It's great when an idea is picked-up all around this world. So I was pleased to see this use of our very own Beyond Idea for CWJobs the skills cloud t-shirt featured during a fantastic and mind blowing presentation for TED by Pattie Mae ... Worth a look!

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html

 

 

I've been reading about Augmented Reality, which no doubt offers the most incredible new way to prompt a response from DM, or on page ads, or any other printed materials.

To see what I mean, read about this trailblazing campaign for Mini in Germany.   Now, imagine that's your DM piece in their hands.

OK, not everyone has a webcam on the computer right now, but in 3 years they will.  Now's the time for the creative minds of the B2B world to start flexing in preparation.

I really respect Mini for being brave enough to invest and test in these techniques.  OK, a lot of people may not have the ability to respond - but I bet they were intrigued.  And the publicity Mini receive for doing this will only help an already stellar brand (can you tell I'm a fan?). 

Global recession - that's what it takes to make people say what they mean, clearly and concisely. At least, that's what prompted UK Council leaders to ban a long list of expressions deemed jargon from their offices.

"During the recession, it is vital that we explain to people in plain English how to get access to the 800 different services that local government provides with taxpayers' money', says Local Government Association chair Margaret Eaton. So after the recession they can go back to utterly confusing everyone with coterminosity and potentialities?

I checked out the full list of banned words and saw some familiar arch-enemies:

• blue-sky thinking
• thinking outside the box
• synergies
• utilise
• step change
• going forward
• best practice
• transparency

...and so on. Some of the entries were truly puzzling - what's so obscure about words like 'client', 'wellbeing' or 'robust'? But mostly I wished some higher authority would publish (and enforce) a similar list of no-no's for B2B marketing.

There’s been a lot of talk about social media recently. It’s certainly a hot topic, but we can’t help thinking that it’s really just a symptom of something bigger. Social media tools - from the ostensibly trivial Facebook and Twitter to the weightier LinkedIn - are getting all the headlines, but we shouldn’t let this vogue distract us from what is really going on. What is really happening is that we, as marketers, are losing control of how our brands appear on the web.

But it’s not about web technology, it’s about buyer behaviour on the web. The truth is that buyers get more information online from other buyers than they have ever done. OK, this has been enabled by technology, but what we have to deal with is the fact that there is a place out there where marketers are no longer in control. We call it the Buyersphere, and it consists of every point of contact online between the buyer and the brand. Every place where a prospective buyer picks up information about a brand - whether via a formal network like LinkedIn, or a serendipitous search. It is the sum total of millions of buyers collecting and sharing information online. It is the total universe of online content that influences buyer behaviour (it doesn’t just influence brand preference because what buyers read might also inspire them to inspire others and so on in the now-classic viral distribution pattern).

The Buyersphere had to be defined because it is more than influencer marketing, it is more than online reputation management, and it is a mind-shift away from conventional brand management.
 
As marketers, we have to be aware of it. It’s there, we have to deal with it. And the brands that thrive in the Buyersphere are the ones that recognize how to harness this buyer behaviour. After all, these days we’re not building the brands, they are.