For my first blog in this series of tirades against grey-wash pebble-dash marketing sprayed carelessly all over the internet and printed materials by people clearly asleep at the hose, I thought I would clarify our position. With fortunate timing this request for our book 101 Clichés came through from a person who we will codename Jim. Jim makes clear, more elegantly than I could hope to, why this is a battle worth fighting.
JIM: “I am working in a typical cliché B2B industry. It is exactly this kind behaviour which is resulting in a highly commoditized business where we leave our customers no other argument than to select us on PRICE.
I am currently working on transforming this for our brand, so I would really appreciate receiving the book because there will be at least 3 items in the top 20 that will be applicable to our business.”
We’re doing this for Jim! Jim understands that marketing should make what is special about your company clear and interesting. He is part of the resistance against clichés and we must let him know that he does not stand alone.
And if you’re thinking Jim is unexceptional in his stance, I hope you are right. And that we are about to see every B2B brand become a fascinating beacon of difference. But my suspicion is, and the current evidence suggests, that Jim is in the minority and that B2B marketing is going to remain dull and cliché ridden for a while yet. Jim knows this.
He is probably also aware that his personal toil has just begun. He wants to bring a creative change to his organisation for all the right reasons. In a perfect world everyone is going to agree with Jim, rally to him and his team and cheer them on as they charge over the top of their industry with a lovingly crafted, bright, bold, gloriously different banner of a brand. But in the world I live in, Jim is going to have to fight idea killing, narrow minded, negative people every time due process dictates that he has to expose his dream. That’s not right. Jim doesn’t need idea killers, he needs cliché killers. Jim, we’re right behind you.
