B2B Marketer
Issue No. 59 - June/July 2011
Making global B2B advertising work
by Kimon Lycos and Kimon Lycos
PART 1 – The challenges
Let’s set the record straight, or as Dr Phil puts it – “Let’s get real.”
I’m pretty sure I have grouched on this before, but jeeze, why do people have this innate need to make simple things very hard? I mean, let’s face facts, B2B marketing and advertising is not exactly at the same skill level as say, splitting an atom, repairing eyesight or making sure your socks always match after they get washed.
However, despite abundant evidence about a proven method within marketing, you will always have someone with a PhD in avoiding the bleeding obvious wanting to buck the laws of sheer logic. Recently, I had one of these fly in the ointment/spanner in the works types barge into my fragile sanity, so you can take this as my manifesto for common sense, for not turning the simple way into the simply nuts way of getting things done.
International B2B advertising can be difficult to execute but the bee in my bonnet comes from having someone get in my face about wanting to decentralize the marketing communications for a company because “all business is local”.
The debate about to centralize or not to centralize is about as engrossing as discussing the colour of orange juice. There is no debate. The answer is simple; centralization is the way to go – period.
I’ve been involved in projects where companies have had a decentralized approach and realized after many years that they have been wasting a lot of resources to achieve little. You also create small kingdoms, where people protect their turf and fight tooth and nail not to give it up.
Projects, which normally require one person, suddenly need to be duplicated around the world, with a staff of a dozen or so doing their own thing. Without strong leadership or direction, they do a pretty ba...
