B-to-b marketing has been around for well over a century, as exhibited by Omnicom’s dedicated b-to-b shop Doremus+Co, which celebrates its 120th anniversary this year. But only recently has business-to-business marketing come to the forefront of the marketing world.
In the past few years, Cannes Lions has added a Creative B2B category, LinkedIn started its B2B Institute, and there has been considerable buzz around the category recently as it relates to creativity.
Doremus+Co is, after more than a century in business, riding the wave of b-to-b popularity, making some recent changes to account for more creativity in the b-to-b space, including hiring Sarah Lent, a global leader in b-to-b marketing and communications, as its new president.
Lent fills a role that had previously been handled by Paul Hirsch, who has been elevated to CEO and retains the title of chief creative officer. Lent will partner with Hirsch and the entire leadership team to support the Omnicom agency’s mission to help clients navigate complexity and realize the potential of their brand through business-to-business marketing, innovation, strategy and creative excellence.
In addition, she will oversee partnerships within Omnicom and support the expansion of Doremus’ offerings in content, social and demand generation—areas of increasing importance and investment to b-to-b marketers.
Lent comes to Doremus+Co from VSA Partners, where she was CMO. Her extensive b-to-b background has included positions at Cahan & Associates, along with eight years at Omnicom’s Interbrand, where she worked with large enterprise b-to-b brands across the US, Europe and EMEA, rising to executive director. She was also executive director, EMEA at R/GA, and later a senior vice president at programmatic media agency EssenceMediacom.
Lent dealt with Doremus+Co when she was at Interbrand and had great respect for the agency, and she praised the work that Hirsch has been doing in his five years at Doremus+Co, especially as it comes to combining brand building with delivering performance across channels.
“The integration of the two, focused across that b-to-b buyer, I haven’t seen that at any other agency, and that’s what made me really excited about joining Doremus at this moment in time,” Lent told Adweek.
Rising with b-to-b
The growth of b-to-b brands is now outpacing that of b-to-c, according to Enterprise Recalibrated, a special report from Doremus and Interbrand launched as part of Best Global Brands 2022. Doremus+Co states that it is poised to capitalize on this market movement.