I’ve just completed the first draft of an advisory for B2B marketing with an agency I’m excited to be working with. I’ve done a ton of research on what’s happening in B2B marketing and content marketing, where one of the themes is the adoption of storytelling. Naturally, I found myself wondering:

Who’s doing great B2B storytelling?

I know one super example – Cisco Systems.

Cisco created its own IT superhero, Ike Theodore (IT) Willis, and made highly entertaining animated videos about Ike’s IT challenges.

Ike has his own Facebook page and seven video episodes at last count. His popularity prompted Cisco to create its own IT Championships where 3,000 IT geeks slugged it out for a chance to win a trip to Hawaii.

Don’t be surprised if Cisco turns this into an annual challenge. What a great demonstration of going way beyond thinking of the customer to create engaging content that its customers – IT geeks – look forward to receiving and coming back to see what’s next.

But Cisco’s efforts don’t stop there.

The California based networking giant also produced a short documentary about how service providers – one of its target customer groups – pioneered the development of the telecommunications network in a series called The Network Effect. It not only garnered a lot of YouTube love but it was broadcast on TV.

The Network effect is being called a good B2B example of Transmedia storytelling. What’s that? It’s a term coined in the entertainment and movie business the refers to dividing chunks of a story across multiple platforms to form one cohesive narrative.

So who else is doing great B2B Storytelling?

I have a list that I’m developing for a second post, but in the meantime, tell me who you have noticed in the comments below.