THE 14TH ANNUAL SHORTY AWARDS

The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media and digital. View this season's finalists!
From the 7th Annual Shorty Awards

Doremus

Entered in Mid-Size Agency

Objectives

Doremus is a world-class business communications agency with over 111 years of experience helping companies align communications with business objectives. Yep – 111 years. Doremus has successfully transitioned from a traditional advertising agency into a pioneer in the development and execution of social strategies for B2B companies engaging with audiences in new, innovative ways that serve business.

A 2014 AdAge A-List Agency, Doremus partners with leading brands like HP, Mars Drinks, O-I and Sun Life Financial to develop social strategies, content and distribution programs that drive results. On the day the healthcare exchanges opened, we hosted the Sun Life Summit, an online B2B broker event with the architect of Obamacare, and went on at the next Summit to explain how healthcare exchanges work. For our client O-I at SXSW in the FADER Fort, we grew a millennial base on Instagram and later fed them with a 60-ton sand sculpture at the Blue Ocean Film Festival. Glass is Life is O-I's global cross-platform movement for glass, engaging a community of roughly 300,000 members in 9 countries and 6 languages, inspiring glass lovers and most importantly, driving business for O-I. Our proprietary tool DNA, developed in partnership with Twitter, is the only B2B tool of its kind for influencer analysis and brand deployment for B2B clients.

Social media is often intimidating for our clients. Our experience encourages them to step in. We love what we do and look forward to continually break the boundaries of B2B communications for the next 111 years.

Strategy and Execution

If there were an award for the world's oldest agency continuing to push the boundaries, Doremus is it. Hands down. Unfortunately for us, that's not a category. So what's the relevance? It is a testament to the evolution and growth of an agency that has continuously adapted to meet the challenges of new communications channels to drive real business results for our clients. We've survived and thrived because the stuff we do is hard and you can't pump it out of a company that scratches the surface of a brand. Who in our industry is able to explain Private Healthcare Exchanges in an interesting way, in detail to an audience who knows their stuff like an insurance broker? No one but us.

There is no question that the digital world has radically transformed the way people interact with and buy into brands. This shift has had particularly profound implications for B2B audiences, which is exactly why we built our engagement group and content development and execution team from the ground up: to meet the unique needs of highly specialized audiences in a way that no other agency can.

We helped O-I, the biggest company you've never heard of and maker of more than half of the world's glass packaging, not only compete with the budgets and bravado of Allstate's Mayhem Man, but initiate and lead a global movement for glass. The effort led to new partnerships with leading CPG companies and new revenue streams for O-I. That work made O-I the only B2B finalist for a global Effie in 2013 (in the company of Coke, Nike, Schmirnoff, BMW, and Jim Beam) and by far, the most resource constrained contender in almost any industry contest. In 2014 we took it to new levels growing our base – household decision-makers who choose the healthiest packaging for families, tastemakers who want a product to taste exactly the way it should, and conscious consumers who make the right choice for the environment. Gourmands, surfers, mothers, foodies, DIYers to create a steady drumbeat of glass lovers to sustain our partnerships with brands like Mountain Valley Spring Water, Beechnut Baby Food, Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirit, and more.

We helped Mars Drinks dip its toe into the proverbial water of social media, developing a unique voice for their brand in the B2B space with custom and curated content designed to drive community growth and heat up the competition with Keurig. Facebook alone achieved a growth rate of 400%, with engagement rates of almost 2%, eclipsing other corporate profiles in similar arenas.

Beyond that, we're tireless innovators:

We saw a lack of sufficient social tools in B2B, so we set out to create our own. While many tools reveal social insights in social networks, Doremus Network Analysis (or DNA) reveals insights from the networks of social networks. It's a shift from content to connections. Leveraging a unique partnership with Twitter, DNA uses big social data and network science to understand audiences, connectivity and brand thematics. It's revolutionized our approach to communications planning and helped our clients realize new potential. Oh, and one more thing. There is no other tool like it on the market. None.

Our story is classic David and Goliath. We're constantly punching above our weight – in budgets, in recognition, in scope, in reach. We're an old agency when everyone's talking about young agencies. We're B2B when everyone wants to work on Red Bull. Our clients are late to the game and they're not marketers by nature. But who doesn't love a good fight? We're scrappy and resourceful and continue to find ways make a big splash in unexpected ways. And we're not going anywhere. With 111 years in the rear view mirror, we've got our sight set on the next.

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Doremus

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