Business to business marketing has the greatest potential and the least appeal. Its potential and dullness emanate from the same cause. For the most part, B2B marketing looks the same. It is full of imagery of sky scrapers, people in business suits trying to look dynamic and tired old sporting analogies of teamwork. In any industry the tone of voice of the top three firms will be largely interchangeable – faux collaborative, arrogant and full of ‘opportunity’.

The thinking is as follows: we are talking to serious people about matters involving their decision to spend corporate money. Therefore our tone of voice must be serious, our communication must be grey, and nothing must be done to suggest we take the subject any less seriously. So frightened corporates have restrictive identities and brand guidelines that entrench ‘ordinary’ as the primary corporate value. Instead of a culture of differentiation, there is a culture of sameness. The result is idenitikit corporate blanding.

When B2B marketing looks the same it quickly loses its appeal, but this also creates the potential to stand out and do something different.

The name ‘B2B’ marketing tells us that we aren’t talking to people but to companies. But ‘companies’ still means a key group of influencers and decision makers. Those people may be in their business roles but they aren’t rational robots. Companies still means people.

Maybe what we need to do is to re-brand B2B marketing. We should start with the name. It should focus on the people behind the businesses. ‘P2P’ or Professional 2 Professional marketing reminds us that we are still talking to humans. We are talking to them in their business roles, but they are people not just faceless companies. This gives us the opportunity to stand out from the bland B2B world, by injecting some much needed humanity into a largely dull sector. P2P adds a human appeal to B2B marketing, it helps us differentiate and engage our audience.

P2P also focuses on the people behind both businesses – the businesses we are talking to and from. P2P reminds us to consider people internally and externally. Business to business marketing largely ignores the importance of the internal audience. Corporate communications drive the internal culture and impact on how employees perceive themselves and their company. It is the internal audience that delivers the corporate brand. Without the engagement of your internal audience your corporate brand is just a corporate promise. With the engagement of your internal audience your corporate brand can become a corporate experience.

P2P is B2B with two human faces.