What’s Working in Marketing

This week’s top five had some good news for B2B marketers on growing budgets and some executives speaking out on what they are doing in this economy to be successful. We’ve also got a couple of other interesting, not marketing-related posts to share from Punxsutawney Phil’s shadow statistics and a bonus article to vote for your favorite Superbowl Ad… Here we go:

1.  Most Practical:  Close-up with Randy Tinseth, VP-marketing, Boeing Corp.
The unique challenge Boeing has is their finite customer base, yet they seem to well position their business for growth despite the economy, never mind dealing with all the cost cutting measures happening in the airline industry.  Tinseth speaks about the challenges with managing their customers, and how they handled dealing with dissapointed customers when they had to cancel a test flight of their new Dreamliner.  I liked his practical, common-sense approach throughout the Q&A.

2.  Hope on the Horizon: B-to-b online marketing spending to increase this year

This was some good news for B2B marketers, online marketing budgets are back in the black this year, and will grow 12% over five years.  What I also thought was interesting was the last sentence in this short article that idenfitied a gap between what publishers are offering for lead generation and what we (as marketers) are looking for.   Innovation is desperately needed there!

3.  From the Dark Side:  Gartner Reveals Five Social Software Predictions for 2010 and Beyond

I jest about this being from the dark side, but Gartner does spell out some important issues for adopting social software.  It’s not all roses.   The report highlights the challenges ahead for enterprises who will be implementing social software  for collaboration and communication purposes.  They are predicting major behavioral changes such as  social software will replace email for at least 20% of social users, and that many enterprises will fail in their social software strategies before they succeed.  Good food for thought.

4.  From the Far Side:  An Analysis of Punxsutawney Phil, the Great Weather-Predicting Chuck

So, you thought you knew everything about Punxsutawney Phil?  I always get a kick out of how we measure whether or not we will see 6 more weeks of winter or not…it’s usually the latter.   Get the latest statistics here…

5.  Most Fascinating: Extinct Scotch Found in Antarctic Ice

Scotch on the rocks, please…literally!  Wouldn’t you love to find any kind of remnant from Sir Earnest Shackleton’s journey, never mind a rare scotch?  How cool a find this is!

6.  Bonus:  Vote on your favorite Superbowl Ad!

Technically from this morning (vs. last week), I couldn’t resist sharing this link. Especially if you missed some of the commercials, you can get your fix here.  Be careful with the volume on this one, the first video commercial plays immediately…

Until next week…