The current Branded Entertainment situation in Australia was not of material concern to the design of this campaign, as we sought to deliver professional-level B2B content in a formal educational experience predominately through an online channel

Most B2B marketing is aimed at businesses: it’s rational, logical and impersonal. We decided to aim at individuals, and their self-interest (career progression) and make our approach deeply personal.

The other shift was to move beyond branded content and to move into branded utility: we’ve re-cast marketing as a service by offering career-development instead of product messaging.

Our audience literally studying IBM’s solutions and strategies as a way to advance their own career agendas.

The NextGen program is an entirely new value exchange between the brand and the audience, where knowledge and power are traded for advocacy and loyalty.

The response to the NextGen CIO program was overwhelming - 300% more than we could handle - as IT managers clamored for a chance to move up the career ladder.

As they progressed through the 5 modules and final written assessment, our audience spent over 700 hours literally studying our content and brand values.

And as the editorial coverage of the course grew (interviews, profiles and commentary), so too did the secondary audience for the content, with over 9,000 visits to the NextGen CIO editorial hub on CBSi’s media properties.

Although, it’s fun to get re-tweets and it’s nice to be liked, you don’t build a B2B business by building a social fan-base – you do it by building the careers of the people who make buying decisions. As direct marketers used to be fond of saying: it doesn’t matter how many people you reach, as long as you reach the people who matter.

At the time of writing, 70% of the NextGen CIO graduates had sought to continue the relationship directly with the brand - it’s what we call ‘Return On Future Leadership’.