Ours is a curious business, staffed by curious people. As a writer, I think curiosity has more to do with creative success than just about anything—and that includes raw talent.
Recently, I had the opportunity to travel with Jim Livecchi (or just “Livecchi,” which is what everyone calls him) for a client presentation in Chicago. Livecchi heads up our SBC B2B Core. The meeting went great, the client loved the work, and as we were sitting in a Chili’s Too in O’hare waiting for our plane and drinking celebratory Arnold Palmers, we got to talking about the nature of B2B marketing.
As a curious creative, I find this kind of stuff interesting. Also, I enjoy getting Livecchi all worked up about a topic, because he gets really animated and gestures with vigor and it’s fun to watch.
I’m not so new to advertising, and have worked on a bunch of B2B brands in my career, but he said a few things that made me think that just about everything most people think they know about B2B marketing is horseshit.
He said stuff like this: “People say all the time that they get B2B selling-based marketing, but what they really are describing is some functional or operational aspect of a transaction path, which is like a fraction of what actually drives B2B sales.”
