NEW YORK: Comcast, the media conglomerate, is making effective use of sophisticated targeting tools as a means of boosting its business-to-business (B2B) messaging aimed at advertising buyers.

Maria Weaver, Comcast’s SVP/global marketing for cable advertising, discussed this topic at BRITE 2018, a conference held by The Center on Global Brand Leadership at Columbia Business School.

“My B2B marketing is for folks who are trying to do B2C [business-to-consumer] marketing. And I'm really trying to convince them to advertise with us on Comcast,” she said. (For more, read WARC’s in-depth report: Comcast evolves its business-to-business marketing strategy.)

This initiative is embodied by “The Finders”, a campaign that champions Comcast Spotlight – a unit of the company that provides targeted TV and digital advertising services.

“The Finders” makes use of both television and online messages to reach the desired audience of advertising buyers, a niche group that is increasingly addressable thanks to data-driven communications.

“We have a pretty aggressive television advertising campaign, as well as digital media, etc. In this case, it’s a little bit different than what you would do in a B2C [campaign], because you have to hyper-target messaging, and so forth. But it’s still using a lot of the same practices,” Weaver said.

“Social media has really, I think, transformed how we can reach our consumers as well. So, it’s really a very different world.

“And the fact that you can measure it and … be able to have those conversations with senior leaders about how you can transform the business is a game-changer for us.”

While business-to-business marketing has long been perceived as a poor relation to its consumer-facing counterpart, Weaver argued this situation is undoubtedly starting to change.

“I think what we’re finding is that you can now leverage traditional media to reach your B2B consumer,” she explained to the BRITE assembly.

“Traditionally, a lot of B2B [messaging] has been things like collateral materials, maybe some trade advertising, or presentations at a booth [at] conferences, things of that nature.”

Sourced from WARC