B2B’s continued rapid evolution and growing emphasis on bold, intuitive and connected experiences indicate it is, according to Stein IAS.
Is B2B marketing entering its postmodern era? Global B2B agency Stein IAS believes it is, and recently announced its perspective at an ANA/BMA NORCAL event at the Microsoft Conference Center in Mountain View, California. Shortly after, B2B Marketing USA’s Tequia Burt spoke with Stein IAS’ Tom Stein, chairman and chief client officer, and Michael Ruby, VP-executive creative director (Americas), to get their view on this new trend.
Q: What is postmodern marketing?
Stein: Over the past decade or so, B2B brands and agencies have widely adopted modern marketing. Oracle describes this as “the paradigm of inbound marketing programs driven by digital channels, served by multiple touches, measured by sophisticated technologies – and where data analysis is king.” While modern marketing has served us well, adoption of its approaches and underlying technologies is nearly ubiquitous. So, we continually challenge ourselves to think ahead: What’s next? Our belief is that, as B2B marketers have expanded their tool sets and increased their mastery of strategic insights and digital interactions, our confidence in what’s possible – in what we can deliver – has grown by leaps and bounds. We’re now seeing this confidence come bursting through in connected experiences that are powerfully emotional and intensely useful. In all the forms they take, these experiences deliver tremendous value to individuals and organizations. This is the essence of postmodern marketing.
Ruby: Postmodern marketing is part of a continuum. Marketing’s pre-modern era – that’s the Mad Men. From the early 1960s into the 1980s, this golden age of advertising was marked by iconic ideas and fueled by the emergence of mass media. From Think Small to Think Different, grand ideas were delivered with intuitive, almost magical brilliance. Marketing’s modern era was kick-started by the Internet and sent into hyperdrive by the stunning rise of the digital-social-mobile world order. More recently, modern marketing has been powered by martech and adtech – and marked by the embrace of data-driven segmentation, structure and accountability. Marketing’s postmodern stage, which we are just now entering, is a reaction to modern marketing’s empiricism. It is more personal, more creative and more reliant on experiences that are deeply satisfying. It’s about allowing the magic back in.
Q: So, is postmodern a rejection of modern marketing?
Stein: Not at all. Modern marketing’s empiricism, as Mike calls it, is a good thing. It’s a great thing. We as an industry have grown greatly as a result of it. Postmodern marketing is more a re-balancing. It carries forward the best of preceding eras into this new stage. We joke that it’s Spock plus Kirk. Pre-modern was emotional. Modern was rational. Postmodern is both. The foundational frameworks of data, segmentation, implicit and explicit triggers, but painted with the brilliant brushstrokes of a renaissance in intuitive ideas and mind-blowing experiences.
Ruby: To break through today, we need to be modern – and we need to be more. We need to call on the Mad Men and women within us, while equally tapping into the mad scientists we have all become. At once, we’ve got to be alchemists and quants. One or the other was a choice you could make in the modern marketing era. We are post that now.
Q: You’ve stated that Stein IAS positions itself as the ‘Post-modern Marketing Agency.’ What are you doing that’s new or different with your clients?
Ruby: To begin, we’ve launched MiX, an acronym for Most Important Experiences. It’s a first-of-its-kind initiative among B2B agencies to bring together cross-functional teams, including design, content, UX, programming and technology, in order to leverage existing and emerging technologies to create the kinds of customer experiences we’ve been describing. Some say we are in the experience economy, where experience is the ultimate differentiator. We agree. Through MiX, we’re fundamentally evolving and re-imagining how we apply big, long ideas and connected experiences at every touchpoint in the buyer journey.
Q: Have your clients embraced postmodern marketing?
Stein: Some have. But I’d add that all are receptive to the thinking that underlies it. As they continue to master modern marketing’s complexities and realize its potential, brands also see the need to re-focus on creative brilliance, expressed in today’s context. But they are less looking for the martini-fueled advertising of the Mad Men and much more so the content experiences that rally and excite audiences, deliver value and, by doing so, deliver better results.
