Sheer genius. This Dr. Pepper version of the Tay Zonday Chocolate Rain Video is hysterical and very nicely produced. I love the clever “viral” look introduction combined with the surprise MTV-style production. Also, nice job with the subtle branding near the end.

Attention Conservation Notice: The following post contains quick tips for blogging best practices
including a link to a video interview on the subject.

Concerned with the increasing level of noise pollution in the blogosphere and inspired by this wonderful video interview of Cory Doctorow about blogging best practices, The B2B Lead is going green—green marketing, that is.

Long time readers of The B2B Lead know that our mission is to provide snack-size tutorials and tips. That’s about all busy B2B Marketers can take in these days. Of course, sometimes it just isn’t possible to communicate critical information in a short post. For example, in B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #59, we wrote about using Twitter to drive B2B blog readers and the post was much longer than traditional posts. Pondering the Future of B2B Marketing was equally lengthy.

So, for those of you who still want in-depth content along with your snack-size tips, we will now include Attention Conservation Notices to help you conserve your precious attention resources. As Doctorow advises in his video interview, we will lead off our blog posts with a short summary of key takeaways so that readers can decide whether they would like to invest their time in reading the entire article. Let us know if you find them useful.

So, I just heard about a marketing team that is making, in my opinion, a big mistake. To give you some background, these guys target HUGE companies. Their newest lead generation technique sends mass voicemails to contacts within companies like Nike, Sony, Reebok, Toshiba, Microsoft, etc….A few thoughts:

1. Who checks voicemail?
2. If it is checked, how many times have you deleted the VM as soon as you realize it is a salesperson who you have never spoken to?
3. If you do catch the name of the company before you delete the VM, how many times have you thought, “what a terrible way to try and sell me something…what were they thinking”?
4. This company is targeting marketers….don’t marketers take offense to being sold to by stupid marketing?
5. Let’s say that the sales rep makes it past 1-4 above….WHO IS HE/SHE CALLING??? How do they know that the VM they are leaving is for the person responsible for purchasing their solution?
6. B2C companies as large as these guys may have 500 people involved in marketing. Piggy back to point 5.
7. How can you track this method of lead generation?

Heard about a very interesting Vendor Relationship Management project (the counterpart to Customer Relationship Management or CRM) today. Apparently, ProjectVRM, headquartered at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, was chartered to “improve the relationship between Demand and Supply by providing new and better ways for the former to relate to the latter.”

What really captured my interest was this intriguing presentation on possible scenarios with some fun and interesting implications for micro-segmentation marketing (Minority Report) vs. social media (The Global Village).

Details on the Project VRM wiki – http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/Scenarios

Attended the Austin Social Media Workshop today where I had the pleasure of listening to Shel Israel (co-author of Naked Conversations) Connie Reece, Mike Chapman, and a bunch of other social media evangelists. One of the highlights that really drove home the point of the day was this genius video spoofing the typical one-way Marketing one-size-fits-all approach. This is definitely worth a watch!

The Break Up
Video sent by geertdesager

Want to share the fun? Check out Q&A from the event.

Can you believe this is at a trade show and not Halloween? That’s right, at this year’s DreamForce, salesforce.com’s annual user conference, ReachForce found a fun way to stand out from all the other booths. The theme was Let’s Make a Deal. You can see Monty Hall in the center with his wacky contestants around. The theme definitely worked and gained a lot of attention for ReachForce and their debut software product, Insight. One lesson learned though was that some people had a hard time having an intelligent conversation with Fred Flintstone. If you try to get noticed at your next event with costumes, choose wisely who will wear them.

Yep, you heard me, Mr. Happy Crack. The clever folks at Crack Team USA Inc. in St. Louis have managed to make a successful viral video campaign for their concrete repair business. According to the Wall Street Journal Independent Street blog:

“The video doesn’t preach, it’s not blatantly advertorial (at least in the beginning), it emphasizes brand over product and you might watch it even if you’re not in the market to get a crack repaired. Though chances are good that, next time you do, you’ll think of this company first.”

Check it out at:
http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet/2007/10/17/cracking-youtube-marketing-even-if-youre-boring/

Found this truly ironic interactive experience posted on Digg yesterday. It basically gives visitors a glimpse of what the famously clean Google user interface would look like if Google were to optimize it for its own search engine. Enjoy.

http://www.meangene.com/google/design_for_google.html

Submitted by John Siberell, Marketing Manager, SuperFlow  Technologies

I was invited to travel to Tokyo and meet with the man who was Toyota’s minister of housing.

He was the chief “bud” for lining up and building homes for the corporate executives at the company. Each bigwig there got housing along with their employment at Toyota. I was there to help some associates sell the idea of building American neighborhoods and “stick” built (2X4) homes for a new development Toyota was preparing to build. (You see, the Japanese go Gonzo over American stuff….Harleys, cowboys, 50’s cars and American homes and architecture…believe it!) I was working with an architectural firm from Minneapolis with whom the car maker was interested in partnering with.

After sipping on tea and having completed cordialities, we started our very formal meeting in the top of the Toyota Corporate headquarters. After about 20 minutes of fact finding conversation from both sides, I asked Mr.housing minister, through his interpreter, if our design firm could prepare a proposal for him and send it over for he and his staff to review.

In amazement we watched him look down at the table, ponder for a moment, slowly push his chair back and stand up. He bowed. Said nothing and walked out of the boardroom. Just that fast.

I looked at our interpreter, and at the Toyota interpreter then at my associates in puzzlement. The corporate interpreter said the meeting was over and thanked us for coming. We were in the elevator just as fast as she could bow and say goodbye.

While plummeting downward from the top floors, we stood all silent…stupefied actually. I looked at everyone in the elevator and asked, “What did I do?!”

Our personal interpreter said that he would share with us at the bar what had happened. Great.

It turned out that I had put the housing minister on the spot. By asking him my question, he was unable to answer it without total disgracing himself in front of us and his staff. You see, I had asked him a question that he would ultimately have to take to his subordinates to discuss before it could be answered. So, he was now in a shameful position because he could not answer properly. The only way he could deal with the situation was leave! Meeting over.

So, in retrospect dealing with the Japanese takes careful study and planning on how one is going to go into a meeting and what you are going to say. Much coaching and roll playing needs to take place with a national (not American) Japanese business person. Japanese mores and local social customs will make or break the process.

Take your time to read up and ask questions on how to successfully deal with any foreign business person. They do not know what a New York minute is….

Take a look at this wonderfully cheesy YouTube video from Symantec, the makers of Norton Anti-virus software.

Their web site is even better http://www.nortonfighter.com/.