The Business Marketing Collective (BMC) is a new organisation aimed at enabling B2B marketers to define and lead the future of their industry. Joel Harrison, editor-in-chief at B2B Marketing, explains how it will work
B2B marketing in the UK has undergone a dramatic transformation in the last 10 years. Back in the early noughties B2B was a bit of a sideshow in marketing, with consumer activity taking all the attention and the plaudits. In the years since, the level of interest and activity has increased steadily year-on-year, led and propagated by organisations from all business sectors, with the result that today B2B is a vibrant and dynamic industry – and something practitioners are increasingly eager to align with and be part of.
It’s time, therefore, for B2B to take the next step forward in its development. What the B2B marketing sector has lacked historically is any kind of representative body aimed at focusing its development, providing leadership and giving practitioners a voice and a stake.
True, the marketing industry is well-supplied (over supplied, you might say) with trade associations (think DMA, IPA, CIM, PRCA, IAB, etc.) although focus of these organisations on B2B has been minimal to non-existent. Their focus of interest and activity instead is on the higher profile, more affluent and often more politically sensitive B2C area. B2B, meanwhile, has literally been overlooked, and in my view this has been one of the factors limiting its development.
Now is the time to change that. For some months now, B2B Marketing has been working with a group of leading practitioners from both client-side and agencies (including ABBA, the Association of B2B Agencies) to develop a new organisation that will provide leadership
for the B2B marketing sector. The Business Marketing Collective (BMC) will aim to bring marketers from all sides of the industry together to galvanise it and help focus its development, for the benefit of companies and practitioners alike. For it to succeed, we need practitioners to contribute their time and energy – and that means you.
What’s its purpose?
This is a great question, because no one wants to create a new organisation for its own sake. Broadly, as stated above, the aim of the BMC is to provide leadership for the B2B industry and help encourage its development and evolution by bringing together the brightest and best talent. Precisely what that looks like in practice will be driven by the organisation itself (and in particular by the members of its executive council) once it is established. A number of areas for focus have already been identified, with specialist task groups to be established to focus on these from the outset. These are: education/training; events and networking; awards; and policy. We expect other areas of focus will quickly emerge – we will be looking for feedback from the industry.
How will it be structured?
The BMC will be managed by an executive council, made up of representatives from the worlds of agencies, vendors/suppliers and client-side marketers. This lead group will meet four times a year to steer the organisation.
Various task groups and sub councils will sit beneath the council, established as required and tasked with achieving a specific objective, focusing on a particular issue or representing a specific group of members (e.g. agencies). These will report to the council on progress and create outputs, often in the form of content, which will be available to the wider membership and industry.
The BMC is an entirely distinct and standalone organisation, governed by a constitution and a board of directors, and owned by its members. In legal terms, the association that was ABBA has simply been renamed. An earlier proposal to affiliate more closely with the US-based Business Marketing Association was not pursued in order to give the new entity more freedom and flexibility and control of its own destiny than would be possible under the BMA’s constitution. However, we remain on good terms with the BMA, and will collaborate with them whenever is appropriate.
What will it not look like?
We need to be clear that we’re not looking to develop another large trade association, with a permanent secretariat and London HQ. In infrastructure and operations it will be closer to ABBA, by being effectively a virtual organisation, rather than, for example, the Direct Marketing Association.
From a logistics perspective, the organisation will be managed by a part time project manager, working from B2B Marketing’s offices. Members would be expected to give up their time for free.
Who has been involved?
The group that has been working to create the BMC comprises the following individuals:
• David Burnand, marketing director at Project One – inaugural chair of BMC
• Chris Wilson, MD at Earnest and chair of ABBA
• James Farmer, publisher at B2B Marketing
• Joel Harrison, editor-in-chief at B2B Marketing
• Paul Higgins, CMO at Talk Talk Business
• Rob Morrice, MD at SteinIAS
What will happen to ABBA?
ABBA, with its 25 year track record of serving the UK B2B agency community, will become one of the core constituent parts of the BMC, with agency members invited to join the executive council and the agency sub council providing continuity for agency members seeking to compare notes and raise standards. Current ABBA members have automatically become members of the BMC, and with membership lasting for a year.
B2B Marketing’s role
We, B2B Marketing, were invited to be part of the discussions surrounding the development of this new entity because of our role in driving and facilitating the development of the B2B industry over the last 10 years. Because of our role in delivering some of the services and activities that define the B2B marketing space in the UK (including the B2B Awards, the B2B Summit and B2B Marketing magazine) and because of our reach into the market, the other protagonists deemed that any new organisation would be more likely to succeed and meet its objectives if we were involved. B2B Marketing will be represented on the executive council and will contribute to the development of the organisation – we will also utilise BMC as a channel to ensure our products and services best reflect the needs of the industry.
How can you get involved?
We’re currently recruiting for members of the new organisation and various councils and groups who are willing to give up their time to help formulate the future of B2B marketing. Everyone involved has to be a paid up member of the organisation, either as an individual practitioner, as an agency or as a vendor/supplier – details of membership propositions will be available online. The deadline for nominations is 21 January, and elections for the executive council will be by the end of February, with the first meeting taking place in March.
For more information about how to nominate yourself for the executive council, or to register for more info got to: businessmarketingcollective.com
