ARLINGTON, Va., Oct. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Corporate Executive Board (NYSE: EXBD), a leading research and advisory services company, today announced the winners of its 2010 B2B Marketing Communications Campaign Awards sponsored by CEB's Marketing Leadership Council. This year's winners demonstrated an adept use of thought leadership, a significant increase in the use of social media and a clear focus on sales enablement that illustrates the increasing sophistication of the B2B marketing function.

Thought leadership was a dominant factor in successful B2B campaigns, with more than 50 percent of applicants highlighting a thought leadership component in their strategy. The increased use of social media was also a highlight: in a year-over-year comparison, the Marketing Leadership Council observed an increase of nearly 30 percent in the use of social media by award applicants, rising from four percent in 2009 to 33 percent in 2010. A third trend was increased coordination with the sales team: the number of submissions incorporating a sales enablement component doubled from 2009 to 2010.

"CEB congratulates all of the 2010 B2B Marketing Communications Campaign Award winners," said Pat Spenner, managing director of CEB's Marketing Leadership Council. "Based on this year's submissions it is clear that the level of innovation in B2B marketing is rising and that marketers are identifying and better leveraging both their internal assets and new communications channels to reach their customers and achieve business goals. We were deeply impressed with the efforts made by our winners and look forward to sharing their insightful marketing campaigns across our membership."

B2B Marketing Communications Campaign Award entrants submitted applications for consideration in July 2010. Initial scoring was based on the following key areas: marketing context, target audience, message, and touch point mix. Eighteen companies were selected as finalists and a team comprised of CEB researchers and senior executives from leading organizations selected the six winners, which included:




    Category                Winner               Campaign
    --------                ------               --------
                             McKesson U.S.        "BoP. The Business of
    Thought Leadership       Pharmaceutical       Pharmacy"
    "Cool"                  Texas Instruments    "SMASH IT"
                                                  "SILS(TM) Product Mobile
    Sales Enablement        Covidien              Tour"
                                                  "Targeted Account
    Innovation              Qwest Communications  Program"
    Marcomm Excellence in a
     Midsized Company       Rackspace Hosting    "No More Servers"
    Return on Investment    Adobe Systems, Inc.  "Adobe Open Up"

B2B Marketing Communications Campaign Award winners were honored during CEB's Sales, Marketing & Communications summit for senior sales and marketing professionals, "The Distinctive Purchase Experience," on Oct. 5, 2010 in Las Vegas. "The Distinctive Purchase Experience" thought leadership sessions were moderated by Satmetrix, IDEO and Corporate Visions, Inc.

For more information on the B2B Marketing Communications Campaign Awards or CEB's Marketing Leadership Council, please visit www.mlc.executiveboard.com.

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SOURCE Corporate Executive Board