The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
Meet the One Rand Man, an average 30-something-year-old living in Cape Town, South Africa. As an architect, he’s living his best life, eating out at swanky restaurants, buying rounds of tequila shots for the whole table, and splurging on clothing of the highest quality. He rarely tracks his finances.
But one day, he wakes up and realizes the more he makes, the more he spends on his extravagant lifestyle. He gets curious, so he orders his entire monthly salary to be paid in one rand coins. Yes, you heard that right. The One Rand Man is now on a quest to understand just how much he’s spending in hopes that he’ll spend less by using coins to purchase everything.
Sanlam Life Insurance took on his social experiment as a marketing tactic[1] to teach people how to better manage their money and make smarter financial decisions. And this story blew up — we’re talking thousands of hits on Youtube and plenty of positive publicity. This B2C business used the One Rand Man’s story to educate consumers on the power of making educated financial decisions. And where do you think those consumers turned to when they needed financial assistance? Of course, Sanlam.
What about B2B businesses, though? Does the same concept still apply? The truth is that many of you might believe incorporating this marketing tactic is time consuming or irrelevant to your business audience, but the truth is it works — with flying colors.
For those in the B2B world, you’ve probably heard of B2B referred to as “Boring 2 Boring.” Well, it’s time to end that and spice things up a