Thursday, January 12th, 2012B2B IS STILL DEAD. LONG LIVE HUMAN RELEVANCE.A little more than a year ago, I traveled to historic Berlin to deliver the most important speech of my 30-year career. This great city, of course, was the scene of JFKs Let them come to Berlin speech and Reagans Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall address. I had no pretensions that my remarks at a B2B Europe Conference would be either historic, if even memorable. But I did know that I had come to Berlin to declare the death of the category of marketing communications to which I had theretofore dedicated my entire professional life.B2B is dead, I told the several hundred gathered there. It gave me no particular pleasure to do so. I had founded aB2B agencyin the American Midwest in 1981 and not only built my firm through the years into the worlds largest, but also championed the importance, distinctiveness and prospects of those professionals who market goods and services to other businesses. Friends in the industry took to referring to me as Mr. B-to-B; many still do.But my offense against my own kindred was that I was to be the one to declare the party over. B2B is dead. Kaput. The discipline of reaching, persuading and engaging business decision-makers changed irrevocably when people began carrying their own telecommunications and computing power on their person. Being at work is no longer a place, but rather a state of mind, I told the audience last December. The individual has replaced the firm as the organizing principle of business-to-business marketing, I added. Human relevance is now the foundation of marketing to business decision-makers, and it is mostly terra incognito for those still lingering round the grave of B2B.I have spoken to hundreds of audiences over the course of my career, written dozens of articles for publication and websites like this one, served on the boards of several important industry associations. But nothing I have ever said or done has been seemingly more influential than what I said on that fateful trip to Berlin in 2010.When I returned to the U.S., almost immediately I was drawn into a widely covered public debate with our competitive peers, at least one of whom argued that we arent doing anything appreciably different than we ever have, only with different tools. I suggested he stay his present course in the hope and with the confidence that he would soon no longer be one of our competitive peers.As we say in Appalachian foothill region from whence I hail, We kicked a hog in the tail, though I really wasnt trying to be just the agent provocateur. I really, genuinely believed then, as I do now, that what we have known as B2B is dead, behind us. A passion for a new paradigm, a NeoB2B, has gone viral.Nowhere was this confirmed to me more obviously than as I visited with clients and prospects throughout 2011. Our agency was named last year as advisor to Forbes Media for itsChief Marketing Officer Practice. My job has been to visit face-to-face and counsel with over 150 senior marketing executives in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East. With virtual unanimity, they have repeatedly affirmed the demise of B2B.There is no longer any such thing as B2B, one told me. Another observed, Work-life balance is a myth; its just life. Yet another claimed, Business decision-makers are just a different kind of consumer. It seems that world-class marketers everywhere have awakened to the fact that today we are communicating with living, breathing human beings with aspirations, spirits and emotions. Oh, its undoubtedly true weve always known that business-to-business, at the end of the day, was person-to-person. But what the worlds savviest marketers seem to have appreciated quickly is that personalization was the last best practice. Humanly relevant ideas are the new best practice.No longer is it enough to understand the requirements of a person in a job title to be successful in influencing that person to make a purchase consideration. No longer is it enough for an advertising planner to get into the head of a business decision-maker. With the amplified voices and the new organizational empowerment of these humans at work, successful marketers must get into their hearts. This venue is softer, more humane, more empathetic and, dare we say it, more loving.People have been rendered numb by the demands of this new, flat-world economy: incessant messaging, high-performance pressure, overexposure, loss of privacy. Its been said, They love brands, but hate advertising. In a day gone by, a person in employment would be pummeled by the days labor, and then retreat to the sanctuary of home to rest and regroup. Now, work follows them wherever they go, and theyve become insensate to commercial messaging.The only way well revive them is withhumanly relevant ideasthat respect their humanity and ignite their hearts. Thats the new frontier in which were passionately focused.by Rick SegalPresident Worldwide and Chief Practice OfficerB2B Marketing: An Activated 'Brand'Naturally enough, we talk a lot on this blog about Brand Activation as marketings ultimate end state.So I do not say this lightly: I believe that B2B marketing is a brand at an extreme point of activation--if one may think of a discipline as a brand.Granted, I have a vested interest given that I sit on the National and New York boards of the Business Marketing Association.While some have said thatB2B marketing is deador in some other form of actual or notional transmogrification, based on many recent inputs and observations, my feeling is that B2B marketing is kicking some serious ass.What leads me, in particular, to this assessment is the sheer star power at two events coming up in the next couple of months. Both events are part of the BMAs 2012 Go and Grow global conference series.On Sept. 27, an event titled Transformations: Now & Next will take place in New York. The BMAs first-ever event in the U.K., Global B2B Made Crystal Clear, will be held on Oct. 18 in London.Between the two events, hundreds of top marketers, thinkers, and provocateurs will turn out to discuss the massive innovations taking place in business marketing.Here is just a partial list of the companies from which event speakers and sponsors hail:Acxiom, Adobe, ADP, AKQA, AON, Avnet, Atos, BBH, Bizo, Bloomberg Businessweek,CNBC, Doremus, Eloqua, Forbes, gyro, IASb2b Marketing, IBM, Google, General Electric, LinkedIn, Motorola Solutions, Ricoh, SapientNitro, Siemens, The Wall Street Journal, UBM, and Verizon.Id encourage every one of you to check these out. As a booster, I am understandably jazzed. But as an agency leader, I am amazed at the star power, fire power, thought power, innovation power, and brand power--all of which tell me that B2B marketing indeed isactivated.

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