I was at a music concert the other day. Popular music. It was the main act of the gig and featured a band who were not stellar or globally known but have a few hits under the belt that you would recognise.

I couldn’t name any of their songs while we were driving to the gig, but when they came on you knew them, and could sing along. There were 2 or 3 thousand at the gig, most of whom, I would guess, were fans.

Like a lot of bands, they had a new album coming out and so played a lot of new stuff. Whenever they played one of their big songs, however, the reaction of the audience was immediate and immense, visceral really.

It got me thinking, saddo that I am, about B2B marketing. This connection, this way of moving people, this level of engagement in a band/brand is something that B2B marketers can only dream about. After all, when you hear your favourite song come on, from your favourite band, the song that evokes a great holiday or time in your life, a song that you named your first child after, it inspires a feeling that you’re unlikely to see replicated when you come into work on the Monday and fire up the software that you couldn’t do your job without.

Both things, work and play, are interactions on a 1:1 basis, and even though B2B is selling to a business not a consumer, you’re still selling to an individual, or more likely a collection of individuals, each with a degree of influence and power, but individuals nonetheless, with their own set of likes, dislikes, preferences, reasons for deciding one way or the other.

Perhaps it’s wrong of us as B2B marketers to even think about trying to emulate the kind of engagement that brands strive for with people when they’re out of business, away from work.

Then again, perhaps moving people as consumers and moving people in work is not so different after all.