To recognize outstanding B2B marketing campaigns, the Corporate Executive Board (NASDAQ: EXBD) (CEB) launched the B2B Marketing Communications Awards. The judges selected Alcatel-Lucent, National Instruments, and Qwest Communications as winners for 2009.

More than 50 Marketing teams from Fortune 500 companies submitted campaigns for this award. The entries were judged by a panel of senior marketers from member companies of the Marketing Leadership Council, a program of CEB, including Danfoss, Holcim, Morgan Stanley, Philips, and Vodafone in December 2009.

Winning entries

Company: Alcatel-Lucent

• Campaign: Hotel Experience
• Highlights: The virtual hotel experience engages customers by enabling them to experience the benefits of Alcatel-Lucent’s technology first-hand. Alcatel-Lucent has integrated the hotel experience into its sales visits, Web site and trade shows (speakers use the tool as the basis of presentations), thus improving the impact of multiple touchpoints.

Company: National Instruments

• Campaign: Energizing Engineers at NIWeek
• Highlights: National Instruments’ target insight (engineers want to be seen as ‘experts’ by peers) drives its entire choice of channels and messages: conferences create opportunities for customers to network, training seminars help customers keep up-to-date with cutting-edge technologies, and social media platforms enable customers to promote their professional successes.

Company: Qwest Communications

• Campaign: Voice of the Customer
• Highlights: Qwest capitalizes on the finding that peer recommendations are the most trusted sources of advice for business professionals by sharing customer testimonials. Its online database of over 100 video/audio testimonials can be sorted by business need, industry, geography, and company size to ensure relevance to each prospect’s situation.

The B2B Marketing Communications Awards recognizes outstanding achievement in B2B marcomms. Judges rate each campaign against four key categories of criteria:

• Marketing Context—clarity of objectives and consistency with overall brand positioning.
• Target Audience—clarity of target definition and depth of understanding about the target’s motivations.
• Message—relevance, credibility and, actionability of message.
• Touchpoint Mix—use of original, traceable, and high-impact channels that complement each other.

This program also benchmarks the state of the art in B2B marcomms by showcasing the details of every campaign (including objective, metrics, agencies) submitted on the Marketing Leadership Council Web site.

About the Marketing Leadership Council and CEB

The Marketing Leadership Council is a membership of senior executives with a shared commitment to steward Sales and Marketing Practice initiatives. This membership offers a set of unique services and tools designed to assist leaders with their most pressing managerial, communications, and decision-making challenges. The Marketing Leadership Council is part of the Corporate Executive Board.

The Corporate Executive Board (NASDAQ: EXBD) drives faster, more effective decision making among the world’s leading executives and business professionals. As the premier, network-based knowledge resource, it provides them with the authoritative and timely guidance needed to excel in their roles, take decisive action and improve company performance. Powered by a member network that spans more than 50 countries and represents more than 80% of the world’s Fortune 500 companies, the Corporate Executive Board offers the unique research insights along with an integrated suite of members-only tools and resources that enable the world’s most successful organizations to deliver superior business outcomes.

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