Mr B-To-B Declares The Death Of Business-To-Business Marketing

GyroHSR’s Rick Segal, worldwide president and chief practice officer told delegates at the “B2B Marketing Europe” event, organized by Knowledge Goes Social, that advances in telecommunications have “rendered business-to-business marketing totally obsolete.” Rick Segal, told attendees at the two-day gathering of marketing executives from companies including Google, Accenture, HP, Kodak, Canon and Philips: “There is now no such thing as B-to-B.”

GyroHSR has been cited 21 times in the last 15 years as a “Top B-to-B Agency” by Crain’s BtoB magazine, the Business Marketing Association International, American Business Median and just last week as “B2B Agency of the Year”, for the second year in a row, by B2B magazine in the UK. Segal himself has been cited in Crain’s BtoB “Who’s Who in B-to-B” every year that the list has been published.

So why does an agency so highly regarded in the world of B-to-B marketing step forward to proclaim the death of a category in which it has made such an enviable reputation?

“Work has changed,” Segal said, “and people at work have changed profoundly.” The agency executive told attendees that the “proliferation of network communications and hand-held devices have eliminated the barriers that once separated work and home.”

“Work is no longer a place,” he said. “It is a state of mind.”

“People in an at-work state of mind, today, are exposed to a constant, multi-point flow of communications from not just customers, suppliers and coworkers but also from family, friends, would-be friends and network members. They are not only engaged in considering brand messages while at work, they also champion them to their social networks,” Segal said. “They are constantly toggling between working and ‘home-ing’ through longer hours of the day and more days of the week, making decisions professional and personal.”

He further noted, “The at-work state of mind represents a powerful theater for brand communications; perhaps the most powerful,” suggesting that the skill sets B-to-B marketers have already mastered in marketing-considered purchases and to social networks could now prove very valuable to companies selling both consumer and business-related products and services.