportunities for digital marketing and social media development are huge. The original presentation included a live demonstration of Twitter audience engagement for business. The results of the demonstration, the video and an audio podcast are available at: http://bit.ly/vzuvpD McKee's books on the subject of Creative B2B Branding and Business Marketing are available from Amazon - http://is.gd/mckeebooks

1. Turdy
Brown
Trousers
Challenging
business convention
in a social world
Scot McKee, Managing Director, Birddog
Nov. 2011

2. Introduction
Q: How many people own a pair of brown trousers?
A: Quite a lot – it‟s a popular colour

3. On the plus side
Stability
Reliability
Approachability

4. On the plus side
Elemental
Earthy
Core strength

5. But…
It‟s also the colour of turd

6. Confess
Q: How many people are wearing brown trousers today?
A: Not very many

7. Why?
The colour of average
The colour of boring
The colour of meh

8. Why?
Despite being the most popular colour in the world…
…Brown is not „business‟

9. Why?
We could introduce
a world of B2B trouser excitement

10. Why?
But we default to a whole other category of dull for
business

11. The boundaries
When we push the boundaries a little
It feels like we‟re going CRAZEEEE…

12. The boundaries
But we‟re not really
Because this is proper
CRAZEEEE

13. The boundaries
In B2B, we occasionally try to be crazy
But only manage to get halfway there

14. The boundaries
On a „crazy‟ day in B2B…

15. The boundaries
…we un-tuck our shirts

16. The new world order
BROWN TROUSERS
Change two words

17. The new world order
BROWN TROUSERS
Change two words

18. The new world order
Digital
Into one word

19. The new world order
Social
Or another word

20. The new world order
Digital
Social
And the B2B challenge becomes clearer

21. The B2B Challenge
Staff, customers & prospects
have gone Digital and Social „crazy‟

22. The B2B Challenge
But the business response isn‟t quite working

23. The B2B Challenge
The challenge is for business to keep up with customers

24. The response so far
In the „old‟ digital days, you would send email

25. The response so far
Not working?
Ok…SEND MORE

26. The response so far
But it‟s still not working
Because of the „social‟ wall

27. The response so far
Remember the wall?

28. The response so far
It stops everything…

29. The response so far
So the B2B shirt has been „un-tucked‟
And the corporate website…

30. The response so far
…has been made bigger
(or a bit different)
Yay

31. A question…
Q: Who has changed or added to their corporate website
in the last 12mths or plans to change it in the next
12mths?
A: Almost everyone

32. A question…
There‟s a problem with that…

33. The brown wall of turd
It stops everything, remember?

34. The brown wall of turd
Even when it‟s „bigger‟

35. The web is dead
Source: Wired/Cisco

36. The web is dead
Audience adoption of social media
is forcing business change

37. The web is dead
The central corporate „push‟ hub

38. The web is dead
Now has to „pull‟ audiences from social spaces

39. The web is dead
Now has to „pull‟ audiences from social spaces

40. The web is dead
But while businesses focus on the website

41. The web is dead
The customers are ignoring it

42. The web is dead
Oops
Customers love being social

43. The second wave
B2B has tried to join in
But hasn‟t tried very hard

44. The second wave
Some business brands have a twitter account

45. The second wave
Some have posted videos on YouTube

46. The second wave
Some are even becoming fans of LinkedIn

47. The second wave
But the customers are moving much quicker

48. Some facts
Over 8,000 social channels
Mobile commerce to reach $31bn by 2016
938 changes to Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn since
1/1/11
90% of the World‟s data has been created in the last
2yrs
28% of buying decisions influenced by social networks
Source: IBM/Social Media Today

49. The point for B2B is…
Epic
Oops
Every day you say, “wait and see…”
Another 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created
Source: IBM/Social Media Today

50. The point for B2B is…
Those who “don‟t see the relevance” – are dead.

51. The point for B2B is…
Those asking “what‟s the 1st step?” – are dead

52. The point for B2B is…
Those “planning to allocate
some budget to social media” – are dead

53. The point for B2B is…
Those still expecting “traditional measures” for social
media – are dead

54. The point for B2B is…
Those “trialling social media” – might live

55. The point for B2B is…
Social media needs to become the fabric of all marketing
activity

56. The point for B2B is…
The entire Marketing Plan needs to be socialised
(That doesn’t mean all marketing is social media…)

57. Social integration
Understanding the customer‟s journey
Allowing online engagement offline
And vice-versa
Encourage advocates, not customers
Personality trumps protocol
Create experiences, not sales pitches

58. Social integration
Reward loyalty and brand advocacy
Give fans a reason to engage
Enable social fans to „sell‟ for you

59. So what happens now?
After this presentation?

60. So what happens now?
The old/current model
Reach 100 people?

61. So what happens now?
Or… we cascade the turdy brown model

62. So what happens now?
Tag it and make it searchable

63. So what happens now?
Tweet it

64. So what happens now?
Slideshare…

65. So what happens now?
Podcast…

66. So what happens now?
Video…
Yes, really. LinkedIn
for video

67. So what happens now?
Yes, yes, yes
Website too

68. So what happens now?
Pretty soon…
…a turdy brown global phenomenon

69. So what happens now?
By next year…
…we‟ll all be turdy brown and untucked

70. Potential Reach?
Traditional/Website/Email
100

71. Potential Reach?
Traditional/Website/Email
100

72. Potential Reach?
To our known/tracked network
In the first 24hrs
100 100,000

73. Potential Reach?
Conservative extended community
100 100,000 200,000

74. Potential Reach?
Within a week
100 100,000 200,000 500,000

75. Guardianship
It‟s not „free‟
Commentary
Response Management
Community Development

76. Guardianship
Seeding + Syndication + Aggregation = Reach
Increased Reach = Brand Amplification
Brand Amplification = Sales
But… ownership changes hands

77. Guardianship
From the moment you hit the button
It‟s not „yours‟ anymore

78. Guardianship
It belongs to the crowd

79. Guardianship
The audience becomes part of the brand
It wants to be associated with content
It wants to participate
It wants to share

80. Guardianship
When brand support is high
Sales are the inevitable consequence

81. Safe v Social
Letting go still scares the majority of B2B

82. Safe v Social
Leaving the opportunity for the brave

83. Safe v Social
Resistance is futile

84. To end at the beginning
Engaging Content Creation
Distributable Social Content
Cross Channel Sharing
Message Amplification
Customer Engagement

85. The colour of social success
Is brown

86. The colour of social failure
Is also brown

87. You‟ve been warned
“I cannot pretend to feel
impartial about colours.
I rejoice with the brilliant ones
and am genuinely sorry
for the poor browns.”
Winston Churchill

88. Thank you (and be social…)
Scot McKee